landing page vs full website

When you’re starting a new business your marketing strategy is a key element of making sure it’s a success. Your website will be a key tool to help grow your brand, and the decision between creating a small one or two page landing page or a full website depends on your specific services, goals and objectives. 

Before deciding between a landing page vs full website development, here is a quick breakdown of each so you can fully understand the choice:

Landing Page Website

Pros

  1. Focused Goal:
    • What It Is: Landing pages are designed with a single goal in mind, such as capturing leads, promoting a specific product, or encouraging sign-ups.
    • Why It’s Important: This focused approach can lead to higher conversion rates.
  2. Simpler Design and Maintenance:
    • What It Is: Landing pages are typically simpler and faster to design and maintain compared to a full website.
    • Why It’s Important: This simplicity can save time and resources, making it easier to update and optimize.
  3. Targeted Campaigns:
    • What It Is: Landing pages are ideal for targeted marketing campaigns, such as PPC ads or email marketing.
    • Why It’s Important: They allow you to tailor the content and messaging to specific audiences, improving campaign effectiveness.
  4. Quick Deployment:
    • What It Is: Landing pages can be created and launched quickly.
    • Why It’s Important: This is beneficial for time-sensitive campaigns or testing new ideas without significant investment.

Cons

  1. Limited Information:
    • What It Is: Landing pages provide limited information compared to full websites.
    • Why It’s Important: This can be a drawback if your audience needs more detailed information before making a decision.
    • How you can still make this work for you: You would initially have to rely heavily on paid traffic and growing your brand on social media by using it to promote your services and provide more detailed information about what your services entail. 
  2. SEO Limitations:
    • What It Is: Landing pages typically have limited SEO opportunities.
    • Why It’s Important: This can impact your organic search visibility and long-term traffic growth.

Full Website

Pros

  1. Comprehensive Information:
    • What It Is: Websites provide a wealth of information about your business, products, services, and brand.
    • Why It’s Important: This helps build trust and credibility with visitors, providing them with all the information they need to make informed decisions.
  2. Better SEO Opportunities:
    • What It Is: Websites offer more opportunities for SEO through multiple pages, blogs, and internal linking.
    • Why It’s Important: This can improve your organic search visibility and drive long-term traffic growth.
  3. Enhanced User Experience:
    • What It Is: Websites can provide a richer and more engaging user experience through various content types and interactive elements.
    • Why It’s Important: A better user experience can lead to higher engagement and conversion rates.
  4. Brand Building:
    • What It Is: Websites allow for comprehensive branding and storytelling.
    • Why It’s Important: Consistent branding across multiple pages helps reinforce your brand identity and values.

Cons

    1. Higher Cost and Maintenance:
      • What It Is: Websites require more time, effort, and resources to design, develop, and maintain.
      • Why It’s Important: This can be a significant investment, especially for small businesses or startups.
    2. Longer Development Time:
      • What It Is: Building a full website takes longer than creating a landing page.
      • Why It’s Important: This can delay your go-to-market timeline.

With all that broken down, here are my personal thoughts on whether you should choose a Landing page vs a full website. 

It’s ok to do a landing page website if:

  • You’re just starting out and are focusing on marketing only one key service, and one key offer and one single goal (book specific appointment, buy specific product, sign up for specific program).
  • You have limited resources and need something quick and effective to start building your brand and list.
  • Your initial marketing plan relies heavily on running traffic to the page through paid advertising and a well structured social media plan and schedule.
  • You are testing and validating your business plan; 
  • Also, you don’t have to necessarily limit the info on a landing page. When people think of landing pages they sometimes think of it as just a blurb and sign up form. You can and should still add important information like a bit about yourself, key benefits, social proof, a breakdown of the key offer etc.

 

Once/If you’re more established, go ahead and do a full website, because:

  • You now have a better idea of your ideal customers questions, needs and concerns and can address them a lot better in more detailed, flushed out pages.
  • You may now have several services you want to offer and having key services on their own pages helps with search engine optimization and helps display your expertise more effectively.
  • With a bigger site comes more opportunities to rank on search engines organically if properly optimized, thus helping you better manage your marketing costs and build a better long term growth strategy for your business.

 

A landing page is kinda like a proof of concept, once you proven to yourself that the business is viable through the conversion results you have and have worked with a number of clients, then you’re better positioned to define what the full website will be about. Also, as time goes, your business evolves and what you thought you’d be offering at first may not necessarily be exactly what you end up doing after that initial stages; you may realize there are elements you enjoy doing more than you thought you would and things you dislike doing more than expected, you might even change up your ideal client profile based on this knowledge. Once you’ve gone through all these initial growing pains and you’re ready to go into that full website, you can more confidently make an investment because you’re better equipped with knowledge and hopefully finances to ensure you can afford to do it right. 

Whether you’re starting out or ready to go all the way with the development of your website, I’m here to help with advice, ideas and strategy, so hit the “Book a Strategy Session” button below and let’s get started taking the steps to make your goals a reality!

If you’re own a local business in your city or are even a Calgary or based Airdrie business owner looking for experienced Airdrie Web Designer, send me a message today and let’s put togehter the right website strategy to help your business turn online searches into revenu.

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