Landing page or multi-page site: which to choose
The question usually arrives as "how many pages do we need", but it isn't decided by a number at all. What separates a landing page from a multi-page site is how many jobs the site does at once. One job — a landing page. Several different ones — a multi-page site. Everything else follows from that.
What a landing page actually is
A landing page is a page built around one target action. Not "a page without a menu", not "a page five screens long", but a page a visitor can leave in exactly two ways: doing the thing it exists for, or closing the tab.
Everything else follows: a landing page has no sections, because a section is a way of wandering off. There's no choice between three services, because choice postpones the decision. There's one argument, developed fully, and one form.
When a landing page works better
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One service or one product. If there's a single offer, there's nothing to spread across sections.
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Paid traffic. Advertising brings someone with a specific query. Sending them to a site where they still have to search means paying for the click and losing them.
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Testing a hypothesis. When you need to know whether demand exists, a landing page takes days rather than weeks and answers the question more cheaply.
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A one-off event. A launch, an intake, an event — something that ends in a month.
When a landing page isn't enough
The main limitation is search. One page ranks for one group of queries. If your clients search for five different things, one page can't answer all five: it either answers one, or blurs and answers none.
The second limitation is trust. Some clients decide slowly and want to look at case studies, the scope of services, terms and articles along the way. There's nowhere to put that on a landing page without turning it into a multi-page site rolled into a single scroll.
A multi-page site is needed when:
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there are several services and different people buy them;
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the main channel is search rather than advertising;
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the sales cycle is long and the client has things to study;
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a blog, case studies or a catalogue are planned.
What it costs and which is more expensive
A landing page is almost always cheaper at the start — fewer unique pages, less structure, less text. But what's worth comparing isn't the first price but the cost a year later.
The typical sequence: a landing page is built, it works, a second service appears, then a third. Each gets its own landing page. A year on there are four, unconnected, duplicating each other and competing in search. Assembling a site out of them costs more than building a site would have.
The reverse happens too: a ten-section multi-page site is commissioned, seven sections stand empty because there's nobody to fill them. An empty section is worse than a missing one.
The middle option that's usually what's needed
A small site of 5-7 pages with one strong landing page for the primary query. The homepage and service pages work for search; a separate page works for advertising. The structure is built for growth: adding a service or a blog doesn't require rebuilding the URLs.
That's almost always cheaper than a landing page first and a site afterwards.
How to decide in five minutes
Answer three questions:
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How many different things do people buy from you? One — landing page. More — site.
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Where will people come from? Advertising — landing page. Search — site.
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Does the client decide in one visit? Yes — landing page. No — site.
Two "sites" out of three — build a site.
If you're not sure which case your business falls into, that's normal: the answer is usually visible in how clients reach you today. We can work through it together — turnkey website development.