When it comes to landing pages vs. sales pages, you might be completely in the know about which one you need to use in order to see the results you’re looking for.

Or, like so many people I’ve spoken to recently, you might be thinking: what’s the difference?

And here’s the thing: it is much, much easier to just make sure you use the right one, the one that is actually designed to get you the results you are looking for, instead of having to deal with the fall out of choosing the wrong one (and by fall out really we’re talking about you not seeing the conversions, sales, revenue or results that you want and need).

OK, so you’ve probably at least heard of “landing pages” and “sales pages”, but if not here’s the quick TL;DR version.

Landing pages are (typically) short-form pages that have traffic driven directly to them. This means that any page that you drive traffic to in your business which doesn’t appear in your website’s main navigation menu, is a landing page. Landing pages have the goal of conversions – but these conversions are USUALLY not monetary conversions.

Examples include: your freebie opt-in page, a product download page, a Webinar sign-up page, a thank you page, an upsell page.

Sales pages, on the other hand, are (typically) long-form pages whose goal is to drive monetary conversions e.g. buying something or signing up to or applying for a paid-for service. 

These pages are lengthy (the avg. long-form sales page is 5000 words, but the actual length depends on a few different factors – I’ll be diving into THIS in an upcoming podcast episode) and the purpose of a long-form sales page is to act just like a funnel moving your prospect towards the point of saying “yes” – which is why they need to have multiple sections filled with specific copy.

Now, like landing pages, sales pages tend to have traffic driven directly to them and may not appear in your website’s main navigation page (but this depends). And, interestingly, a long-form sales page CAN be a type of landing page – but that’s also another story for another day.

The other commonality between landing pages and sales pages is the fact that the copy they need to have on them is conversion copywriting (which, handily enough for you, is what I specialise in).

Conversion copywriting is essentially any copy that is intended to move the prospect (which is your reader, your ideal client) to ACT and to actually take an action.

Those actions can be non-monetary conversions like getting someone to download your freebie, getting someone to book in a free call, getting someone to open your email; or they can be monetary conversions like getting someone to part with their money in exchange for your service/product/expertise/time.

In terms of the actual copy that needs to be present on landing pages OR sales pages? There are a lot of similarities and a lot of different things that need to be considered.

OK, so now you know what a landing page is, what a sales page is and the difference between them….which one is right for you?

Well, it depends on your goal.

If your goal is to get people to…

• sign up to your free webinar
• download your new freebie
• add on an ‘upsell’ service or product
• join your free challenge

Then a landing page will work best because you’re working with a ‘low risk’ (i.e. non financial) ask so you don’t have to spend too much time persuading them to take the action. 

If, however, your goal is to get people to…

• Invest in your high-ticket offer
• Purchase your course
• Enroll in your membership
• Buy a spot in your workshop

Then a long-form sales page will work best because you’re working with a ‘higher risk’ (i.e. financial) ask so you do need to spend an adequate amount of time persuading them to take action.

For more on this, make sure to listen to episode 40 of The Copy Coach podcast where I go into all of this in even greater detail and give you one extra tip to avoid a common mistake I see a lot of (even seasoned) business owners make that could cost you conversions.

Get to the episode here