October 5, 2023
Landing Page or Home Page: Where Should Your Ad Traffic Go?
The home page speaks to everyone. An ad speaks to one person with one need. Here is how to choose where the click should land.
In this article
An ad makes one promise to one kind of person. The page behind it should keep that promise and nothing else. That simple idea decides whether a click should go to a landing page or to the home page.
Why the home page usually loses
A home page has many jobs. It introduces the company, shows every service, links to the blog and the careers page. A visitor who clicked an ad about one service now has to find it again. Each extra choice is a chance to leave.
What a landing page does differently
A landing page repeats the promise of the ad in its heading, explains the one offer, answers the obvious objections and asks for one action. It has no menu that leads elsewhere. When the ad says "roof repair in 24 hours", the page says the same thing, shows proof and offers a form or a phone number.
When the home page is the right choice
There are honest exceptions. Brand campaigns, where people search your company name, should usually reach the home page, because those visitors want to look around. The same is true when you sell one thing only and the home page is, in practice, already a landing page.
A quick way to decide
Ask three questions. Does the ad talk about one service? Is the visitor new to you? Do you want one action from them? Three times yes means a landing page. If you are unsure, test: send half of the clicks to each page for two weeks and compare the cost of an enquiry, not the number of visits.
Getting the page built
A good landing page is quick to produce once the offer is clear. Start from the basics every site needs before ads, then match one page to each campaign. We design landing pages and sales funnels together with the campaigns that feed them, so the message is the same from the ad to the form. To talk about a campaign of yours, send us a few details.
Questions and answers
How many landing pages does one campaign need?
One for each offer or audience. Two ad groups that promise different things should not share a page.
Does a landing page hurt SEO?
No. It is built for ads, and can be kept out of search results so it does not compete with your service pages.
