3 ways to create multi-step forms in HubSpot
Feb 20, 2025
When working in HubSpot, you'll notice there are two different page types available: landing pages and website pages. While they might seem interchangeable at first glance, choosing between them can affect how your content performs, how you measure success, and ultimately how effectively you convert visitors. Let's cut through the confusion and clarify when to use each.
Landing pages in HubSpot are standalone web pages designed for specific campaigns or initiatives. While they often include forms and CTAs, their primary purpose is to support your marketing campaigns, whether that's sharing information about an event, providing campaign-specific content, or driving conversions.
Think of landing pages as dedicated campaign pages. They typically:
Landing pages are particularly useful for targeted marketing campaigns, PPC ads, email marketing efforts, and event details. They provide a focused experience that directs visitors toward a specific goal without the distractions of a full website.
You can create landing pages on HubSpot without even having your main website on the platform. This was particularly useful in the early days of HubSpot before more and more businesses started building websites on HubSpot. Many companies would host their main website elsewhere (like WordPress) but use HubSpot landing pages for their marketing campaigns, keeping their campaign data, analytics, and marketing activities centralised in one platform.
This lets you have your website somewhere else while still leveraging HubSpot's powerful page tools for campaigns where the rest of your data, analytics, and marketing activity lives.
Website pages are exactly what they sound like.
They're the standard pages that make up your website. IE: the pages visitors navigate to when exploring your site.
Unlike landing pages, website pages in HubSpot are designed to be part of your site's natural user experience. It's up to you to determine what they include, but typically they will have:
Here's where things get interesting, and potentially confusing. In terms of pure design capabilities, SEO potential, and technical features, landing pages and website pages in HubSpot are nearly identical twins.
Both use the same drag-and-drop editor, both support HubSpot's smart content features, and both can include forms, CTAs, and other interactive elements.
So if they're so similar, why the distinction?
HubSpot separates these page types to help you organise your content more effectively. Both page types track the same metrics in HubSpot, but the separation allows you to segment analytics by page type. This makes it easier to view performance data specifically for your campaigns (landing pages) versus your main website content (website pages) without adding too many filters to your reports.
The main technical difference is that landing pages aren't automatically added to your XML sitemap by default, while website pages are. This doesn't mean landing pages can't be indexed by search engines, they absolutely can if the URL is submitted, linked to, or discovered through other means. It simply means search engines won't automatically find them easily through your sitemap.
The separation exists largely because many HubSpot customers historically used the platform primarily for marketing campaigns while hosting their main websites elsewhere.
Today, even though many businesses have migrated their website to HubSpot entirely, this separation still provides valuable flexibility for organisations with different needs.
You could technically build an entire website using only landing pages if you wanted to. There's nothing stopping you from doing this - the platform allows it.
However, this approach would make your analytics more difficult to parse, as you'd be mixing campaign data with general website traffic. It's not recommended, but it's possible.
Similarly, you could use website pages for campaign landing pages. Again, nothing technically prevents this, but you'd potentially merge inflated campaign metrics with your core website analytics.
How you use these two page types depends largely on your current setup.
If your main website is hosted on another platform like WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace, the approach is straightforward: use HubSpot landing pages for your marketing campaigns. This consolidates all your campaign data in HubSpot while keeping your existing website architecture intact.
That said, it's worth considering migrating your entire website to HubSpot to benefit from seamless integration between your website and marketing tools. Having everything in one platform simplifies workflows, improves data consistency, and enables more sophisticated personalisation and automation.
For those with their entire website on HubSpot, the best practice is to maintain a clear separation:
This separation helps segment your analytics views and prevents campaign data from skewing your understanding of how your main website performs. It's much easier to evaluate the success of a specific campaign when its landing pages are neatly categorised and measured separately from your everyday website traffic.
HubSpot's CMS is a powerful platform with extensive capabilities for marketers and developers alike. However, like any sophisticated tool, it's important to take the time to learn its features and functionalities to truly maximise its benefits.
The more you understand HubSpot's capabilities, the better positioned you'll be to create effective marketing strategies and campaigns that drive results for your business. Taking time to master the platform will pay dividends in improved efficiency, better analytics, and more successful marketing outcomes.
