Sometimes the terms ‘Home Page’ and ‘Landing Page’ are used synonymously – after all, your visitors will typically land on your home page, right?

That’s true, but the two types of pages have very different jobs, and understanding that will help ensure that your entire website is more effective and more responsive.

The difference, simply is:

• Your Home Page is like a foyer.  It’s the entrance to your site, and its job is to orientate your visitors: to quickly confirm that they’re in the right place; what they’ll find in this site; how to get around and of course what the end result of this visit should be.
• Your Landing Page is a sales page.  It’s usually a stand-alone page, and visitors will probably have come from some other sales piece – perhaps a PPC ad, email or a printed piece.  Either way, the landing page is designed to complete the entire sales process, and rather than an invitation to browse the site, it provides an invitation to buy or respond.

So, whether you maintain one or multiple sites, think about what that first page is doing.  Is it creating a compelling invitation for your visitor to explore further, or is it completing a sales process?  Either way, your messaging should be consciously created based on that intention.

In my next couple of blog posts I’ll look a little deeper into what makes for a great landing page, and a great home page.  In the meantime, if you have any questions, you know what to do…