If you’ve researched internet mortgage marketing best practices, you may have come across the term “landing page.” This term may have been left unexplained, and this may have left you wondering. Is a landing page the same as a website? If not, how is it different? We’ll answer those questions here.

First, a mortgage landing page is not the same as a mortgage website. Your website is the face of your business as it exists on the internet, and as such, it ought to say everything to your visitors that you, yourself, would say to a client if you met him or her in person. A landing page should never do this. In order to explain why, we must look at what a landing page is for.

Landing pages are tied to ads. Let’s assume you’ve placed an ad on the internet somewhere. Every time someone clicks that ad, they are taken to a new page, a page that outlines your products and services. This page is called a landing page because it’s the page that the visitors “lands” on. The goal of this page is to convince visitors to buy from you or contact you for more information. Nothing else.

On this page, you don’t want them to read your bio or learn about your work history. You don’t want them to peruse a gallery of photos from the beautiful area where you live and work. You don’t want to introduce them to your pedigreed Pomeranian puppy Shultzy, cute as he may be. You want your visitors to do one thing only when they reach that landing page. You want them to contact you for a loan.

Think about it. You’re paying for advertising, which technically means you’re paying for visitors. You want to turn those visitors into revenue as swiftly as possible. This is why landing pages differ from websites.

A landing page is optimized to convert every visitor into a lead. Landing pages are short, sweet, and to the point. The shorter and sweeter it is, the better it is. The information isn’t the goal. The sale or initial contact is the goal.

A website is optimized to provide visitors with information. Websites are typically stronger if they contain more information rather than less. The more pages and articles and photos you include on your website, the stronger it is as a website.

This is why you shouldn’t link internet ads directly to your website. People who click on ads are often ready to buy. They don’t want to meet Shultzy. A website is important, and you need to start there, but once you’re ready to start marketing, look into a landing page.