{"id":330,"date":"2014-03-22T00:17:47","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T16:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.haguepublishing.com\/?p=330"},"modified":"2014-03-13T14:18:17","modified_gmt":"2014-03-13T06:18:17","slug":"marketing-101-for-authors-designing-a-landing-page-for-a-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/blog\/marketing-101-for-authors-designing-a-landing-page-for-a-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing 101 for authors: Designing a landing page for a book"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Graphic<\/a>Over the last two years I’ve been constantly working to improve the landing pages we use to try and convert interest in one of our books into a purchase. The latest iteration of the design is now fully responsive, allowing people to read a sample of the first four chapters of ‘Lights Over Emerald Creek on their smartphone. That said, I’m not actually sure why someone would want to read a book on their smartphone, but they can. More importantly, \u00a0with the addition of the QR code to our book-business cards I thought it important that when someone did scan the code they were provided with a page they could actually read (see [p2p type=”slug” value=”marketing-101-for-authors-business-cards-for-books”][\/p2p]).<\/p>\n

But first, back to basics, what is a ‘landing page’?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The use of a landing page<\/h2>\n

Unbounce.com\u00a0<\/a>state that “In the purest sense, a landing page is any web page that a visitor can arrive at or \u201cland\u201d on. However, when discussing landing pages within the realm of marketing and advertising, it\u2019s more common to refer to a landing page as being\u00a0a standalone web page distinct from your main website\u00a0that has been designed for a single focused objective.<\/p>\n

This means that your landing page should have no global navigation to tie it to your primary website. The main reason for this is to limit the options available to your visitors, helping to\u00a0guide them toward your intended conversion goal.<\/p>\n

Click through landing pages (as the name implies) have the goal of persuading the visitor to click through to another page. Typically used in ecommerce funnels, they can be used to describe a product or offer in sufficient detail so as to \u201cwarm up\u201d a visitor to the point where they are closer to making a purchasing decision.<\/span><\/p>\n

All too often, inbound advertising traffic is directed at shopping cart or registration pages. This leads to poor conversions as the ad doesn\u2019t provide sufficient information for someone to make an informed decision.<\/p>\n

This is where the click through page comes in. As a result, the destination page from a click through page is typically the shopping cart or registration page \u2013 now with a much higher chance of conversion having passed through the details of the landing page.<\/p>\n

What makes a ‘good’ landing page?<\/h2>\n

\"Example<\/a><\/p>\n

The following list was originally based on a post by\u00a0kissmetrics.com<\/a>\u00a0but has been modified by myself to reflect the specific requirements for book:<\/p>\n