A "Landing Page" is the first page you want a visitor to "land" on when visiting your site. It is a common way to refer to an index page.
What is an index page?
In web-file management, the very first page that any given browser navigates to by default is whichever page is named "index.html". This is true of any web browser, regardless of which content management system the site is created in— WordPress, Cascade, Winx, etc.
To understand how a URL address (the web link you are sharing) finds the page you want it to, it helps to consider the directory (or folder) that houses that page.
In this example, a page titled "Let's Learn Cascade" exists in the directory named "learncascade"
Being a folder in the main directory, (in other words, it is not inside another folder further into the website), the URL to that index page is simply the name of the folder after the .com part:
Because a URL without an extension (the .html part) is an address to a directory, not a page. It is a request for a browser to find a directory and open its index page.
An address with [ / ] slash is an instruction to look inside the folder of a website.
Unless you type .html (meaning you are looking for a specific page document) the browser will be looking inside a directory of the name given, and then "land" on the first page of that directory– always assumed to be an index page.
A "slash" address points to a folder. The browser then seeks an index page.
Furthermore, since the first page every browser will seek in any folder will always be the index.html page, it is not necessary to add that to the URL address.
nmsu.com/learncascade /index.html
And indeed, your desired "landing page" must be named index.html for any browser to succesfully "land" on it after having navigated into the directory you provided.
NOTE: This does not necessarily mean that every directory in your site must have an index page– as some folders will only be used for storing images, files, etc. But keep in mind that only directories with index pages will be considered "crawl-able," and appear on Breadcrumbs and other automatic navigation. So it is best practice to create one inside every folder you intend to have users browse in.
Create a Landing Page
Create a "Landing page" in 2 Easy Steps
Create the directory that will house your landing page and name that directory what you want the part after the .com to read [ __.com/ directorytitle ]
Create the landing page inside that folder and name it "index"
Your new landing page's URL is now simply your site name, slash, the directory named in the first step.
👉 nmsu.com/learncascade
MARCOMM Web Team
New Mexico State University Garcia Center 100 Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001
