Clarify: Landing Page, Jump Page, Microsites…
Posted by karenses on December 18, 2007
Landing pages are often confused with splash pages, bridge pages, jump pages and microsites.
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Splash pages are graphic introductions - often full screen - to web content, mostly upon entry to a web site. Usually, splash pages are made in flash and allow the user to skip them, which almost all visitors will. In general, splash pages are an extremely bad idea. Visitors usually dislike them and your site traffic will generally plummet as a result of having placed this barrier in front of it.
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Bridge pages (a.k.a. doorway, portal, and gateway pages) are designed to be particularly enticing for search engines, not visitors.
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Jump pages attract attention to a particular offer or event. They must be navigated through to get to the desired content.
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Microsites are a cross between a landing page and a regular web site. They often have their own domain names, and even brands separate from the organization’s brand. They are used when a marketer wants to offer a user an extended experience for branding or educational purposes. Many times a visitor might even return to a specified microsite as a destination.
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Although landing pages can have several linked pages, they generally don’t allow many navigational options. You can move forward through the conversion process, or you can leave. On the other hand, microsites invite you to explore and look around within the experience.
