Landing Pages, Microsites, and Websites: A Comprehensive Guide to Choosing the Right Format

Landing Pages, Microsites, and Websites: A Comprehensive Guide to Choosing the Right Format

You are ready to expand your digital presence - great! Whether you’re adding to your services or products, looking to better your Search Engine Optimization (SEO), or feel like your current digital setup just isn’t big enough to hold your growth, it can be hard to know what next steps are best for your needs and goals. Those next steps typically center around choosing between landing pages, websites, or microsites. Read on to learn everything you need to know about this digital marketing trifecta. 

What are the differences between landing pages, websites, and microsites?  

The definitions for landing page, website, and microsite can get muddied in today’s digital marketing speak, but it’s important to know the unique advantages, drawbacks, and applications for each digital format, and to know when to use each. Here’s how to find which option best fits your needs – and the pros and cons for each. 

Landing pages

Landing pages are based in the domain of your website and look a little something like www.website.com/landing-page. They’re common tools to create a space for one single focus—your product or service (or one of your products/services). Landing pages are so focused they usually have just one call to action (CTA). 

Pros: Landing pages are easy to design and set up. And even the more complicated ones (animations, forms, etc.) don’t require a huge lift. This makes landing pages amazing tools for creating a highly-engaged space for converting qualified leads. The leads are interested in one product or service from you, and you’re delivering engaging, focused information on exactly what they want. 

Cons: While great for converting qualified leads, landing pages fall short with brand awareness and engagement. Many have little-to-no navigation, and you risk splitting your audiences’ attention if you try to introduce multiple CTAs, too much of your company’s story, or other non-user-friendly features that take away from the page’s focus and goal. 

Websites

Imagine that you’re taking on another exciting venture that’s semi-related to your business. You’re tempted to add a new pillar page on that topic and call it a day, but that new venture starts to grow…and grow…and grow. And it begins to outgrow your current website (or, at least, starts to compete for attention with it). At this point, you might need to reconsider how to structure your digital presence to effectively manage and showcase all aspects of your business. 

Pros: When consumers land on a website, they can come from almost anywhere—and what they know about your business can vary widely. Websites are great for encouraging new and recurring consumers alike to explore your brand, your service/product offerings, your story, plus everything else that makes your business unique and desirable. Websites can have multiple links, CTAs, banners, pop-ups and animations to draw attention and encourage action. There’s a robust and user-friendly navigation system that can direct people to exactly what they want to see—and encourage investment in your offerings. 

Cons: If a website is overcrowded (or you add a pillar page that doesn’t neatly slip into its current structure, service/products offerings, or brand), it can be off-putting to your audience. People may not understand your intent or messaging if the website, and user experience is not consistent across the board.  

Microsites

While it’s a bit of a hybrid between a landing page and a website, a microsite is a thing all unto itself. Microsites live in a subdomain of your website and look something like www.microsite.website.com. Microsites may also have a completely distinct URL, separate from the website, but act like a mini-site within a website. They can have a different navigation structure, design, and feel from your main site, playing with colors or features that you would usually stay away from within your actual website. 

Pros: When done right, microsites are fantastic opportunities to be creative while delivering top-of-the-funnel information to a target audience. Microsites can have multiple CTAs that may or may not drive conversions, but they usually house a collection of helpful information around one topic. They can effectively educate and engage consumers, better your brand awareness, and position you as an expert. 

Cons: Adding a microsite can confuse your current content management system and make it difficult to track and update. Microsites are often a considerable amount of work that require unique concepts, designs, content, development and more. If not intentional, a lot of work can be for naught if the consumer isn’t sure whether they’ve landed your actual site. 

How do I choose the right option for me?

The answer to this question begins by asking another question: What’s the goal you’re looking to achieve? Is it driving conversions? Bettering your brand awareness? Building credibility? 

Determine what gap you’re trying to fill first, then think about what exactly you’re looking to feature. Maybe the goal is to highlight a new location, or to provide everything a consumer needs to know about one of your products or services. You may also want to narrow the focus even more and look to highlight one specific product or service. 

• If you’re looking for conversions, consider a landing page. 
• If you’re looking for increased brand awareness, consider a website. 
• If you’re looking for brand authority and top-of-the-funnel targeting, consider a microsite.

When you’ve identified your bottom-line goals and what you want to feature, and you think you may have made up your mind, hold off a bit longer—because your time and resources may restrict what you can and can’t do. If you’re looking for a two-week turnaround, you’ll want to stick to a landing page. If you’ve got six months and a comprehensive team that can deliver something more complicated, it may be worth considering a microsite or new website. For example: 

• If you have a short time frame (2-4 weeks) and few resources, consider a landing page. 
• If you have a long, flexible timeframe (6+ months) and comprehensive resources, consider a website. 
• If you land somewhere in-between with time and resources, consider a microsite.

If time and/or resources limit you in pursuing your preferred option, then we encourage you to reach out about partnering with us. We can help you bring your landing page, website, or microsite to life. Contact us to learn more about our Global Prairie services, expertise, and solutions.