Should the landing page BE the sales page?

Option 2. There is nothing more annoying than pressing buy now and going through to another sales page. If someone clicks buy now it means they are ready to buy not read more so dont risk losing sales because of it.

It's really situational and depends on several factors.

Are you an affiliate and could write up a review page that's your landing
page... that sends people to the sales page?

Are you doing media buys, so you want to send traffic to an article that presells the reader before sending them to the sales page.

With some forms of traffic, it makes sense to send people directly to a sales page, others it makes more sense to presell and warm the prospect before sending them to the sales page.

it's tough to say which is best, because they both work and work well, it really depends on traffic and how you're marketing. a 2 step process of sending them to a presell page and then sales page works great for many... i sold over 2 million dollars of an ebook by sending people right to the sales page.

the way i see it... if someone has a problem and you PROVE to them that you have the solution... they will buy. it just takes good, persuasive copy with plenty of proof.

some markets need a bit more convincing... or the problem isn't as urgent, so a presell landing page could help warm them up.

but honestly, it's all about testing out the 2 options and seeing which converts better.

send half your traffic to a few different presell pages and send half your traffic straight to the sales page and see which works better. nothing is ever set in stone, testing will always tell you what to go with.

It should for some traffic, probably not for all traffic. A "landing page" is the simply the page on which you arrange for any given kind of traffic, from any source, to "land". It's up to you what your landing page is, or what you choose to use as a landing page for your traffic. A landing page can be a squeeze page; it can be a sales page; it can be an article; it can be the home page of a blog/site (but it doesn't have to be, obviously); it can be a content-rich page; it can be anything you like. If it's where your traffic "lands", on clicking a link, then it's a "landing page". Don't imagine that all landing pages are trying to sell something, or trying to get people to opt in. It's common for websites to have more than one "landing page" (especially if it's receiving traffic from more than one source). It isn't necessary to use "the landing page" for all the traffic.

I would use the landing page as my sales page so my visitors already know what my website is all about