Sam Cohen
Table of Contents
Website and Funnels Work Well Together
You need a website when you want to reach a wider audience and build credibility. With the right SEO strategy, prospects that are not aware of your brand or product can easily find your business on Google and land on your website.
If you have a project portfolio, awards, or customer reviews, a website allows you to showcase it. Another advantage of a website is the blog, where you can publish valuable information to engage with your target audience and share it on social media.
While a typical funnel focuses on a particular buyer persona and has a specific conversion goal, a website is geared toward different audience segments by offering various information.
From my experience, website and funnels work well together, and many successful websites contain funnels. For example, blog pages can serve as excellent funnels to target audiences based on specific interests.
Pros and cons of both?
One of the disadvantages of a website is cost. You need to invest in SEO, content creation, blog writing, and website design itself. Maintaining the website is also an expense. If you fail to update your website and it starts looking abandoned, it will damage your reputation.
A website’s pros are endless, such as brand visibility and credibility, global reach, tangible evidence of your portfolio, and past projects. A website allows you to create valuable content and engage with diverse customer segments in various locations.
On the other hand, funnels help you filter your prospects and ensure that only those that convert stay. They allow you to stay connected to your customers at every stage of the buyer journey. Funnels also work well with email marketing, so you can convince and convert leads using email’s efficiency.
Disadvantages of funnels include the inability to do blogging, very narrow targeting, and lack of access to extra information that customers might need to complete a purchase.
If You Can’t Do a Full Website, Funnels Can Still Work
A website is a perfect way to showcase your brand online and to give you a platform to grow on. Having a strong web presence means having a robust website with information about what your brand does (products sold, services offered, nonprofit causes, etc.) The advantage of having a website is that your website can have multiple funnels in addition to standard web pages.
The disadvantage of a website is purely the cost and time it takes to get started. A funnel is a much smaller project, so it’s generally cheaper and quicker to get setup. Because funnels take less time and effort to create compared to a full website, [they are] a great way to test an idea, create buzz for an upcoming event, or sell a single product (for when a full web store isn’t necessary).
To summarize: Websites are always going to be better than a standalone funnel because a well-built website will include marketing funnels. If you can’t do a full website, funnels can still work.
Dan Bochichio
Jeff Romero
Biggest Difference Between a Funnel Website and a Full Website is SEO
The biggest difference between a funnel website and a full (10+ page) website is SEO. A funnel website is great for a single campaign and can be used as the landing page for different kinds of ads pointing to the page (Facebook Ads, Google Ads). The funnel website drops people right into the buying path with the goal the marketer is looking to accomplish without any sort of fluff. It’s direct, to the point, and great for lead generation. However, a funnel website is not going to be sufficient enough for SEO. Because Google likes to see a lot of content and a full picture of a company including an about page, services pages, contact us page, testimonials page, etc., a funnel website simply won’t rank well within Google.
Contrary to a funnel site, a full website will have plenty of content to rank in Google. A multi-page website gives Google plenty of information to crawl and then rank the site accordingly for its target keywords. The con with a full website, however, is the cost. Where a funnel site could be $500-$800 depending on the requirements, a full website typically starts around $3,000.
The Pros and Cons Between a Funnel and a Website
The difference between a funnel and a website is that you’re building a website for an evergreen offer for a service or a product. Usually, a funnel is to promote a specific sale or a time-sensitive offer. The biggest pro of a website is that the visitor can snoop around, check out your landing and product pages, read your blog, and get the full picture of what you do. That’s also the biggest con – there are lots of other things that the visitor can do besides buying. Funnels, on the other hand, guide the visitor from interest to purchase. However, their disadvantage is that they don’t make for a good evergreen offer.
Petra Odak
Sir Sanju Ganglani
Long Term Brand and Trust, vs Just Making a Quick Sale
When you are looking to build a long term brand and trust, vs just making a quick sale or capturing data, is when you would use a website vs funnel.
Websites are more effective long term and easier to maintain. Plus, from an SEO standpoint, they hold more content and rank better.
Choosing between a website vs just a funnel also depends on the product and service, as well as the target audience. For example, for a higher-priced product or service that requires some trust, a website is the right way to go. For a lower-priced or impulse buy, a landing page would be best.
To Rank Organically or To Run Paid Traffic
A full website is needed when you want to rank organically and grow your presence in Google’s search engine. Without a full website, it will be nearly impossible to rank your site.
A funnel is needed when you want to run paid traffic. A funnel is best for the paid traffic approach because you want the users to take specific action and limit their choices on your landing pages. Being hyperfocused is the key here.
You don’t want to confuse the two. If your goal is to run paid traffic, focus on creating a funnel that converts. If you want to grow organically on Google, create a full website, and focus on creating keyword-focused content and getting backlinks to power up your content.
Nate Rodriguez
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