In the ever-expanding realm of online business, two pages often take center stage: product pages and landing pages. When used correctly, each wields unique powers that can captivate a target audience and drive conversions, helping a company outperform rivals and claim the throne of success.
While the above may sound melodramatic, there’s no escaping the importance of both pages to a business’s success in the digital era.
Landing pages offer a shortcut to online business growth, possessing the power to send conversion rates up by pushing users directly to the bottom of the funnel. They depend on traffic from social, paid, advertising or email campaigns.
Product pages, meanwhile, give customers what they’re looking for in terms of information and social proof, and include buyer opt-ins that dramatically increase the chances of a sale and – not to be overlooked – building brand loyalty and confidence. They mostly depend on organic or direct traffic.
Knowing which of these two tools best suits your interests also presents very real dilemmas for business owners.
Both demand lots of time, energy, and resources to effectively create, so knowing which one to focus on is tricky. Most importantly, it requires knowing which one fits with the business’s target audience, which can showcase its products and services in the best light, and which can best integrate with your current marketing strategy and sales funnels.
These answers don’t always come easy. Especially for leaders juggling the various demands of running an online company.
In this guide, we aim to shine a light on these important issues by exploring the key differences between landing pages vs product pages, the different purposes they serve, and how business leaders can make informed decisions about them.
Looking to create landing and product pages that stand out from your rivals? Contact us to schedule a free SEO-focused content marketing consultation and we’ll show you how we can help your website get higher engagement and more conversions.
Landing page vs product page: What’s the difference?
To begin, let’s compare these two important terms in greater detail so that we make sure we’re ‘on the same page’.
What is a landing page?
A landing page is a conversion-focused web page designed to capture leads, drive specific actions, and optimize user engagement. They are usually designed with a specific source of traffic in mind: a social, paid, advertising or email campaign.
Think of it as a flower that lures in visitors with its visually appealing design and compelling content. Just as a flower’s bright colors and enticing fragrance attracts bees, a well-crafted landing page uses captivating visuals, persuasive copy, and strategically placed call-to-action (CTA) buttons to entice potential customers.
Note: Many people ask the question: “Is a landing page the same as a website homepage?” They are not the same thing. A homepage is the central hub of a website, encapsulating the brand’s identity, introducing core products and services, and offering access to other parts of the website.
What is a product landing page?
A product landing page is more specific than a landing page. It aims to showcase a specific product or service, highlighting its key features and evidence-based claims in a way that encourages customers to make a purchase.
If a landing page is a business’s prized flower, then product pages represent the garden behind it, showing off its full range of offerings in more specific detail. They can be watered by well-orchestrated email marketing and ad campaigns, but they are often most effective when SEO is involved.
But enough about flowers. What can landing pages and product pages bring to online businesses that want to increase the vital organic traffic that leads to higher conversions?
Let’s look at the benefits of each one in detail. We can start with this handy chart to compare them both.
The key benefits of a landing page
Landing pages dominate much of content marketing discourse simply because they bring together the key facets of an online business and show how they can solve a specific problem.
We can see this through three crucial factors.
1. They quickly answer a customer’s problem
A great landing page is focused on how a business can solve a visitor’s pain points and keeps their attention solely on the intended conversion goal.
Top digital marketer Tim Ash summed this up in his book Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions by saying:
“If the visitor can’t find something easily, it does not exist. If you emphasize too many items, all of them lose importance. Any delay increases frustration.”
Landing pages are the perfect solution for this, offering the consumer the chance to quickly solve their issue.
When executed well, they grab the visitor’s attention and provide a pathway to specific solutions in just a few seconds.
2. They’re a great way of boosting lead generation
Landing pages are ideal for generating leads. Businesses use them to collect valuable customer data via strategically placed lead capture forms. Potential customers share information such as name, email address, and phone number in exchange for a valuable freebie, like an ebook, white paper, or newsletter subscription.
By leveraging this data, businesses get insights into their target audience, allowing them to build detailed buyer personas and tailor marketing campaigns toward their needs. It’s also a useful way to contact them directly with special offers or information about new products.
Landing pages hold great strength in numbers. HubSpot research shows that the more you have, the more leads you’re likely to get, with a noticeable spike once you create over 40, whether you’re a B2B or B2C company.
Source: HubSpot
3. They’re the ultimate driver of conversions
Once a focused design and effective lead capturing are in place, a great landing page then carries out its main purpose: convincing customers to convert.
Persuasive copy and strategic call-to-action buttons are tailored to encourage visitors to take a specific action quickly, namely subscribing to a service or purchasing a product. It streamlines the user journey and eliminates distractions, leading to higher conversion rates.
Research from digital services company WordStream found that business landing pages that reach the top 10% of their industry convert 5x as much as the median, with the best finance pages achieving rates of almost 25%.
In other words, for every visitor to the page, one in four becomes a customer.
Source: WordStream
Top landing page examples to inspire your business
Getting your landing page right is tough with so many different possible styles and features to think about while sticking to that main conversion goal.
These businesses, however, do a great job of it.
1. Accountable
Accountable is a software company that provides a user-friendly platform for managing taxes, invoices, and financial records for self-employed individuals.
The landing page for its app is so effective because it swiftly answers a key customer problem in a few seconds. A great way to get this information is by listening to your customer.
As leading content marketer Andy Crestodina says in his book Content Chemistry, “the best marketing copy is written by the audience, not the marketer”.
In this case, it’s a self-employed business owner who wants to know which expenses are tax deductible. Not only does the short snappy headline ‘All you can deduct’ draw them in but they also have a built-in search bar right at the top of the page which lets them find an immediate answer to their query.
Accountable’s clear and direct expense search
The rest of the page builds authority and trust through easy-to-ready summaries of tax-deductible expenses, a video guide, and powerful testimonials from clients, all presented within a bright and engaging landing page design.
You can’t miss the CTA button, either: right at the top right of the page, it asks for the customer’s basic details before offering them a free version of the service, with no need for a credit card.
Target customers are very likely to share their info, and probably sign up to a paid subscription, if they get a free version to play around with.
2. CloudTalk
The cloud-based software market is very competitive nowadays, but CloudTalk stands out with landing pages that cut right to the chase.
A prime example is its product e-book landing page. Here, CloudTalk plays on a key customer concern of not understanding how their product works, a common issue in the SaaS industry, so they offer a free guide in return for basic customer details.
CloudTalk’s simple information form
This provides two big benefits. The ebook is a great lead magnet, which draws organic traffic to their site and it allows them to explain their products in great detail to build trust.
They back this up with a concise yet informative section about the advantages of their books and thus their product.
Also, don’t miss the handily placed live chat icon at the bottom of the page. This is a great engagement tool that has proved to lead to a 23% increase in conversions, according to research by e-commerce firm Woosuite.
The benefits of a product page
Product pages are key business development tools that also help drive conversions, but they take a different approach to landing pages.
Here are some of the key features a single-product landing page should have.
1. They give the customer what they’re looking for
Customers buy from brands they trust and can engage with, and this is where an excellent product page really comes into its own.
Detailed product descriptions, high-quality visuals, and social proof (like customer testimonials and case studies) all help build credibility; in fact, they make up the three most important features for customers in online stores, according to research from digital sales analyst Comalytics.
Not only do product pages excel at these when done well, but they also offer other important items, such as FAQs, sales information, and videos of specific products.
Source: Comalytics
Like a digital showroom, a great product page encapsulates all of these, showing off the item in all its glory and dramatically increasing the chances of the customer clicking that ‘buy’ button.
2. They improve search engine visibility
In crowded marketplaces, getting noticed is one of the biggest challenges for online businesses. And also one of the biggest obstacles to business development.
Search engine visibility, then, is key.
Product pages are digital shop windows in this sense: just like a cleverly-arranged display attracts passers-by, a well-optimized page draws organic traffic with relevant keywords, meta tags, and structured content.
Once there, compelling product information, clear price details, and a seamless user experience help convert these visitors into customers.
3. They’re a great way to collect customer insights
Product pages give us insights into target customers that extend beyond basic information like their names and email addresses.
Instead, they allow businesses to employ customer analytic tools that track customer interactions and give them valuable insights into preferences, buying patterns, and product performance.
By doing this, businesses can identify trends and customer needs that help them shape future marketing strategies. It also gives them a key competitive advantage: businesses that extensively use these metrics outperform competitors in terms of sales, ROI, and profit.
The power of customer analytics
Source: Crobox
By harnessing the potential of well-crafted product pages, businesses can truly elevate their online presence and drive sustainable growth.
Top product page examples to inspire your business
You’ll know when you see a good product page. With effective design and powerful copy, they tend to stand out in a sea of sub-standard efforts.
Here are some of the best examples that online businesses can follow.
1. Reloady’s gift card API page
As a mobile payment platform provider, Reloadly has to be swift and clear when describing its product to customers who have many alternatives to choose from.
This inspired a bold and engaging B2B product page, which the company produced with the help of Mint Position.
With just one glance, businesses can see the myriad major companies that they can integrate their gift card with via world-famous logos, as well as read about the product’s key selling points in the page’s tagline.
Reloadly’s gift card API page showcasing its product partners
Mint Position also drastically improved visibility via a targeted keyword strategy that used powerful buyer-intent phrases that were low competition, providing a good example of how to apply fintech-focused SEO.
These specifically included keyphrases with the word ‘API’ in them, which spoke directly to their B2B target audience, and a mention of how the product integrates with popular payment services like Stripe and PayPal.
The results came quickly. The new product page ranked in the Top #3 in the US for keywords such as “gift card API” and “gift card voucher API.”
The search engine result page with our product page also indexed a related blog article we produced, which is a tutorial for how to easily integrate and start using the Reloadly gift card API in less than one day, as shown below.
The new product page brought in almost 100 new conversions in the first month of publication, which we calculated as people who not only signed up, but also funded accounts to start using the software.
2. Mint Position’s SEO Content Services page
We should point out that a product page isn’t restricted to just products, but services, too.
Mint Position’s SEO Content Services page aims to showcase one of the agency’s core services by breaking down a complex approach that combines an SEO gameplan with journalistic-standard copywriting to boost conversions.
This is laid out in an easy-to-understand three-point formula at the top of the page, which explains in detail just how the agency delivers remarkable results for its clients.
It also meets the target customer’s desire for validation with in-depth client testimonials about how Mint Position has led them to improved Google rankings and increased inbound leads and conversions.
Landing page vs product page: Which one is better for your business?
The answer to the dilemma of landing page vs product page depends on which stage your business is at and which goals it’s aiming to achieve.
If your main focus is quickly building a customer base, then conversion-focused landing pages that capture leads and drive specific buying actions are ideal. However, to see the fastest results, you will be dependent on paid traffic. Results can come from social or email traffic, but those channels take time to build.
That being said, their short, persuasive copy is effective at guiding people toward your product or service and convincing them that you are the best option for them.
As we can see from the landing page templates above, doing this can be very simple and effective by just letting people use the product with a few clicks.
Product pages, meanwhile, excel at providing interested customers with the information they’re craving. However, they depend on organic or direct traffic more than advertising and thus can take longer to see results. But since they don’t rely on paid traffic, a well-SEO’ed set of product pages can be the most sustainable solution.
High-quality visuals, detailed product descriptions, and social proof all help build trust and transparency. Businesses that already have an established client base may find that their time is best served optimizing their product pages and focusing on customer experience.
That said, it really is a case of blending both together to achieve optimal results. When all is said and done, businesses that can back up high-converting landing pages with user-friendly product pages are close to finding the holy grail of online sales success.
Ready to see how expertly crafted landing and product pages can fire up your business goals? Get in touch with us for a free consultation and we’ll show you how we use the latest SEO-focused content marketing techniques to increase organic traffic, boost conversions, and keep you ahead of the competition.
