5 Key Differences Between Landing Pages vs Home Page

When should you use a landing page vs linking to your home page? Which one is better for growth? There’s a specific reason to use each of them.

When you’re just starting out, your homepage is your landing page. You don’t need both, it’s all simple and you’re still just vetting out your value proposition so you want to keep it simple. But as you scale, you can use your homepage and multiple landing pages together to drive growth.

In this post, we’ll highlight the key differences between landing pages vs. home page / website, how to structure each, how to link to each, and when to use a landing page (and when not to) — and when you do this effectively, you’ll be able to accelerate your growth.

The 5 main differences and when to use each so you can drive growth.

• Goals
• Paid Traffic vs Organic Traffic
• Linking Structure
• Offers vs. Narrative
• Domain Name vs Pretty URLs

In the early days of ToutApp, our landing page was our homepage. As we evolved, we had to get clear on what was needed for a landing page vs. for a website. These are the five major differences and how they web together.

Landing Page vs Home Page: Goals

Your goal with a landing page is to capture a name and email. You’re promising something of value to them in exchange for their contact info.

Your website on the other hand is about telling the story of your brand. Very different purposes.

Your website is giving them the experience to get to know your brand at a deeper level and build a connection and a sense of trust with your company.

It May seem simple enough but there are some nuances here which brings me to number two. Whenever you’re doing any paid traffic where you need to see that ROI, you want to give them a landing page.

Landing Page vs Home Page: Paid Traffic

A landing page is hyper-optimized to get a return on investment. At that point, your base ROI is a name and email.

On the other hand, if you’re getting organic traffic talking through a webinar, speaking at a conference, etc., send them to your website.

This maximizes the chance of them finding something that resonates with them.

One major difference is your website is full of internal and external links, but your landing page should not have any.

Landing Page vs Home Page: Linking Structure

There should not be a single link anywhere else on your landing page. All roads need to lead to the email opt-in form.

Your website should link to your other landing pages. For example, on your website we link to our 5-Point Strategy Guide; our manifesto. However, once you’re on that landing page, you will not find any links directing you away.

In addition to your website serving as the hub to all your offers, you also want to be referencing all your other pages.

So that leaves us wondering, what offers do we include on our landing page?

Landing Page vs Home Page: Offers

Your landing page should promote one specific offer. That’s it.

The website pitched the broader vision. What the company is about and how you serve your customers.

So those are two different

You want to use them both. They both will help you grow. They both will help navigate the customer journey.

The last difference is easy to overlook but very important and that’s your domain name.

Landing Page vs Home Page: Domain Name

Both landing pages and websites should have a simple, easy-to-remember URL. For your website, but for your landing pages, it’s always good to have an easy-to-remember and easy to communicate URL.

They both really share the same goal. To be simple, friendly, and easy to remember. There is power in both landing pages and websites when used the right way. You need both to drive growth.

Once you do these five things your landing page and home page will both work in tandem to educate customers and get into your funnel. It’s one of the ways to drive growth to your SaaS business.

If you’re in the process of building out your website and landing pages, then I encourage you to watch the video below to make sure you’re ticking all the boxes.