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What is a landing page? Here’s everything you need to know


What is a landing page

Online marketing can be a business owner’s best friend. When you take your business online, you'll need a powerful digital marketing strategy that captures your brand message perfectly and promotes it across several channels. Today, we’ll take a close look at one of the most effective tools for doing just that—the landing page.


A critical tool for promoting your brand, landing pages have enormous power in driving conversions. By using a landing page builder to design and customize your landing pages, you can precisely target your audience and guide them through the sales funnel.


In this article, we’ll discuss the definition of a landing page, explain how to create a landing page and offer some best practices for designing your own.



Ready to create a landing page? Get started with Wix today.



What is a landing page?


A landing page is the destination for people interested in learning more about your business after seeing your online marketing or advertising campaign. Not to be confused with a splash page or a microsite, a landing page is a standalone webpage that entices users to click on a strategic call-to-action (CTA), such as “Get Started,” “Subscribe,” or “Buy Now.” They have a clear and focused call-to-action, minimal distractions, and tailored content that matches the visitor's intent and interest. Landing pages focus on a single goal, typically conversion or lead generation. This precision makes them highly effective and lowers the costs of acquiring leads and making sales.


The concept of landing pages date back to the early days of direct response marketing campaigns, where marketers drove targeted traffic to specific pages to maximize conversion. Since then, landing pages have evolved from traditional print ads to digital marketing campaigns, and now businesses use them all across their digital marketing channels.



Landing pages vs. websites


To fully understand what a landing page is, you need to know the difference between landing pages vs. websites. The main distinction between a website's homepage and a landing page is that a landing page is specific and a homepage is multifaceted. A homepage's content introduces, whereas a landing page provides information tailored to its desired aim.


As we’ve mentioned, a landing page only has one goal; homepages, on the other hand, have various goals. For that reason, a homepage typically contains a variety of links. Landing pages typically only provide one link to keep visitors focused on the primary CTA. Therefore, landing pages only provide visitors with two options: to convert or exit the page.


To give you a better sense of the difference between the two, we've provided an example template of each below:



Homepage template:


What is a landing page - homepage template


Landing page template:



What is a landing page - landing page template


Types of landing pages


When considering which landing page type suits your business, think about your goals. Do you want to gather contact information for leads? Are you offering a unique sale? Do you want to collect RSVPs for an event? Focusing directly on this goal will help you build a precise and highly targeted page. Let’s discuss the most common types of landing pages:


  • Long-form landing page: As the name suggests, a long-form landing page is the longest type of landing page. It features a significant amount of content, including extensive information about a product or service and imagery that emphasizes the value the product or service can provide. Because of that, long-form sales pages can be attractive for search optimization purposes.

  • Product landing page: If you have a product that you want to spotlight, consider creating a product landing page. You can use it to delve into the product's functionality, features and benefits.

  • Event landing page: If hosting an event, create an event landing page to make promoting your event so much easier. It offers a convenient way for interested people to learn more, RSVP or purchase tickets.

  • Lead-generation landing page: Also called a “lead-gen” or a “lead-capture” page, a lead-generation landing page generates leads by collecting information about your audience. It typically includes a form where visitors can submit their contact information. Lead-gen landing pages can help you gain insight into your potential customers as well as how to reach them. To encourage users to enter their details, offer an incentive such as a coupon code, e-book, webinar or exclusive newsletter content. Squeeze pages are another type of this kind of landing page.

  • Unsubscribe landing page: An unsubscribe landing page gives you one last chance to keep customers who signed up for your email marketing in the marketing funnel. You can offer incentives to make their subscription more appealing, over the option to change the frequency of emails or remind them what they will lose if they decide to unsubscribe.

  • Coming soon landing page: A coming soon landing page can help stir up enthusiasm for your upcoming business. Consider posting your planned launch date and creating a “notify me” form so that they will know when the site officially goes live.

  • Thank-you landing page: Because thank-you landing pages appear once a customer has performed an action—such as making a purchase or sharing their contact information—they can effectively nurture leads and retain customers. “You can use a thank-you landing page to create an additional funnel by offering them another incentive,” said Jane Musatova, a Wix product marketing manager with loads of landing page experience.

  • Click-through landing page: This type of landing page typically has a CTA that sends visitors directly into the checkout flow, nudging them to buy or subscribe. eCommerce or SaaS sites focused on making immediate sales commonly use click-through landing pages.


On top of this landing pages can also be considered dynamic landing pages or static depending on whether the content stays the same or changes based on the user.



What is the purpose of landing pages?


Landing pages offer enormous growth potential for your company and can help your business continue to flourish. Incorporate landing pages into your marketing strategies for the following benefits:



01. They dramatically improve your conversion rate


As mentioned earlier, landing pages focus on a single goal and compel your visitors to take action. In doing so, they move people further down the marketing funnel—from anonymous visitors to leads and finally to paying customers.



02. They tell you about your audience


If you include a signup form on your landing page, you can ask for information about your audience’s demographics to gain a better understanding of your target market. On top of that, the channels that work—or don’t—for your landing page promotion say a lot about your prospective customers' interests and habits. You can use this information to holistically optimize your targeting efforts and marketing strategy.



03. They increase brand awareness


An attractive, well-designed landing page conveys your brand's professionalism, value and appeal. Not only can landing pages convert leads in the moment, but they help bolster your brand simply by getting the word out. The more people that know about you, the better off your business.



04. They are measurable


By analyzing landing page metrics such as conversions, bounce rate, page views and traffic source, you can get a sense of how a particular marketing campaign perform. Take a look at where the traffic comes from—for instance, a paid post or an email marketing campaign—to determine which marketing assets prove most effective.



What is the anatomy of a landing page?


Let’s go over the basic elements of landing page design so that you’ll know exactly what to include:


  • Visuals: You have less than 20 seconds to convince your audience to stick around long enough to learn anything from your landing page. Design is your greatest tool for doing so. Images or videos add context and make the page more engaging.

  • Headlines: Because customers typically skim through landing pages, they may only read the headlines before decide whether to respond to your CTA. For that reason, make your headlines direct, enticing and brief. A strong and clear headline instantly grabs the user's attention and communicates the value proposition. This will be the most challenging part of building your landing page, because you have to convince them in three to seven words that your offering provides value.

  • Description: Make sure to include a concise and clear description that explains the product or service and how it benefits the user.

  • CTAs: Calls-to-actions (CTAs), which are the prompts you’ll use to encourage readers to take a specific action, are typically two to four words long. “Subscribe Now,” “Start Your Free Trial,” “Learn More” and “Request a Demo” are a few good examples.

  • Summary of benefits: The summary of benefits should be your landing page's most detailed section. Here, you can provide more information to interested readers who want to learn more. Remember to keep the summary simple. Rather than getting into the nitty gritty, use the space to emphasize the specific benefits they will get from hitting the CTA button.

  • Social proof: Don’t expect readers to take your word for it. Include testimonials, reviews and awards on your landing page to prove to readers that your claims are valid and customers actually benefit from the touted features.

  • Closing statement: The readers who make it to the bottom of your page likely want your offering, so the closing statement should give them the final push to hit that CTA button. It doesn’t have to be extensive—you can wrap everything up with a strong headline and CTA.


For more insight, check out the full article: The Anatomy of a Landing Page



landing page template example


Landing page best practices


As you develop your campaign, keep in mind these landing page best practices to create the most effective one for your business.



01. Perform A/B testing


Landing pages allow for experimentation, which can lead to better user experiences and higher conversion rates. With A/B testing, you can test headlines, formats, designs and CTAs to see what performs best. For example, you could use an A/B test to determine whether your CTA button should say “Buy Now” or “Get Started,” based on which has the higher conversion rate. Musatova recommends using Google Optimize or Hotjar for your A/B testing.



02. Minimize navigation


To create a straight path from your landing page to the desired action, remove as many links as possible. You can even remove the navigation bar. Ideally, your CTA button will be the only link—any others that need to be on the page should take up as little real estate as possible.



03. Maximize readability


Long chunks of text can bore, overwhelm and distract your visitors. On the other hand, making your text short, sweet and skimmable will grab hold of your audience’s attention right away. Every word should serve a very specific purpose and bring their eyes directly to the CTA. Don't get too creative with your content here—save that for your blog.


Looking to start a blog? Wix has got your covered with thousands of design features, built-in SEO and marketing tools, that will allow you to scale your content, your brand and your business with their blog maker.



04. Maintain consistency


“What is most important in creating landing pages is consistency in messaging and design,” said Musatova. To prevent any confusion while moving from point A to point B, make sure your marketing asset's content matches that of your landing page. For example, the SEO headline for the landing page should match the one that appears above the fold. Additionally, your landing page's branding and formatting should coordinate with your site’s homepage. This will allow your audience to move seamlessly through your marketing funnel with ease and minimal distraction.



05. Make your CTA prominent


Your landing page should include a CTA that stands out. To achieve this, use clear and direct language and a CTA button that contrasts visually from the background. Place the CTA button multiple times across the landing page so that visitors don’t need to hunt for it.



06. Target specific markets


An effective landing page targets potential customers in a specific stage of the marketing funnel. You’ll want the page's content to keep with your audience's intent. Once you’ve segmented leads, you can even create a few versions of the same landing page to better target different groups of potential customers.



07. Simplify actions


The more you simplify the action you’re expecting readers to take, the more likely they will do so. For example, Musatova recommends limiting forms to only the most essential information. “You don’t want to scare people away with long, time-consuming forms,” she explained. “People also get a bit concerned about sharing information.” You might even consider only asking for email addresses and finding out more information later.



08. Focus on the consumer


Your landing page's content should focus on the reader rather than your company. Instead of talking about how great your business is and all of its achievements, focus on the ways your offer can benefit the customer.



09. Place important content above the fold


Don’t depend on visitors to scroll to convert. Place at least one CTA button above the fold where it’s immediately visible. Place other key elements of your landing page, such as the image and headline, above the fold as well.



10. Make it mobile-friendly


Make sure your landing page not only looks great on any device, but that it also loads quickly. A good portion of your traffic will come from mobile browsing, and these visitors will be less likely to convert if the page looks clunky on their smaller screen or if it loads too slow.



11. Use landing page templates


Most of the best landing page builders will offer thoughtful landing page templates to speed up the creation process. Professional designers and marketing experts built these templates, so they’re destined to drive conversions and make sales. You can also fully customize each one to best fit your branding. You can even use the opportunity to design two different pages and see which one performs better amongst your audience.



How to get traffic to your landing pages


Now for the fun part—bringing visitors to your landing page so they can convert. The biggest challenge businesses face with landing pages is creating an effective strategy for attracting traffic to the landing page itself. Utilizing other digital marketing practices can help to increase traffic to landing pages. Try these four avenues to grow traffic:



01. Social media


As one of the most prominent platforms for engaging with your target audience, start promoting your landing page on social media. Whether it’s on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Pinterest, create a compelling post with a link to your landing page. That way, you’ll target people already interested in your brand and bring in quality traffic.

Pro tip: You can also use a link in bio tool such as Hopp by Wix to direct your community towards specific social channels and simplify content sharing.



02. Email marketing


Email marketing remains one of the most effective methods for attracting traffic to your landing page. If you nail the email subject line, visuals, layout and copywriting, your landing page will get a noticeable boost of incoming visits.



03. SEO


Optimizing your landing pages for Google search rankings ensures that the right people will be able to find it. To start, do some research into which keyword SERPs best fit your landing page using SEO tools such as Ahrefs or Semrush. Once you decide on the primary keyword you want the page to rank for, work it into the copy whenever possible, as well as your SEO title and description.


Using Wix to create a website means that you can customize your on-page SEO, including meta tags, URL slugs, canonical tags and other page elements. Headers, for example, improve readability for the user, but also contribute to the HTML language that Google reads to determine website ranking. When Google scans website content, it uses headers to help analyze a website or web page's information. Headers are arranged in a hierarchy from H1 to H6, with H1 as the page title.


Keep in mind that SEO isn’t a quick-and-dirty strategy that produces immediate effort—it requires sustained attention. The effort pays off because a landing page can maintain SEO authority it has accumulated over time.



04. Paid ads


Social media marketing, email marketing and SEO are free ways to draw traffic to your landing page. However, if you think you could use an additional boost, consider promoting your landing page via paid ads. By targeting people based on their interests and demographics, you prompt them with the landing page designated for their specific niche.


  • Search results ads: Based on keywords that you define, search results ads show up on search engines when people include those terms in their queries.


  • Social media ads: When you create paid social media posts, social networks like Facebook and Instagram promote them to people who match the profile of your target audience.


  • Display ads: Another option is to use third-party advertising tools to place banner ads on the websites your audience frequents.


Based on your campaign goals, you may choose to diversify your advertising efforts or focus on just one of these platforms. Whichever you decide, consistently monitor your results so that you can adapt your campaign accordingly.



Landing page examples


To better understand how to implement these strategies, take a look at these landing page examples. (Also, test drive some of the best AI landing page builders today.)



01. Editor X by Wix


The product landing page for Editor X—an advanced website creator built specifically for web designers and agencies—features large text, bold colors and sleek imagery to grab its audience's attention.


Designed to look like the Editor X editing screen and set against a royal blue gradient, the section above the fold hits you with a bang. “The future of website design” header sits in the center of the page in large white letters. The CTA button underneath, “Start Creating,” is impactful, straightforward and tailored to the target audience.


As you scroll though the page, you’ll notice there are no links to any other pages that can distract the audience from the main CTA. Instead, short statements describe various features of the tool. A CTA button is placed next to each, amidst large, captivating images.



landing page for Editor X by Wix - what is a landing page


02. SurveyMonkey


As a global leader in polling and survey software, SurveyMonkey has designed a landing page that presents two options to their audience upon landing on their page: Go Premium and Sign Up For Free. A brief line accompanies the CTA, describing the product: Voting and polling features to help you capture opinions and get your results in no time.


An abundance of white space throughout helps readers follow the content without distraction. As you continue to scroll, you’ll see that SurveyMonkey provides only essential information, including pricing for their three most popular plans and a contact form to receive a demo. The form requires very minimal information, including name, business email address, job title and company name.



The landing page for SurveyMonkey.


03. Tipalti


Tipalti is a B2B financial company that has designed a landing page to help them gather new leads. Visitors are immediately greeted with a form to collect contact information along with a large yellow button containing the main CTA, Get a free demo.


The company maintains their branding elements, including colors, font and logo, throughout the page to remain consistent with their marketing efforts. As you scroll below the fold, you can see they highlight facts as to why you should choose their service, including testimonials with customer photos. You’ll also see CTA buttons presented several times, providing visitors multiple opportunities to schedule a demo.



The landing page for Tipalti.

04. Miro


Miro is an online collaboration tool that allows teams to create visual boards to plan projects and tasks. Upon entering this landing page, a video displaying the tool’s capabilities greets you. Without clicking play, the video shows a preview of how the project boards function. This immediately engages the viewer.


The CTA, "Get Started," is located to the left, surrounded by an abundance of blank space which forces your attention to these two places. Toward the bottom, you’ll notice that the site features some of Miro’s biggest clients and displays the main benefits of using the product. This simple, yet captivating design is an excellent example of a landing page done right.



The landing page for Miro's mind map tool.


05. Upwork


Upwork is a leading freelancer platform that markets both to freelancers as well as businesses who want to hire them. This particular landing page targets businesses looking to hire freelancers for independent work. Get Started, the primary CTA, is located twice above the fold, making it easy for leads to click and convert.


Its brand colors, green and white, adorn the page along with a list of leading clients, benefits of hiring through Upwork and a user testimonial at the bottom. The strip at the top of the page features an image of one of Upwork’s top rated freelancers, which helps establish a more personal connection to the business.



The landing page for Upwork.


Why should you use landing pages?


Landing pages are standalone web pages designed to focus on a specific marketing goal, such as generating leads, promoting a product or driving conversions. They play a crucial role in digital marketing campaigns by providing a tailored experience for visitors and increasing the likelihood of achieving desired outcomes.


Here are some compelling reasons to use landing pages:

1. Increased conversion rates: Landing pages are specifically designed to guide visitors towards a single desired action, leading to higher conversion rates compared to general website pages. 2. Targeted messaging: Landing pages allow for targeted messaging that aligns with specific marketing campaigns or promotions, ensuring the content is relevant to the visitor's intent. 3. Reduced distractions: Unlike general website pages, landing pages eliminate distractions and focus on a single conversion goal, reducing friction and increasing engagement. 4. Improved user experience: Landing pages provide a streamlined user experience, making it easy for visitors to understand the offer and take the desired action. 5. Measurable results: Landing pages can be effectively tracked and analyzed, providing valuable insights into campaign performance and optimization opportunities. 6. A/B testing: Landing pages are ideal for A/B testing different design elements, copywriting and calls-to-action to determine the most effective approach. 7. Lead generation: Landing pages are highly effective for capturing leads by collecting visitor information, such as email addresses or contact details, for further nurturing. 8. Sales and promotions: Landing pages can be used to promote specific products, services or limited-time offers, driving sales and conversions. 9. Event registration: Landing pages are effective for promoting events, webinars or workshops, encouraging visitors to register and participate. 10. Content engagement: Landing pages can be used to promote specific content, such as eBooks, whitepapers or case studies, increasing engagement and lead generation.

The benefits of using video on landing pages?


Incorporating videos into landing pages can significantly enhance their effectiveness and boost conversion rates. Here are some compelling benefits of using videos on landing pages:

  • Increased engagement: Videos capture attention and engage visitors more effectively than text alone, keeping them on the page longer and increasing their interest in the content.

  • Enhanced storytelling: Videos allow for powerful storytelling, conveying emotions and creating a deeper connection with the audience, making the message more memorable and impactful.

  • Product demonstrations: Videos are ideal for showcasing products or services in action, demonstrating their features and benefits in a visually appealing and engaging manner.

  • Social proof: Videos featuring customer testimonials or expert endorsements provide social proof and build trust, increasing the credibility of the product or service.

  • Emotional connection: Videos can evoke emotions and create a personal connection with viewers, making them more likely to take the desired action, such as signing up or making a purchase.

  • Improved brand perception: High-quality videos enhance brand perception and convey professionalism, making a positive impression on potential customers.

  • Search engine optimization: Videos can improve search engine rankings and drive organic traffic to landing pages, increasing visibility and attracting more visitors.

  • Mobile optimization: Videos can be optimized for mobile devices, ensuring a seamless viewing experience for users on smartphones and tablets.

  • Increased time on page: Videos encourage visitors to stay on the page longer, increasing their exposure to the content and improving the chances of conversion.

  • Shareability: Videos are more likely to be shared on social media, expanding the reach of the landing page and generating additional traffic.

What is a landing page FAQ

What are the components of a landing page?

The essential components of a successful landing page include a clear headline, a concise description, a prominent CTA, engaging visuals and trust symbols boasting social proof.

How do you optimize a landing page?

What is the purpose of a landing page?


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