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Landing Page Navigation Is Dead: Here's Why

Landing Page Navigation Is Dead: Here’s Why 

Written By: author image Stacey Corrin
author image Stacey Corrin
Stacey has been writing about WordPress and digital marketing for over 10 years and on other topics for much longer. Alongside this, she's fascinated with web design, user experience, and SEO.
     Reviewed By: John Turner
reviewer image John Turner
John Turner is the co-founder of SeedProd. He has over 20+ years of business and development experience and his plugins have been downloaded over 25 million times.

Are you still using landing page navigation?

It might make sense to include navigation links when designing landing pages on your website. However, doing so can hurt your marketing efforts, reducing leads and potential customers.

In this article, we’ll explain why you should remove landing page navigation links to increase conversions.

What Is a Navigation Menu?

A navigation menu is a header along the top or bottom of your site that includes links to other pages on your website.

Here is an example of navigation on a page header:

website navigation menu in header

And here is the same example of navigation links in the footer:

website navigation links in footer

These links send visitors to different pages on your site, making it easier for them to browse and find the information they need.

There are 3 types of navigation you can use:

  1. Main Navigation: divides your website content into a menu with links to each site section.
  2. Local Navigation: sub-sections that classify content, often included in dropdown-menus on the main navigation.
  3. Contextual Navigation: links within your content, such as “read more” links, back buttons, and hyperlinks related to another page on your site.

What these links have in common is they help users find information on your website.

Including website navigation on your homepage, for example, is an excellent way to educate visitors about your business, products, or services, improving user experience. However, this type of navigation can have the opposite effect on landing pages, as we’ll explain below.

What Is the Difference Between a Homepage and a Landing Page?

Homepages should educate and inform visitors about your business, but landing pages have a completely different purpose. Instead of informing visitors, landing pages are designed for users to convert into leads and new customers.

For example, after visiting your homepage, users might read your About page, browse your products, read a blog post, and then fill in a form to join your email list. Yet after visiting a landing page, users have a single choice: read the information, join your list, or click away.

Bottom line: Home pages are designed to educate and inform, but landing pages aim to convince and convert.

Why Should You Remove Your Landing Page Navigation Menu

Although navigation links lead visitors away from conversion goals, around 84% of landing pages still include them. So if you need more convincing, here’s why you should remove landing page navigation.

Navigation Bars Distract Landing Page Visitors

When you put navigation links on a standalone landing page, you connect it to other pages on your website. That means it’s no longer “standalone.” As a result, it can distract visitors from the offer your landing page includes.

Here’s an example of this concept.

Let’s say we’re searching Google for an email marketing tool and see this Google Ad:

Google search for email marketing tool with ppc ad

You click the ad and see this landing page from Brevo, formerly Sendinblue:

Sendingblue google ads landing page with navigation

It’s an attractive page with an eye-catching headline and a tempting offer to test drive the platform. Yet you can’t help but notice the bar at the top of the page.

The menu bar includes clickable links that let you check out their pricing page, features, resources, and even read their blog. Each link gives you an excuse to leave the page, taking your eyes away from the main offer: the free plan.

This isn’t what a landing page should do.

Another search result takes you to the Salesforce landing page.

Salesforce landing page without navigation

This page also has excellent headlines and copy to convince you to convert. However, it only includes links to tour the product or start a free trial. Both links help visitors decide to convert, leading to higher conversion rates.

As demonstrated above, many businesses use landing pages for Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Google Ad campaigns, and when users click your ad, it costs you money. This is known as Cost-Per-Click (CPC) and relates to how much you pay for each click.

When you include navigation links on a landing page connected to your ad, you give visitors a reason not to convert. As a consequence, you’re costing yourself money for no reason.

Even though that visitor clicks your ad, the chances of them converting are slim because there are too many distractions. For example, the visitor may click a link to your homepage, blog post, or even your social media profiles.

By leaving your landing page, they’re ignoring your landing page call-to-action or leaving your website entirely, making the cost of their initial ad click a waste.

In comparison, removing navigation from your landing page keeps users on the page with a greater chance of converting, making the cost worthwhile.

Optin Monster PPC landing page

In fact, if you take a similar approach to OptinMonster in this example and remove your navigation, you can reduce cost per acquisition, giving you a greater return on investment.

Navigation Menus Lower Landing Page Conversion Rates

The bottom line of this post is that landing page navigation can reduce your conversion rates. Look at the following example from HubSpot if you’re still unconvinced.

HubSpot landing page navigation a/b split test for conversion rates

They A/B tested 2 different versions of their landing page; one with navigation exit links in the header and footer and one without.

When the test was over, they found that the landing page variation without exit links increased landing page conversion rates.

HubSpot conversion rates for landing page navigation

Considering only 16% of landing pages have no navigation, removing it from your page is one of the top ways to increase your conversions.

How to Create a Landing Page Without Navigation

Creating a landing page without navigation is easy with a landing page builder. WordPress website owners can use a drag-and-drop landing page plugin to make one visually without hiring a developer.

We recommend SeedProd, the best WordPress website builder with over 1 million users. You can use it to create standalone landing pages, WordPress themes, and any website layout without code.

SeedProd WordPress website builder

SeedProd has everything you need to create high-converting landing pages, including customizable content elements, landing page templates, popular email integrations, and more. It’s also lightweight and bloat-free, ensuring it won’t impact your page speed.

Follow this step-by-step guide to create a landing page without navigation with SeedProd in WordPress.

Or, if you’re ready to dive in, you can get started with SeedProd here.

There you have it!

We hope you liked this article and it helped you learn the benefits of removing landing page navigation. You might also enjoy this guide on how to create a landing page without a website.

Thanks for reading! We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please feel free to leave a comment with any questions and feedback.

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author avatar
Stacey Corrin Writer
Stacey has been writing about WordPress and digital marketing for over 10 years and on other topics for much longer. Alongside this, she's fascinated with web design, user experience, and SEO.

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