Do You Really Understand The Difference Between a “Landing Page” and “Coming Soon Page”

Albeit, you may find landing pages quite similar to coming soon pages. After all, both these pages work the same goal: attracting the attention of users’ towards your online brand. But, in reality they aren’t exactly same.

While you may not be able to find a distinction between them right away, but will soon understand the differences once you’ve started using them. If not, then this post will help you understand how a “landing page” is different from a “coming soon page”.

Difference 1: Landing Page vs Coming Soon Page: Existence

While a landing page seldom changes, a coming soon page keeps on constantly changing.

A coming soon page is primarily designed to notify audiences about what you’ll eventually offer them (via your website). And so, it’s apparent that after a certain period of time – when your WordPress website is being launched – your coming soon page will be deleted. This means that a “coming soon page” is always temporary. This is not to say that you should neglect using one: simply because they’re just a temporary part of your efforts to market your online brand. In fact, you should take time in planning and designing a ‘coming soon page’, as it could get desired traffic once your website is launched.

For example: Silverback App boasts an excellent ‘coming soon’ design featuring a highly interactive animal mascot that easily captures the attention of users’. In addition, the page contains a simple subscription box:

In contrary, once you have come to know about who your target audience is and the goal you want to achieve, a landing page remains unchanging. Though, it can change: but the change won’t cause a huge shift in your customers’ preferences, or you put an end to offering some product or service. In a nutshell, a landing page is permanent and won’t go anywhere.

For example: The landing page of MailChimp attracts attention, because of its bold typography, right color scheme, and most importantly the way it sends out its message to customers.

Bottom Line: A coming soon page is usually created for temporary basis, and exists for a short period of time (ideally, till your website is not launched). On the other hand, a landing page is somewhat permanent and stays associated with a site for a longer time duration.

Difference 2: Landing Page vs Coming Soon Page: Updates

You may need to update your coming soon page frequently based on the message you want to deliver. On the other hand, a landing page doesn’t need to be updated that often, and its message remains static.

Since a coming soon page is aimed at telling the audience about your new product/service, of course, you’ll want to update the page to keep your customers about the progress that has been made concerning your product or service. Unfortunately, many marketers fail to pay due emphasis on updating their coming soon page. Though this might not affect you if your site is about to get launched, but if there’s still time it is better to keep your audience interested in what you’re offering. Moreover, keeping your coming soon page up-to-date helps build curiosity.

But, the message conveyed through landing pages rarely changes. As a matter of fact, the message on a landing page remains static. However, it is imperative that A/B tests are performed on your landing page, so that you can analyze how your that page works, when some minor tweaks are made to it.

The changes that you might like to make on your landing page include adding a call-to-action in some other location on a web page, changing the color of a button, and so on. Even though, these changes may appear small to you in the beginning, but they can have huge impact, and can help in improving your conversion rate. And, once you know about what kind of message you would like to deliver via your landing page, be sure that the message remains unchanged.

Bottom Line: You don’t require to make frequent updates to your landing page, since it conveys a static message. However, when using a coming soon page, you’ll be required to change your message to keep the page updated.

Difference 3: Landing Page vs Coming Soon Page: Aim

While there is one specific aim behind creating a landing page, on the other hand, a coming soon page can have many different purposes.

Of course, you can have several CTAs (call-to-actions) and other design elements in your landing page. However, a landing page is created either to build an email list for your website or for offering your product and/or service. For example, below are two different landing pages: the former landing page is about “ubounce” website that helps in building an email list, and the latter one is offering beauty and health products.

Unlike a landing page, a coming soon page can have many different aims. It can used as a substitute for your website pages that are under construction, as shown in the following images:

The second purpose behind creating a coming soon page is to make your target audience aware of your offerings once your site is launched (as shown in the image below). For this purpose, you can have a coming soon page that features a captivating picture of your brand logo or upcoming product(s). This is also an excellent strategy to secure your audience even before your site is live. For example: A+PLUS Bootstrap 3 Coming Soon Page gives sufficient information regarding what the website will be offering.

Furthermore, a coming soon page can be used to build an email list. For example, Fontdeck website before going live introduced a coming soon page, including its logo, the color scheme of the site and a sign-up form.

Bottom Line: A landing page can have one or more purpose, but a coming soon page can be created for multiple purposes – be it for an under-construction page, building an email-list, promoting products, etc.

Difference 4: Landing Page vs Coming Soon Page: Target Audience

When creating a landing page keep in mind that it targets specific users, however, a coming soon page can be used by many different users.

Simply put, just like you can create a coming soon page for many different goals or objective, likewise it can be used to connect with different audiences as well. So, if you have been looking for ways to generate interest among your customers regarding your upcoming product or service, then you can achieve such a goal, by creating a coming soon page.
In addition, a coming soon page can even help you grab attention of the users who can invest in your idea. In simple words, you can use a coming soon page to increase the attention of affiliate websites, interested in building strong alliances with business owners who aren’t selling their product(s) directly to the customer.

A landing page, don’t require you to connect to more than one person. That’s because, the sole purpose behind a landing page is to gain attention of different audiences towards your product. Moreover, on the basis of the selection made by users, they will be directed to the landing page – that gets customized so as to provide users with specific information that they want to access.

Bottom Line: A landing page lets you target different types of customers, even when it is designed according to meet the needs of specific target audience. However, a coming soon page is designed from the beginning to serve a different number of consumers.

Final Words

Although, there are many similarities between a landing page and a coming soon page, and have the same goal of grabbing users’ attention. But, remember that they both are different. In order to create a successful landing page or coming soon page, you need to know about their differences and learn about the important considerations that you need to take into account when designing any one of these pages.

Essentially, a landing page is a good fit for businesses who would like their visitors to land upon a page that encourage them to take some desired action. While a coming soon page best suit your needs to promote your website new (and old) products. Though, there isn’t any perfect formula for creating a perfect landing page/coming soon page, but understanding the above mentioned differences between them both will definitely help you come up with a better solution.

There are many pre-built templates available over the web for both “landing-pages” and “coming soon pages” – that you can use, or refer to for inspiration to create your own unique landing page or coming soon page. But, if you don’t have good designing or developing skills, it would be better to take assistance of a professional who can guide you in creating a ‘result-driven’ solution.