Not every visitor arrives at your website in the same way, or for the same reason. And when they do arrive, you want to make sure you’ve sent them to the right destination.

Someone finding you through an ordinary Google search might want to browse your services, learn about your business and decide whether you’re the right fit. Someone clicking a Google Ad for one particular service has already told you rather more about what they want.

Sending both people to exactly the same place doesn’t always make sense.

That’s where a landing page comes in.

A landing page is a web page used around one audience, one purpose and usually one main action. Rather than asking visitors to explore your entire website, it concentrates their attention on the thing that brought them there in the first place.

That might be requesting a quote, booking a consultation, registering for an event, viewing a particular range of products, reading specific content, downloading a guide or simply making an enquiry.

Used properly, landing pages can connect website design, digital advertising, marketing and graphic design into one coherent campaign. Used badly, they’re just another page somebody has decided the website apparently needs.

What is a landing page?

In the broadest sense, any page somebody first arrives on could technically be described as a landing page, although normal website pages, posts and other content are more commonly referred to as entry pages when we’re simply talking about where a visitor entered the site.

In marketing, landing page normally means something more deliberate: a page chosen or created as the destination for a particular campaign, audience or offer.

Imagine you’re running a Google Ads campaign promoting commercial air-conditioning servicing.

Your main website might cover installation, maintenance, repairs, different systems, sectors you work with, company information and several other services. Someone clicking an advert specifically about servicing doesn’t necessarily need all of that immediately.

A dedicated landing page can concentrate on:

• commercial air-conditioning servicing
• the problems it solves
• who the service is for
• relevant accreditations or experience
• testimonials or case studies
• a clear way to request a quote

The advert makes a promise. The landing page needs to deliver it.

Don’t make the potential customer work to find the information they’ve just clicked for. If they’ve responded to something specific, the destination should immediately confirm that they’re in the right place and give them the information they expected to find.

That’s one of the core principles behind a good landing page.

Landing page vs a normal website page

Most pages on a business website have several jobs to do.

A homepage introduces the business and directs visitors towards different areas. A service page explains a particular service, helps potential customers make a decision and may also be structured to attract relevant organic search traffic.

A landing page is usually much more focused.

Think of it this way:

Homepage: “Here’s who we are. What are you looking for?”

Service page: “Here’s everything you need to know about this service.”

Landing page: “You’ve come here for this particular thing. Here it is, and here’s what to do next.”

That difference becomes particularly important when you’re paying to get somebody there.

Is a landing page the same as a one-page website?

No, although it’s easy to see why the two get confused.

A one-page website is an entire website presented on one page. It might include an introduction, services, about the business, testimonials, FAQs and contact information, with navigation links taking visitors to the relevant sections.

For a startup, sole trader or small business with a straightforward offering, a well-designed one-page website can be all the website that’s actually required.

The distinction is really one of purpose.

A one-page website effectively says:

“Here’s our business and what we do.”

A landing page says:

“You’ve come here looking for this. Here it is.”

They may physically both consist of one web page, but strategically they’re quite different things.

When do you need a landing page?

You don’t need a dedicated landing page for every service, advert or marketing idea.

There should be a reason for using one.

One of the clearest examples is paid search advertising, such as Google Ads.

If somebody searches for “emergency commercial boiler repair”, clicks an advert about emergency boiler repairs and lands on a generic heating company’s homepage, they then have to start hunting for the information they were promised.

That’s unnecessary friction.

The advert and its destination should work as a pair. Don’t make the customer do the work of joining the dots. If your advertising is specific, the information you deliver should be specific too.

Google Ads & paid search

Landing pages and search engine marketing (SEM) are natural partners because paid search allows you to target quite specific intentions.

The journey can be remarkably simple:

Search → advert → landing page → action

The closer those stages match each other, the more coherent the experience becomes.

If the advert promotes office refurbishment in Sussex, the landing page should prominently discuss office refurbishment in Sussex — not greet visitors with a company offering 99 services, but the refurb ain’t one.

Or at least not one you can find without three clicks and a search party.

You already know what that visitor was interested in. There’s little point pretending you don’t.

Google makes much the same point in its own guidance on optimising ads and landing pages: the destination should closely match the advert and keywords, and people shouldn’t have to hunt around for the information they expected to find.

Paid social media campaigns

The same principle applies to advertising on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and other platforms.

If you’ve created an advert around a particular offer, service or audience, sending people somewhere relevant to that campaign provides a much smoother transition.

The visual relationship matters too.

The imagery, typography, colours, tone and message used in the advert should carry through to its destination. This is where graphic design and website design need to work together rather than behaving like distant relatives who only meet at weddings.

A visitor should feel they’ve arrived at the destination promised by the advert.

Email marketing – and thinking differently about landing pages

Here’s where the definition can become a little more flexible.

A landing page doesn’t necessarily have to be a brand-new page you’ve created specifically for the campaign.

If you’re emailing customers about a sale on a particular product range, the most useful landing page might simply be a filtered category showing those products.

If you’re promoting several new articles you’ve published, the appropriate destination might be a relevant blog category or a page bringing that content together.

Launching a new collection? Send people directly to it.

Promoting a particular case study? That case study itself can be the landing page.

The important thing isn’t whether somebody has formally built something called a Landing Page. It’s whether you’ve deliberately chosen the most useful destination for that particular audience and campaign.

Think about what you make the landing page, rather than assuming you always have to make a new one.

Events, downloads & lead generation

More traditional dedicated landing pages are particularly useful when you want someone to complete a clearly defined action.

For example:

• register for an event
• download a brochure, guide or white paper
• request a sample
• book a demonstration
• join a mailing list
• arrange a consultation
• request a quote

In these situations, giving visitors twenty other places to go may actually work against you.

Offline marketing campaigns

Landing pages aren’t restricted to digital advertising either.

A brochure, exhibition stand, direct-mail piece, leaflet, poster or other printed marketing material can use a memorable web address or QR code to send people to a particular page.

This creates a useful connection between print design and digital marketing, but it has another advantage: measurement.

Imagine distributing 5,000 leaflets containing a QR code or unique web address that leads to a page that isn’t linked from anywhere else.

Traffic reaching that page can then be attributed much more confidently to the leaflet campaign. You can see whether people actually responded rather than simply sending 5,000 leaflets into the world and hoping something happened.

The same principle applies across campaigns. Dedicated destinations, campaign URLs and appropriate analytics can help you compare where visitors came from and what they did afterwards.

Landing pages aren’t just about conversion. They can also help you understand which marketing is actually working.

When don’t you need a landing page?

This is equally important.

Don’t create a new landing page simply because somebody has told you that landing pages increase conversions.

Sometimes your existing service page, product category, blog article or other content is perfectly capable of doing the job.

If you already have a strong page explaining a service, with appropriate content, testimonials and a clear call to action, sending visitors there may make far more sense than creating another page containing essentially the same information.

The question isn’t:

“Should we build a landing page?”

It’s:

“Where should this particular campaign land?”

Sometimes the answer will be a purpose-built page. Sometimes it will be something you already have.

Start with the audience and the campaign, not the page.

If you’re targeting a particular group with Google Ads, social advertising, email or offline marketing, choosing the right landing page gives that visitor a much clearer journey from the original message to the information or action they were promised.

And if your existing website already provides exactly that destination?

Use it.

The landing page isn’t the objective. Getting the right person to the right information without making them hunt for it is.