In this article
How to compare them: six criteria
Purpose: the website informs and establishes; the landing page converts. Suitable situations: the website for organic search, referrals, brand searches and anyone doing research; the landing page for ads, email campaigns, exhibitions, outreach — any traffic where you know who is arriving and why. Capabilities: the website carries navigation, many pages, the about and proof content; the landing page carries one story and one form. Costs: a website is a project; a landing page is a week, and cheap to duplicate per campaign. Risks: a website asked to convert campaign traffic dilutes the message; a landing page used as the whole presence leaves the buyer with no way to check who you are. Measures: the website is judged on enquiries across all sources and on search visibility; the landing page on enquiries per hundred visitors from its campaign.
Keep those six in front of you and the choice for any given campaign becomes obvious in a minute.
Match the format to campaigns, launches and ongoing discovery
Paid search and social ads: a landing page per ad group or offer, always. Email and WhatsApp campaigns to your own list: a landing page for the specific offer, since the reader has already been told the story. Exhibitions and outreach: a landing page with a short URL or QR code that continues the conversation from the stand or the email. Product and service launches: a landing page during the launch, which later becomes the permanent service page on the site. Ongoing discovery — people searching for what you do without knowing you: the website, with a page per service written to rank and to convert.
A campaign that sends traffic to the home page is not wrong, exactly; it is paying full price for visitors and then asking them to find their own way.
When the landing page should sit inside the main website
Most of the time. A landing page on your own domain — yoursite.com/laser-cutting-quote — inherits the site’s credibility, its analytics and its search standing, and a visitor who does want to check who you are can. A separate microsite on a separate domain makes sense only when the campaign must not look like the main brand, when a partner co-owns it, or when the main site’s platform cannot produce a clean page. Otherwise the separate domain costs you trust and tracking for no gain.
Inside the site, the landing page still drops the main navigation, keeps one action, and is excluded from the menu. It is a page on the site, not a page of the site. And when the campaign ends, either redirect it to the permanent service page or keep it live as a variant — never leave a dead offer ranking.
Decision table · use it here or print it
Website or landing page?
The format follows the traffic source and the decision you want the visitor to make. Read the rows, then pick your campaign for the answer.
| The website | A landing page | |
|---|---|---|
| Breadth | Everything you do, for everyone who might look | One offer, for one audience, from one campaign |
| Navigation | Full menu; the visitor explores | No menu; the visitor decides |
| Traffic source | Search, referrals, people who know the name | Ads, a mailer, a QR code, a WhatsApp broadcast |
| Conversion goal | Several: enquire, call, read, apply | One: the offer’s form or call |
| Message match | General; the visitor arrived for many reasons | Exact: the page repeats the ad’s promise |
| Life | Years, maintained | The campaign’s life, then archived or redirected |
| Where it lives | The main domain | The main domain too — a page inside the site, hidden from the menu, so the domain’s trust and tracking apply |
Free to print and share with your team.
Mistakes, measures, and deciding for your campaign
The mistakes: sending ad traffic to the home page and concluding that ads do not work; building a separate microsite for every campaign and losing the analytics; a landing page with the full navigation on it, which is a website page with a bigger button; and a business with only landing pages and no website, which a cautious buyer reads as a business with something to hide. A safeguard: for every paid rupee, ask where the click lands and whether that page was built for that click.
Measure the landing page by enquiries per hundred visitors from its source and the website by enquiries across all sources and search visibility, and do not compare the two numbers with each other. If you are planning a campaign, the decision is usually a landing page inside the site with one action; if you are planning the business’s presence, it is the website with a page per service. Both are work we do, and the free audit will tell you which one your current traffic is asking for.
Questions owners ask
Can a landing page rank on Google?
It can, if it is on your domain and written for the search. But a campaign landing page is usually built for paid or direct traffic; the page built to rank is the permanent service page, which should also convert.
Do we need a landing page for every ad?
One per offer or audience, not per ad. Five ads for the same offer to the same audience share a page; an ad for a different service or a different buyer gets its own.
What does a landing page cost?
A fraction of a website: a week of copy, design and build, plus measurement. Duplicating it for the next campaign costs a day. The expensive part is the copy from real customer language, which is reused.
Should the landing page have a form or a phone number?
In India, a tappable number and a WhatsApp link convert more than forms for most services. Keep a three-field form for the visitor who will not call. One primary, one alternative.
What happens to the landing page after the campaign?
Redirect it to the permanent service page, or keep it as that page’s campaign variant. Deleting it breaks the ads and emails still pointing at it.
What does GullySales do?
The decision for your campaign, the landing page inside your site with one action, the measurement, and the permanent service page it becomes. Scoped in the free audit and priced in writing.