Landing Page vs. Website: What’s Right for Your Business?

When you’re starting a business, one of the first questions is: do you really need a full website, or will a landing page do the job? And what’s the real difference anyway?

In this episode, we explain the distinct roles of landing pages and websites and why it’s not about choosing one over the other, but about knowing when and how to use each. A website builds your brand and credibility, while a landing page is designed to drive a single, focused action.

We cover:

• The key differences between websites and landing pages
• Why websites are essential for trust, authority, and long-term growth
• How landing pages are built for conversions like sign-ups or sales
• When to use a landing page first to test an offer
• Why established businesses need both tools working together

If you’ve been debating whether to build a landing page or a full website, this episode will give you the clarity to make a smart choice for your stage of business.

Want expert feedback on your website or landing pages? Join our free Visionary Founders Club, a community where small and mid-sized business owners connect, learn, and get real-world advice.

“It’s not either/or. Most businesses need both a website and landing pages.” – Jores Minasvand

Transcript for “Landing Page vs. Website: Which Do You Actually Need?”

The transcript below was automatically generated. Please ignore any errors or inconsistencies in the text. And have some fun with the made-up stuff. 🙂

Anna Angelova   0:05
Welcome to a brand new episode of Modern Just Dust Management, your favorite daily podcast where we help you build a thriving business with me, I’m Angelova, business coaching consultant and my fellow co-host and business consultant Joris Minosfand. Hey Joris, Happy Wednesday.

Jores Minasvand   0:22
Anna, happy Wednesday.

Anna Angelova   0:27
So let’s get going to the point. Today, the conversation we have is probably pretty straightforward. But again, if you’re just starting your business and you’re not very tech savvy, you might be wondering what’s the difference between a landing page and a full website.
And which one you need actually. So this is something that we we know people who have asked us this question and that’s why we thought that it might be beneficial to to discuss this and and share.
And I’ll start and then Joris, you can you can add your your point as well. So when it comes to a website, so a website is usually more than one page like a website, it usually has more than one page.
And the website provides usually a lot of information about your business. So on the website you will have about a section, for example, like a page or a section that’s about us like it talks about you as the founder, the team. If you have a team, the IT might talk about the leadership.
The leadership team, it depends on how big your company is, right? You might have a careers page where people can see open positions right now and then you would have of course services, products that people can check on your website. So the website is usually when we talk about a full website, it’s.
Usually you have a lot of pages, like you have one domain name of course, right? With all these different pages and it provides a lot of details about your company. And then of course you provide some value for your prospects and people who visit your.
Website you might have a podcast, videos, blogs, these kind of different things and you know every website there is a home page and then from the home page usually you can navigate. There is a menu where you can navigate to other pages. You can check other things about the company, go to privacy policies and all these kind of things.
These things are at the bottom of the page in the footer of the page. So the website as I said, usually there is a home page. Sometimes websites are just one home page, but again like this home page has a few details like about section price for example if it’s like for for a subscription service.
Like you might have the different price tiers and things like this.
Whereas a landing page is usually a single purpose page, like it’s still like it’s still a page, like it’s still a web page, right? It’s you and it’s usually a single purpose page where you don’t have a menu that takes you out of there, right? Usually the landing page, it’s very clear, so there’s no menu.
Where you can go home or or go to about or services or products or block or there’s no menu because the purpose of a landing page usually is to get people to take certain action and some landing pages are for people to join your e-mail list if you offer them some kind of a.
Freebie. You offer them something of value that they give their e-mail for. A lot of other landing pages are for sales, like their sales pages actually, where people can make the purchase directly or schedule a call with you so you can see if if you are the right solution for them. So a landing page, it’s still.
A web page, but it’s very purposefully created with one idea in mind and usually some of the elements there. Of course it’s like talking about what they get after they sign up, whether it’s something free or they pay for this. Usually there are testimonials.
There is FAQ section, things like this in a landing page. But again, it’s very structured in a way that people can’t click away from it because you don’t want them to get distracted. You don’t want them to forget why they came here. They came to the landing page to take the next action, whether the next action is to get something free.
Or the next action is for them to sign up and buy something. It doesn’t matter. They came to the landing page for a certain to take certain action and usually there is no link that lead outside of that page because again you want people to take that next step and that’s why on landing pages you you see.
You’ve seen these pages where like you scroll and then there is a button that says sign up. Now then you continue scrolling and it says enroll here and then you continue and yes, I’m ready to enroll, right? All these things like those buttons here, almost every section has a button that calls to action.
So very straightforward and I know I talk quite a bit and I would like to hear your input as well, Joris, in terms of like what the difference between a landing page and a full website, how you describe it from your perspective?

Jores Minasvand   5:34
I think you said it very well. It was not much I can add to it like like you said, if you have a one time sale or one time action that requires people to have a target and and a call to action for a specific thing.
And you don’t want to create an an entire.
Web website which requires site map and and you know all the details and disclaimers. This on page is like a posted newsletter. Instead of emailing it to everyone, you put it on your website and you bring the traffic to it. I mean it’s just very simple. It’s a one pager.
It gets you there fast and it’s for something. It could also be something for something you’re experimenting. You don’t know if it’s gonna work or not. Instead of spending weeks and weeks and weeks and hundreds of dollars, so thousands of dollars to set up a website, just do a one pager and see if it works.
And then it’s easily updatable, reusable, you know, adaptable. So it’s it’s a it’s a light version, single version of landing page of your website, basically one pager.

Anna Angelova   6:50
Yeah, absolutely. And again, the point of the landing page is that it is, it has a single purpose. Your website can be one page as well. But again, as I said, usually even when you have a one-page website, you still have different sections that have different purpose. So one one.

Jores Minasvand   6:52
Yeah, like a whole thing.

Anna Angelova   7:10
Section might be again to introduce the company, another one might be to provide the price information and all these kind of things. And when you are thinking about like which one do I need now in general, I would say, especially if you’re just starting your business, none you don’t need.

Jores Minasvand   7:30
Um.

Anna Angelova   7:30
To start a business and if you are listening to the other podcast we have Building a Business podcast and I would actually highly recommend listening to that one. It’s amazing the conversation that will be coming up next Tuesday, which would be September 30th.
Eight weeks. Oh no, not September. Yeah, September 30th. Yeah, exactly. It did the coming conversation was September 30th with someone who has built a company without the website. Like there’s no website, no landing pages and things like this. So.
In some aspect, from some aspect, again, if you’re just starting, you don’t need any of these. However, when you are starting actually, and if you’re experimenting, I love it that you do brought this one up, Joris, that if you’re experimenting, landing pages can be great, a landing page can be great, and the thing is that for a landing page.
You don’t need to buy a domain and things like this because a lot of tools out there, they offer, they have the capability for you to create a landing page and landing pages are great for like you said, experimenting and seeing like if you have a few ideas or a few versions like experimenting and seeing.
What messages will work? So let’s say you have two ideas, sorry, one idea, but then you have one message and then another message. So you can experiment and see which which message resonates. Like how many people go to this one and sign up and then to the other one and sign up like have the different variations.
And then of course, as I said, landing pages, because the the way that we they’re created, the way we create them is very, very focused. Like they don’t take people away, they keep people on the the page. That’s why like they’re great for.
Whether it’s a lead magnet, something you’re offering for free, or as a sales page, like this is where you want to have it. Yes, your website might want to have, like you would have your services on the website, of course, and people can buy things from your website, absolutely. But when you’re running a certain campaign, it might be better to take people.
To land.
Page where they are not distracted and they can finish the purchase because on your website they might be browsing your products, they might be browsing your services and even add things to the catalog and to the like to the cart and then get distracted by something and be like oh I haven’t checked the about section or.
Check the About section or oh, do they have a new blog post or a new podcast episode? And suddenly they’re browsing your website somewhere else and completely forgot about why they went there and that they actually wanted to purchase something. So which one do you need? Again, especially if you’re starting.
And even if you’re an established business, even nowadays you can run a business without a website and without landing page. I would say that most likely at some point in your business growth though, you will need to have a website and you will need to have landing pages. It’s just that they have.
Different purposes and like a website is a great place for you to create your own content, to build your own land in a way, your own castle on your own land. Where as I said, you can have your podcast there, you can have blog posts there.
Contacts and services the about information career page where people coming to your website they can apply for jobs and things like this. So absolutely as you grow the business having a website nowadays is a very great thing to to have and and to build it and to maintain it and to make sure it.
Delivers the value and then landing pages. It’s not one or the other like landing pages. For some campaigns you will need landing pages as well. For testing you will want landing pages. So I would say in today’s world.
You need both. They have different purposes and the different times you need to to use different things like the website and the landing pages like the website can help you build your brand, can help you build authority.
And landing pages are more about conversions. So getting people from a place where they don’t know you to a place where they like, know you and like you enough to give their e-mail, and then getting them into from people who know you and like you and trust you to a place where they actually say yes.
I want to buy from you where they they make that, take that step and purchase.

Jores Minasvand   12:18
Yeah, I just wanna make one thing very clear. A landing page is not a subject for a website. Absolutely not. If you’re thinking of I don’t have a website, I don’t have a landing page website first, like you said website, it delivers your brand, your vision, mission.

Anna Angelova   12:19
Yeah.

Jores Minasvand   12:35
A1 page or a landing page is a very mission specific, short term, short lived. It could be long lived, but it’s a very specific purpose and it has a very specific mission. It is not. It is not a substitute for a website if you want.
Your question is, should I do a landing page or a website? That’s a wrong question. That’s not even a question. You need a website after you do a website, after you start marketing and selling. Part of your marketing strategy could be landing pages for a specific targeted audience, specific targeted product or.
Service.
Like you said, Anna to be delivered.
Through your landing page, it’s a it’s a very distinct difference.

Anna Angelova   13:27
Yeah, very, very good point and worth worth repeating it. So I think this is, this is it for for the conversation today. And again, it’s not, it’s not hard, it’s not, it’s not.
Rocket science, and especially with everything that’s available nowadays, these things can be done so quickly and they can be done so, so, so fast. And even you can do it. Even if you are consider yourself to not be tech savvy, it’s absolutely doable.
And you’ve got this and as we’ve mentioned be mentioning the past few couple of weeks I guess if you want to continue the conversation, if you want to even get some help when you are choosing.
Like a domain provider, for example, or how to build your website, where to build your website, landing pages, even get feedback on some of these things. The Visionary Founders Club is the place for you. Join it. It’s a great community, a growing community of.
Business owners and aspiring founders, aspiring entrepreneurs as well, people who are just starting their their journey where we support each other, we help each other. These are times of constant change and some of the things, yes, some principles still hold true, but then other things.
Exchange for all of us and it’s always great to be part of a community where we figure these things together and we help each other. So the link is in the description of this episode. Go ahead if you haven’t joined it yet, join it. We’d love to see you there.
And tomorrow we are back with another topic, which is oh, dealing with team resistance to new hires or challenges. So this is.

Jores Minasvand   15:28
Oh, I’ve seen so many of these.
Love to share.

Anna Angelova   15:32
Oh, I can imagine. Oh yeah, Oh yeah, this. It will definitely be your time to share things tomorrow. So if you have a business, especially like a business where you have a team, no matter how big or small your team is, to the episode tomorrow is for you.
Talk about dealing with team resistance to new hires or changes. So TuneIn tomorrow and for now go enjoy your day. And what action item should we give from today? Roris, any any ideas on on from today’s conversation?
And what? What should be the task?

Jores Minasvand   16:12
Besides joining our community.

Anna Angelova   16:15
Yes, yeah. So because like we talked about landing pages and websites, right? Maybe, maybe go review. If you have both, go to review and make sure they serve their purpose. Mm-hmm.

Jores Minasvand   16:20
Mm.
Yeah, make sure you don’t. You’re not wasting your time and effort on having both.

Anna Angelova   16:32
Yeah, make sure they saved it. Yeah, yeah. And then if you don’t have, like if you have been sending people to your website and they haven’t been buying, maybe having a landing page can help you really, really focus on a specific product or service or whatever you’re offering.

Jores Minasvand   16:33
That’s a good one.

Anna Angelova   16:49
And this way you can, as I said, you can test different headlines, you can test different text, images even and things like this. So I’ll say go explore, go explore, play with landing pages, play with your website as well if you don’t have any.

Jores Minasvand   16:50
E.

Anna Angelova   17:05
Maybe maybe this is your sign to create your first page and see what happens.

Jores Minasvand   17:11
Love it. Love it. What a great session. Thank you, Anna.

Anna Angelova   17:15
No, thanks. Thanks, Yoris. And yeah, this is more than just task management, your favorite business podcast. And we’ll be back tomorrow talking about team resistance with, oh, people, the best part of building a business.

Jores Minasvand   17:18
See you tomorrow.
Oh, yeah.

Anna Angelova   17:32
Bye, bye, bye.

Jores Minasvand   17:34
Bye.