Landing Page vs. Home Page!

[Vahid]

Most experienced internet marketers say that if you advertise in pay per click search engines, you should have a landing page for driving the pay per click traffic to it. This landing page is different from home page and should be just focused on selling the product whereas the home page should be optimized for search engines and so is not good in generating sales.

They say home page is not a suitable page to drive the pay per click traffic to it and you waste money if you do that. It means a page that is optimized for search engines can not generate sales.

I don't agree with this idea because if optimization disables the home page to sell the products to the visitors, so the traffic it receives from search engines, will be useless. So why should we optimize it?

What do you think?

[vivalasvegas]

I agree that the PPC page must be different than the home page. The home page is an entry to the website providing general information that might confuse the visitor. It doesn't mean that the home page can not produce sales, it just may not be as effective. When advertising via PPC you will target people who are ready to order so you should do all you can to let them place the order as quickly and easily as possible.

I would add that this usually applies to affiliates. Vendors' websites are usually focused on selling the product even on the home page.

[seth_wilde]

The homepage generally has too many different purposes to be able to be optimized to the level that a landing page can be. With landing pages you can focus much more on the individual product/service that your buying traffic for and tweak things that can increase conversion rates but would provide a bad user experience on a home page.
Plus you don't have to worry about seo implication with landing pages.

[LifeinAsia]

If your site only sells 1 product, then the OP may be correct. However, almost every site sells more than one product or service, and in those cases landing pages should always be more focused for the specific product you are trying to sell.

For example, if you sell widgets, your home page will probably describe the overall benefits of using your particular widgets, but you will have individual landing pages focusing on blue widgets, red widgets, big widgets, small widgets, etc.

So you would generally fo SEO on the home page for widgets in general, whereas you would do SEO on each landing pages for that particular flavor of widget.

[arieng]

OP, the conventional wisdom that you are citing is not referring to SEO pages not converting well. This real issue isn't SEO vs. conversion, it is in selecting the most appropriate landing page for that particular search.

With PPC, you have the added advantage of being able to choose the best page on your site for that particular "search phrase". If the searcher types in a very specific description of a product, then send them right to that product page and save them from having to find it on your site. If someone types in a general phrase describing your products or services, then the home page is probably the best landing page for that person.

The fact is, there's no golden rule here -- each site will have to find its own way. I know its cliche, but tracking your results very carefully will reveal which landing pages work best for you.