Home Page vs. Landing Page vs. Squeeze Page

Most industries have their own jargon…words the “insiders” know and use. While they’re helpful for communicating with other insiders, it often the rest of us scratching our heads.

We Internet marketers are as guilty as any. We often throw terms around, assuming our clients/prospects know what we mean, but they really don’t have a clue!

A common one that trips people up a lot is the difference between Home pages, Landing pages and Squeeze pages.

In fact, a forum of fairly experienced online marketers I frequent recently had a flurry of posts on this topic. It struck me because, even among this group, there’s confusion on the difference between Landing pages and Squeeze pages.

If even experienced online marketers have trouble understanding the differences, there’s a good chance you do too.

So here’s the difference between the three…

Home Page

You probably know what this one is already. The Home page of your site is the one people land on when they type in your URL.

Some types www.yourwebsite.com into their browser and BOOM, they’re on your Home page. It’s the main page that usually provides visitors with an overview of your business.

Landing Page

A Landing page is the first page of your site a visitor lands on. It could be the Home page. But it could be any other page on your site.

When running an AdWords campaign, you get to decide what page a searcher lands on after clicking on your ad.

For example, say you own a Sporting Goods store and have an AdWords ad promoting golf clubs.  In this case, you want the Landing page for your ad to be the page on your site that’s about your great selection of golf clubs.

Landing pages should have a much tighter focus than your home page. They focus on a particular product or service (or a highly related line of products/services) you offer.

And it should be very clear about what action you want the visitor to take…

• Sign up for something (newsletter, whitepaper, etc.)
• Buy something
• Share something (like an article or offer with a friend via email or social media)
• Give you feedback (comment, send you an email etc.)

Squeeze Page

A Squeeze page is the most specific of the three.

It focuses on an offer for ONE product or service. And it’s all about the ONE action you want the visitor to take when they land on that page. Usually it’s either making a purchase or opting in to something by giving you their email address.

Often a Squeeze page is so concerned with getting the visitor to take that one action there won’t be any navigation bar or other links on the page. The visitor only has two options…take the action you want them to or leave the site.

(And, yes, a Squeeze page could be your Landing page…the page that people first land on when they arrive at your site.)

The most important thing to understand when it comes to all this is…

The Home page of your site makes a poor Landing page. Whenever you can control things, get people to the Landing page on your site that’s most relevant to what they’re looking for.

Highly targeted Landing pages and Squeeze pages are essential for highly converting sites.

So think about…

• How people get to your site (AdWords, Organic traffic, Email, Direct Mail, Social, etc.)

• Why they’re coming to your site (Looking for information, Wanting to Buy Something, Solving a Problem, etc.)

…and make sure your Landing page is as highly relevant to where they’re coming from and what they want as possible.