Thinkific offers two types of pages: AI-generated Landing Pages designed to let you quickly create beautiful pages and get to selling in no time and Website Pages that allow you to build a full website offering as your business grows.
In this article:
The Differences between Landing Pages and Website Pages
Accessing Landing Pages and Website Pages
About These Features
Whether you already have experience with web design or you’re just starting out, Thinkific makes it easy to set up site pages that work for you at every stage.
Before you start creating, it’s important to understand the main difference between landing pages and a website. In short:
- A landing page is a single-focus page that aims to convert visitors by encouraging them to take a specific action (e.g. leave their contact information or purchase a product). It’s usually a standalone page that can exist independently of a full website.
- A website is a comprehensive online presence consisting of several interconnected pages. It includes a home page, product page, contact information page, and more. With numerous pages, a website provides several ways for visitors to engage with its content.
See a detailed general overview below:
| Landing pages | Website | |
| Purpose | Single focus or goal, often to convert visitors into customers or leads. | Comprehensive online presence and a place to learn more about your business. |
| Content | Highly targeted | Broad, includes multiple pages (e.g. About page, Contact page, etc). |
| Design | Streamlined for conversion | Complex, with navigational menus, multiple sections |
| Set up requirements | Low | Medium-High |
| When it works best | Ideal tool to start building an online business with, but can be used at any point | Best-suited for business with multiple products |
For more information, check out the article from Unbounced here: What’s the difference between a landing page, a homepage, and a website?
While similar on the surface, each option has its own purpose and serves different needs. For example, Landing Pages allow you to launch and get results quickly, while a full Website gives you the space to grow your business and solidify your online presence.
We encourage you to begin with Landing Pages when you first start out. As you grow and create multiple products, you can consider creating a full website to host additional information and details about you, your brand, and the products that you offer.
The Differences between Landing Pages and Website Pages
With Thinkific, you can create the kind of online presence that fits your unique business and services:
- AI-Generated Landing Pages: Powered by innovative AI, these pages offer a quick and easy way to create and publish landing pages for your products. Simply follow prompts to automatically generate pages and use the new web page editor to customize design elements (colors, text, imagery, etc.) without any coding needed.
- Website and Website Pages: Powered by the Site Builder and Site Themes, these pages feature a classic editor and a variety of default pages.
See the difference between the two types of pages below:
| AI-Generated Landing Pages | Website (Site Theme) Pages | |
| Setup process | AI-generated, uses product information and entered prompts to create a draft version | Manual, the pages are created empty and need to be set up and drafted manually |
| Editing | Inline (directly on the page) | Using the Site Builder |
| Customizations | Not available | Can be customized using HTML/CSS through the Theme Code |
| New features and updates from Thinkific | Automatic updates - no action required | A manual theme update is required to get access to new features and improvements |
| SEO | Optimizes for SEO with AI-generated keywords and description | Keywords and descriptions need to be configured manually |
| Loading speed | Faster | Standard |
| Custom Pages | Not available | Available |
| Supported Products and Pages | Courses, Digital Downloads, Coaching & Webinars *More supported products are coming soon! |
Communities, Bundles, Memberships, Default Pages |
Accessing Landing Pages and Website
To access AI-generated Landing Pages:
- From your Admin Dashboard, select Channels
- Select Landing Pages
Here, you will see landing pages created using an AI-assisted editor. Learn more about them here: How to Customize AI-Generated Landing Pages.
To access Website Pages:
- From your Admin Dashboard, select Channels
- Select Website
Here, you will see all pages created using the classic Site Builder editor and that are based on Site Themes. Learn more about them here: Site Builder Overview.
Setting Your Default Course Page Type
You can update your default course page preferences any time from your global settings. To learn how to set your default course page type, check out our guide here: Setting Your Default Course Page Type
Digital Downloads and Coaching & Webinars, built with AI-powered landing pages, will remain unchanged even if the default setting is switched to Website Pages.
Important Considerations
- When you open a page to edit it in the Site Builder, our page- and section-specific Site Builder articles will show how to make more specific edits to those areas.
- Note that customizations such as the ability to add page code under your course settings and the use of custom fonts are not possible with AI Landing Pages at the moment. If you would like to have more flexibility by adding custom code or using apps, we recommend using our Website Pages.