Landing Page vs. Front Page

[markhem]

I am new to Genesis. I have the Pro-Pack and have played around with a few themes. I want to start building a theme from scratch, so to speak, using the Sample Theme on a localhost.

My first goal is to create a landing page with a single image, some text to the right, and a call-to-action icon, which will take the visitor to a grid archive. This site will be 15 posts at the most. Pretty simple.

I've read and watched a bunch of tutorials, but I'm unclear about the landing page in particular.

What is the difference between using a front page and a landing page? It seems like the landing page is more oriented toward using it as a template. Whereas the front-page.php gets called first. Is this correct? Why would I use the front-page.php method versus the landing page method? What are the implications of doing each? Please keep in mind I'm new at this and building a simple site.

Thanks.

[Ginger]

Hi Mark,

I understand what you mean in that I have heard the homepage referred to as a landing page. Landing pages are used for lead-generating and / or a specific call to action, pages you would include in a promotion for example. If you were promoting an event at your business, you might create a specific landing page that talked only about the event and presented no headers, footers, sidebars or anything else to attract the attention away from the subject matter. These URLs might then be used in paid promotions. Landing page templates usually have almost everything removed from them accept perhaps a background image or a small content window.

The front page in a Genesis child theme is the home page, or the first page of your actual site. While you do not have to have a front page (it can start with your blog page) most of the Genesis themes have them to load up the widgets that comprise the many moving parts.

Hope this helps!

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@gscoolidge | Support Nerd | Website Producer/Tweaker | IDX Integrations | Hosting Options

[markhem]

Hey Ginger. I had never thought about that usage of a landing page, as a way to promote a specific event. Someone on the Google+ Genesis framework forum also said that front-page.php gets called once only, whereas the landing page template can be called multiple times if needed. Thanks for your input.

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