Landing page builder or build own promotional site as Landing?

Today internet marketing is developing fast and improving every day? gradually replacing the classic marketing models. It is hard to imagine a successful business without a corporate website, eCommerce module or at least a landing page. It is the latter that became so popular and irreplaceable tool in the internet sales department. but is it really so? We are going to find out in our new article.

What is a landing page?

Landing page is a small and compact website, that consists of one and only page, which goal is to show the audience a service or product and  induce a specific action. What this action is  – depends on the tasks that you set.

Initially a landing page was invented by american internet marketers as an effective tool to gather potential clients (leads). It is mostly used with exactly this goal, and also to gather requests ot to lead a customer to the product page.

Conversion in web marketing - it is a percent of website visitors, who carried out any targeted actions on it, for example order a service/product or subscribe, in comparison to the general amount of website`s visitors.

Indicator of effectiveness of landing is a high conversion and turning the page visitors into the customers who buy the product/service.

To achieve this, you should follow certain principles:

• a landing page must have only one goal;
• strong and short titles, that attract visitor's attention;
• CTA buttons are required (call to action), that motivate you to make the purchase right now;
• page`s content must be selling, coherent and structured;
• must have an attractive design;
• must contain no distractions.

What are landing pages needed for?

Lately, everyone who has to do with sales is interested in landing pages. It may give you an impression, that it is enough to have a single page website and your sales are gonna go high immediately. Here you should pay attention, that landing is not always needed. To determine this, you should predetermine the tasks that your landing page should solve.

When is landing page especially effective

These are the cases, when a landing page is mostly helpful:

• To create a client`s database. To gather a contact data it is recommended to use different attractive offers, promos, sales, bonuses, gifts and other stuff that your clients might be interested in, and leave their contacts for.
• It is appropriate to use in active sales, only if the product is in high demand : high quality and moderate price. In this case it will sell very fast.
• In complex with other marketing tools, such as mailing lists, context advertising, social media marketing, company blog etc. For example, if a client is interested in your landing page, but he needs acknowledgments to order. And if you do not have a corporate website or blog, then consider you have lost your possible lead.
• To promote services in B2B area. A client on the website fills out a form or orders a callback.

For those examples  a landing page is a really effective and efficient tool. If your business meets those criteria, then you should order a landing page.

When landing page is not effective

As it was mentioned before, Landing Page is appropriate when it comes to the  sales of certain products or services. One landing – one product or service. When it comes to the large amount of different products, then landing page is not going to help you much, since it doesn't let you add categories of products and is not interesting for the potential buyers. In this case you should choose to create a ecommerce website, e-shop, where all visitors can find something interesting.

Another option for you is a so-called “hybrid website”. It consists of a few pages, landing pages as well, that sell a certain product or service. A significant drawback is inability to navigate to other sections.

In comparison to regular websites, landings can`t provide top positions in SERP, that`s why landings are not recommended for SEO-promotion. If a goal is to increase search traffic - best solution is a multipage regular website with large semantic core.

Landing page is also not good to promote a brand. Successfully selling a product , it will not make an impression you need about the company. So, if popularize is your goal,  use a corporate website, together with a smart advertising campaign.

Landing can only attract new clients, it`s goal is not to return old ones or help keep the existing ones, therefore it does not solve business problems completely.

A landing page also can not help you, when a task is to increase a trademark`s or product`s image.  converting context advertising traffic, landing doesn't go with the regular advertising.

Website Builder — What is it? A handy tool or just  a conveyor

Now we have made it clear what landings are for, a next question immediately emerges, what is better – create a website from scratch with the professionals help or use a website builder? Very often this quite reasonable question can cause panic in a web studio, because if people will use website builders, no one will order websites in web studios.

A new offer always creates a demand, but all the fuss will go away with time. I personally do not believe that website builders can bring innovations.  The same happened when a term Landing Page appeared, or how they are also called - single page websites. Many predicted their disappearance? but the still are a very popular tool and are widely used.

As I said before, Landing is an effective tool if used correctly. The same applies to website builders.  It is one of the many methods of promoting your business, but only if it is appropriate.

Simple inexpensive websites will always be sought for on the IT-market services.  Now and before it was never a problem to find a reasonable priced freelance developer, that can create a simple website for you. Besides there are Content Management Systems and and Builders with many free templates. Another thing is that such a tool can not supplant expensive high quality websites, because not all tasks can be accomplished with a simple uncomplicated website.

Disadvantages of the website Builder

Nowadays website builders are developing dynamically, and as a result we can receive a decent product. They have vast capabilities and can meet some of your needs, but not to be able to solve a single important task for the customer, that can be a real pain in the neck. It is like to have to read the whole huge encyclopedia instead of reading a few articles on the subject.

Another thing is that a website made with the builder can not be moved to another platform (in most cases). This option is good for those who just wants to test an idea, for beginners. Those who need a large and high quality website, turn to a webstudios, who have experience in real projects and who can produce a quality code.

But still many are attracted by low prices, variety of templates and promises that your business will skyrocket. You shouldn't trust those promises.  Website builders usually  do not take into consideration effective business promotion and it`s concrete goals.

Owners of the websites build this way confess, that they just didn't have the financial resources to hire a web studio, or that they did not initially understand how to manage their business in the Internet. After launch they eventually understood that this website was not enough for the full-fledged work of the company on-line.

Your own website or website builder - what to choose

Simple arithmetic calculations will help you to decide. If you know at least something about programming, then a simple website on a free CMS will not be a problem for you, and for free.

Besides, you can always find a freelancer-student whom you will pay a 50$ and get a website that is not worse than one made by the website builder. A simple inexpensive webstudio will cost you about the same. Hosting and domain cost per year will average $20-$50. So you will need a 100$ for start, and then $20-$50 every year for hosting and domain.

As for website builder, it may cost even less. But you will have to pay a monthly subscription, not a one-time charge. Doing it all yourself and spending your precious time.

Also website builders offer even less functionality than the cheapest website, because they generate massive pack of code, that doesn't help in website`s work, but also slows it down.  It is obvious even from the financial point of view that it's better to order a simple website for 100$ and then develop its functionality gradually as your business grows.

Nevertheless, website builder is gaining popularity and has demand. Which is explained by the lack of money from small businesses or lack of knowledge in this direction. And I totally understand, temptation is huge - it is hard not to fall for ads promising you almost free websites. What I don't understand is a panic reaction of some of the web studios on this another way of website development.

Professional website development from web studio will always outweigh the website builder, because high quality website is a powerful and flexible business tool, and those who know will always choose a quality product. And that is exactly what our company offers on the IT market.