*This may have been autogenerated and may not be 100% accurate or grammatically correct.

[00:00:43] Differences between landing page and website explained.

[00:06:19] Website has too many options, lower conversions.

[00:09:56] Copywriting is key for successful sales and leads.

[00:12:02] Website services for service professionals and businesses.

*This may have been autogenerated and may not be 100% accurate or grammatically correct.

Marlon McPherson [00:00:00]:

In this episode, I’m gonna talk about a landing page versus website. Which one should you go with? Which one’s best for you to use, especially when starting out. I’m gonna discuss that coming up in today’s episode of future steps creative. Hey. My name is Marlon, and welcome back. If you’re new welcome to the show, I talk about strategies around your website and your online content. So you can build and grow your business around your knowledge and expertise. So, if this is your bag, you’re in the right place stick around, feel free to subscribe on the YouTube channel or, subscribe on the podcast app that you’re listening to this episode in.

Marlon McPherson [00:00:43]:

what I’m gonna do is talk about the differences between a landing page and a website. I know most people already know what a website is and have some experience of that But landing pages are kind of like a new term to some people, or they might have heard it, but they just don’t really understand what it means. when you hear the term landing page. And as a business owner, if you’re looking to set up online or maybe you’re already set up in some way, shape, or form, you might be trying to research the options and a landing page might have been presented to you as an option as opposed to a website. and so on. So I wanna demystify and try and explain a little bit about the differences between the 2 or when you should use 1 versus the other or whether or not you should be using both. Let’s find out. Right? So, let’s jump straight into the content.

Marlon McPherson [00:01:35]:

websites. Let me just go ahead and define what each thing is. So our website is a set of pages that are hosted online on the same domain, and they’re all connected together. Now domain is basically that location that you go to to view something online. So typically you have a domain name that you type in to your browser to get to a website or a location of some sort. So in my case, I have a domain name for my personal brand, which is marlonmacpherson.com. When you type that in, It takes you straight to my website, and you will see that there are multiple pages that you can link between or browse between in that same space. You’re not leaving and going to an external separate address to the one that I just gave you is all hosted on the same domain.

Marlon McPherson [00:02:28]:

Now with a website, you have lots of information that you can browse around that is connected with that brand, or that business that you’re, researching or looking into. And that’s really, a space that they can have all the information related to what they offer, what their business is about, and then you can kind of make an informed decision as to whether or not you want to go further. you want to reach out to them, etcetera. Right? A landing page on the other hand is a single page — hosted somewhere online. It doesn’t necessarily have to be on your domain. It could be on a dedicated service provider that provides landing pages like lead pages, for example, is a dedicated space that charges, for just landing page services, you could also have landing pages hosted on your email marketing service or even inside your CRM. That’s your customer relationship manager. It just depends.

Marlon McPherson [00:03:30]:

Right? Now it’s a single page. The key thing here is that it’s designed to convert a specific type of person, i e, your ideal customer profile or an avatar, if you wanna call it that. on a specific offer, or you wanna convert them into a specific offer. So the purpose of it is just to do one thing is to get them to take action on whatever that offer is that you’re presenting on that page. So this offer could be to buy a product or a service, or it could be to have them sign up for something or take some single action on that page. It’s not designed to tell them about your entire brand or to tell them about all the other services or products or the things that you do. is specifically for that one offer. So that being said, they don’t really have the option.

Marlon McPherson [00:04:25]:

They shouldn’t have the option to click around and browse anything. it should really just be for them to read through what’s on that on that page. And it’s gonna qualify them at the start. If it’s for them, as in that ideal customer or client or avatar, if it’s for them, they’ll stick around and they’ll wanna go through the entire page. And normally you have a longer form copy type of setup on landing pages because what’s really important is that the copy is what’s going to do the work for you. So you need to have well written copy on that. Right? So it’s either for them or it’s not. If it’s not for them, they’re going to leave They only have 2 options.

Marlon McPherson [00:05:06]:

They stay on there and take the action, or they leave. Right? It’s black and white. So What it is that you need to do? What why do you need a landing page as opposed to a website and vice versa? Well, if you’re testing out an offer and you’re not necessarily sure whether or not this is something that is a 100% that you want to go forward with, but you wanna test the market. It’s always better to do a landing page that you can then drive traffic to. Right? And this landing page is going to basically prove whether or not your offer is good enough. And if you get momentum around that, then you can think to yourself, you know what? I’m going to now build out a full website around this product or this service that you can actually have a more comprehensive sort of setup with, right, because site is going to give you way more options to do other things other than just to convert a lead. Now, a website is is gonna take you a longer time to set up. It takes more strategy, more planning, more resources to go into building our website.

Marlon McPherson [00:06:19]:

The difference between our website in terms of conversions is that our website gives people too many options. If you’re looking to just convert one specific offer, Giving someone a full blown website or sending them to a website is going to end up having, lower conversions, because they can then easily click to go to whichever other page on your website and get distracted from the thing that they’re meant to do. because a typical website is gonna have, like, 3 to 5 pages as standard. So you’re gonna have your homepage, and the homepage is just basically a summary of everything else that isn’t dedicated, but that doesn’t have a dedicated pages on the site, a dedicated page on the site, or It may have a page and you’re just giving them a synopsis on the homepage of different aspects of what they can look at, and then you can link from there to the various pages. That’s typically how a homepage works. And if you’re sending traffic from an offer, from sorry, from a campaign that you’re running with your marketing, say you’re doing videos online that you’re promoting this offer with this video in your content, and you’re sending them, oh, go to my website. They’re not necessarily going to see that specific offer directly on your homepage because people tend to, like, browse around a lot more. But if you’re sending them to a landing page, then that is very specific to that.

Marlon McPherson [00:07:48]:

that offer and you’re more likely to convert that traffic into leads and into sales if that’s what you’re after. Okay. So should you be using one or the other? Obviously, I’ve touched on if you’re just starting out and you’re looking to test an offer, test something out, you don’t have to go and do a full blown website yet. It’s quicker to do a landing page and see whether or not things are going in the right direction, and then you can put your efforts into doing the website after the fact. However, I think if your business is already established, if you’re looking to do something for the long term, you’re not necessarily testing a specific offer, but if you’ve set up a business and you just wanna get, the brand established and out there so people can get as much information as possible, especially for the majority that’s not yet in a buying mode. They’re not quite ready yet. They’re all doing research, you wanna have a website that’s fleshed out. Having your homepage in addition to that, then you have a an about page, having a contact page, having your services page, your product page.

Marlon McPherson [00:08:52]:

This is going to give a lot more context to what you’re about and what your business is able to do for that particular person. So getting our website set up is going to be helpful in that scenario. However, I would say that you should be using both landing pages and having a website as well, I certainly do that because on my website, I have my core pages that you see when you go to my site. You have the navigation, the the menu bar. You can go through and click on my main pages. However, I do have landing pages that I promote separately, which are also hosted on my website, but they’re just not in the menu. they’re not necessarily visible to everyone. Right? So I can link you to it, or I can promote it in a piece of my content, let’s say for one of my lead magnets, I can send you directly to a lead magnet by having a dedicated landing page that strips out the menu from my website and strips out all the other distracting things.

Marlon McPherson [00:09:56]:

And then I just have the the form that you need to fill in to receive my lead magnets, right? The same thing can go for a sales page. Typically, when you send someone to a sales page, a sales page is a form of landing page that’s dedicated to selling something. So if you’re sending someone to a sales page, you wanna have that copy, on the the distraction free setup for them to just go and either click buy or sign up or whatever, or they leave. Simple. Now if you’re gonna go for a landing page, copy is the the main thing that you’re gonna want to concentrate on. Now if you’re not really good at writing copy, just do yourself a favor and get the help of a copywriter hire someone, get someone that knows what they’re doing to actually write good written copy because You have to follow a certain proven formula or follow the basic principles behind how you progress through The copy, if you’re gonna convert leads or convert sales, there’s a formula called Ida AIDA. And this is for another video or podcast episode, but basically it represents attention, interest, desire and action. So when you’re writing a copy, you’re gonna have to follow a certain formula in order to keep progressing them through to that point where they wanna take that action that you want them to take.

Marlon McPherson [00:11:22]:

So you can look that up if you if you are interested in learning more about Ida. I may do an episode on that, to do with copywriting possibly. So let me know what your thoughts are on this. Leave me comment if you’re watching this on YouTube, or you can reach out to me on my website, marlonmcpherson.com, if you’re listening to this in your podcasting app. And this has been helpful. Just make sure you leave me a 5 star review, please, because it will help others, see that the content is valuable. It will indicate to the algorithms that be and that help to promote your content to get it out to more people. So go ahead and check that out.

Marlon McPherson [00:12:02]:

If you’re looking for help, with setting up a website, I do have a website service, especially geared towards service professionals or service providers, service businesses, head to my website, marlonmcpherson.com, and you’ll see the link there to my services or work with me, ways that you can work with me. there, you’ll have a link to my, small website agency where you can get set up on a website, quick and easy at an affordable price. or if you’re looking to do, like, a custom project, if you’re looking to splash out on that, that’s an option that’s available to you as well. but I do have some subscription based websites that you can get set up with quickly. And, you can, have all the tools necessary to convert leads and also to make sales, with the type of websites that we do, their conversion based websites. So Do check that out. And, in the meantime, if you are looking to learn more, go ahead and check out one of my other episodes or content pieces either on screen or linked in the description, and I’ll catch you in the next one.