Mixing Wordpress and Landing Pages

12 years ago

I am going through a similar situation. I have a landing page where you can purchase my e-book, yet I also want to incorporate some articles that are perhaps exerted from the e-book.
Or give users that opt in a fraction of the e-book for free.

i'm still wondering which is the best way to go and how to do it all for seamless navigation.

Thanks

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Istvan Horvath

12 years ago

I'd like to put up a landing page to capture their info on the home page

This one is an easy case:
- create your landing page as a WP Page (not post)
- create another, empty Page and name it e.g. "blog"
- go to Settings > Reading and select as frontpage a static page
- make the landing page your frontpage (from the dropdown)
- make the "blog" Page as your posts page

Now, your landing page will be displaying at the root (e.g. example.com) and all your posts will be on example.com/blog
The rest of the permalinks to other Pages will not change.

Also, you can have all kind of custom Page templates added to your theme, if you want the landing and/or other Pages to have different look...

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1 reply

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GioSec 12 years ago

usually, the best way to handle this is to create pages (instead of posts).

Now as a landing page, you'll probably want a different look and feel then your home page, so what you can do is create a template file.

a template file is just a file that you place in your wordpress theme directory (in the directory of whatever theme you're using)

all you need to start a template files the following stuff inside the file, you can name it template-anythingyouwant.php

<?php
/*
Template Name: MyTest Template
*/
?>

[place your landing page code/html after the php stuff]

----
once you're done you can login to your admin panel you can create your new landing page and select the new template you just created.

hope that helps.
- Thanks
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TwinDragon

12 years ago

Great info, I need to do this with a site I have. Thanks.

Thanks

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Seeking my teeth into all this great information.

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drewhowell21

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Vcize

Additionally, is there a way to access the wordpress widgets from the landing pages? I'd love to have "recent articles" among other things down at the bottom of the lander.

I hope this doesn't get too complicated, but I think I may have the answer you're looking for. Here goes:

Create a new page template either by copying an existing one and renaming it or by creating one from scratch.
Be sure to add

Code:

<?php
/*
Template Name: Landing Page
*/
?>

at the top so Wordpress recognizes it as a page template.
Here is one I threw together. (landing-page.php)

Code:

<?php
/*
Template Name: Landing Page
*/
?>

<html>
<head>

	<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>" type="text/css" />

</head>
	<body>
		<div id="content">
	<!--Start Loop / Display Co -->
			<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

				<div <?php post_class() ?> id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
					
					<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
					
				<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/inc/meta.php' ); ?>
					
					

				<div class="post">
						
					<?php the_content(); ?>

					<?php wp_link_pages(array('before' => 'Pages: ', 'next_or_number' => 'number')); ?>
						
					<?php the_tags( 'Tags: ', ', ', ''); ?>

				</div>
					
				<?php edit_post_link('Edit this entry','','.'); ?>
					
			</div>
	<!--Start Widgetized "Footer" -->
	
		<div id="columnwrap">
	
		<span class="widgetcolumn">
			<?php if (function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar('left')) : else : ?>  
					 
			<?php endif; ?>  
		 </span>
		 <span class="widgetcolumn">
			<?php if (function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar('middle')) : else : ?>  
					 
			<?php endif; ?>  
		 </span>
		 <span class="widgetcolumn">
			<?php if (function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar('right')) : else : ?>  
					 
			<?php endif; ?>  
		</span>
		
			<?php endwhile; endif; ?>
		</div> <!-- End content -->
		
	<body>
	</html>

Add this css to your style.css

Code:

#columnwrap {
	width:1000px;
	margin:auto;
}
.widgetcolumn {
	width:300px;
	margin:10px;
	float:left;
}

Finally, we have to register those widget columns that we created. We'll have to do that in functions.php. Add the following:

Code:

if (function_exists('register_sidebar')) {  
  
    register_sidebar(array(  
        'name' => 'Left',  
        'id'   => 'left',  
        'description'   => 'Widget area for landing page left',  
        'before_widget' => '<div id="%1" class="widget %2">',  
        'after_widget'  => '</div>',  
        'before_title'  => '<h4>',  
        'after_title'   => '</h4>'  
    ));  
    register_sidebar(array(  
        'name' => 'Middle',  
        'id'   => 'middle',  
        'description'   => 'Widget area for landing page middle ',  
        'before_widget' => '<div id="%1" class="widget %2">',  
        'after_widget'  => '</div>',  
        'before_title'  => '<h4>',  
        'after_title'   => '</h4>'  
    ));  
    register_sidebar(array(  
        'name' => 'Right',  
        'id'   => 'right',  
        'description'   => 'Widget area for landing page right ',  
        'before_widget' => '<div id="%1" class="widget %2">',  
        'after_widget'  => '</div>',  
        'before_title'  => '<h4>',  
        'after_title'   => '</h4>'  
    ));  
  
}

Now, create a New Page. Set the Template to Landing Page. Write your content. Then under "Apperance", go to Widgets and add them as you normally would. I hope that helped. If you have any more questions, let me know.

Thanks

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GPLPress

12 years ago

If you're looking for a code-free solution, you may be interested in Premise by the folks at CopyBlogger:

WordPress Landing Pages by Premise

or Impact Page Builder plugin:

Impact Page Builder Plugin for WordPress

Both allow easy creation and customization of landing pages without having to get your hands too dirty in the source code.

Thanks

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Vcize

12 years ago

Some great info here guys.

It sounds like what I'm looking for is very doable, and rather easily.

One quick question. When I set things up as a custom template is wordpress going to try and do any weird formatting stuff with the code? I'm no designer so ideally I'd be paying someone to make the landing page. I just want to make sure that when I go and copy/paste that code into my custom template it's not going to come out differently than if I just had it as a standalone file.

Thanks

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Istvan Horvath

12 years ago

One quick question. When I set things up as a custom template is wordpress going to try and do any weird formatting stuff with the code? I'm no designer so ideally I'd be paying someone to make the landing page. I just want to make sure that when I go and copy/paste that code into my custom template it's not going to come out differently than if I just had it as a standalone file.

The quote above makes me think you don't really get the difference between a Page template and a Page created by WP.

A Page template = is a .php file in your active theme.
A Page = is an entry created by you using the "Add new Page" subpanel in your wp-admin.

You do NOT ever copy/paste a template code into the content of a Page...

Finally, there is nothing wrong using a stand-alone html file for your landing page.

Thanks
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drewhowell21 12 years ago

Istvan is correct. The template file (.php) won't affect any of your pages unless you specifically choose it as the template file for that page. Most of your landing page is going to be html, I'm assuming, which Wordpress will have no affect on. Wordpress will format the html as it is written. You should have no problems with it messing with any of your code.
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Vcize 12 years ago

Right, I get that. I could be mis-understanding but I was assuming that what I'd basically be doing is creating a new custom template with all the php/html code of the landing page, all of the content, etc.

Then I would go into wordpress, create a new page called "Home" or something like that, select my custom template, and then hit publish (IE I wouldn't put anything in the content box in wordpress).

The template is effectively acting as a "page" even though abstractly it's something different.

At least that's how I've seen it work in some premium themes, now that I think of it. For instance in shopperpress, if you've used that, to create the customer's "My Account" page you just create a new page called "My Account" and select the [my_account_template]. You don't add any actual content to the page through wordpress. All of it is already pre-populated in the template file.

Is that what we're talking about here? If I go to a designer and say "Build me a landing page for loans that collects customer data" they're going to give me a page back in php/html. So could I just take that php/html, create a new wordpress custom template and paste that exact code in, then go into WP and create a new page and select that template with no content entered in WP?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding..

Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath

You do NOT ever copy/paste a template code into the content of a Page...

Correct, I wasn't saying copy/paste the custom template code into the content of a WP page through the admin panel. I was saying copy/paste the html code that a designer gives me into the custom template file.
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Istvan Horvath

12 years ago

Well, mentioning (even in the reply above) the copy/paste operation... is misleading.

If a designer/coder gives you a .php file that would be your future custom Page template - I'd just put the necessary few lines on the top to make it a Page template and that's it. No copy/paste

Of course, you can do it the other way around, of course: putting the code in a Page template that you already made.

Yes, you understood the process correctly.
And you can do it either with a complete template (without adding content) or with a 'half-way' template where you can add more content.

I made a free report a while ago:
No optin Download! | Istvan Horvath - Blog
(no optin, just download it)

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Vcize

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath

Well, mentioning (even in the reply above) the copy/paste operation... is misleading.

If a designer/coder gives you a .php file that would be your future custom Page template - I'd just put the necessary few lines on the top to make it a Page template and that's it. No copy/paste

Of course, you can do it the other way around, of course: putting the code in a Page template that you already made.

Yes, you understood the process correctly.
And you can do it either with a complete template (without adding content) or with a 'half-way' template where you can add more content.

I made a free report a while ago:
No optin Download! | Istvan Horvath - Blog
(no optin, just download it)

Excellent, thank you.

Sorry for the mix-up with the copy/paste thing, didn't mean to mislead

Thanks

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imdesigner

12 years ago

hey Vcize,

landing pages and wordpress. I get asked this question so much.

Save yourself the time working on code, Same yourself the money getting a designer or wordpress theme. Get optimizepress.com If you want to turn your wordpress to sales pages salesflow or anything like that. This is your best deal. You can go wrong with that.

Let me know if it works for you

Thanks

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Mixing Wordpress and Landing Pages

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