When building a marketing website or blog, you want to drive as much traffic as possible. With increased visitors, you can reach your online goals much faster, whatever they may be. Driving more traffic to your site or blog can be done by way of blog posts or content.
By publishing epic content, you can attract people to read the post from your site or blog. More importantly, you are able to build trust and authority in your niche if your content is insightful and offers lots of value to your audience.
To gain even more traction to your content, you need to develop a content promotions strategy. Publishing content and sharing them via online channels is a time-tested plan to not only attract more visitors, but also convert them into subscribers or customers.
However, there’s a problem.
Every online business worth a lick is doing this exact same strategy!
Everybody is busting their chops writing awesome content and sharing it on social media. The competition is so stacked that it will be difficult for a startup to compete against the top dogs.
Therefore, instead of taking the same route, you can go a different and equally successful way.
You can build an ebook!
An ebook serves two purposes:
- Create epic content in a form of a digital asset
- Turn it into a product for sale on your site
Keep both purposes in mind when developing an ebook. This will help you meet your online goals. Not only will you drive more traffic on your marketing site or blog, but also make a sale with your ebook!
More importantly, you take the road less travelled. Instead of publishing content, putting out an effective marketing ebook puts you in a unique position of being one of the few sites in your niche to do this. Less competition means more chances of conversion!
If this convinces you to make an ebook, you need to know how to make a great one. The principles of writing epic content and an epic ebook are the same. The only difference is the formatting.
Since ebooks are mostly document files, you need to optimize your content for this format, particularly in .pdf. You will need to use a productivity suite that will allow you to create a .pdf file. Choices include Microsoft Word, OpenOffice Writer, and Google Drive. Once you have chosen a tool, you need to learn the parts that make a successful marketing ebook.
eBook Cover
Treat your ebook as if it’s an actual book or a magazine. For Microsoft Word users, you have choose from the basic Cover Page templates available. Go to Insert tab and click on the Cover Page button to view the built-in cover pages for your choosing.
But if you want a customized ebook cover, you cannot go wrong with Canva.
You can customize pre-made templates by searching from their image library. You can also add different element using the drag and drop feature of the tool.
Table of contents
Table of contents may not be a necessary, but it greatly improves reader experience when they can browse the topics covered by the ebook. Unfortunately, you can only generate a table of contents for your ebook using Microsoft Word. Go to the References tab and click on the Table of Contents button.
It will automatically generate the TOC on your ebook. You can update it with just one click if you made changes on the ebook.
Disclaimer
This section on your ebook is important if you:
- Include affiliate links in the ebook
- Want to attribute the source where you got the images
- Want to inform readers how readers should use the ebook
There are other terms and conditions that you would want to include here, depending on your intention. But the point is that informing readers these details allows you to steer clear of legal trouble and protect your business from legal issues.
If you want a quick disclaimer generator, you can do a quick search on Google for ebook disclaimer generators. Take this free ebook disclaimer template from SEQ Legal, for example.
Keep in mind to actually read the and edit disclaimer before pasting it on your ebook. You may want to take out the unnecessary terms and add your own conditions in there.
These parts show the ebook title, page number, and topic being discussed. But you want your ebook to be more than just a book. That’s where the ‘e’ stands for. Therefore, you want to make the ebook much more dynamic by utilizing the header and footer to make it easier to share online.
I am talking about adding social media buttons in it! This way, readers who enjoyed your ebook can promote it on Twitter and Facebook on your behalf!
Download a free social media icon pack and insert them in the footer or header. You can then use the links featured in this Hubspot post and use them on their respective social media buttons.
To make it easier for you, below are the links that you want to insert:
- Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=[LINK TO PAGE]
- Twitter – http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=ENTER%20TEXT%20HERE%20[LINK TO PAGE]
- LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=[LINK TO PAGE]
Edit [LINK TO PAGE] with the page where people can buy the ebook.
For Twitter, make sure to enter the ‘%20’ between every word so that a space will appear once tweeted.
To make it easier for you to compose a shareable tweet, compose your message using Click to Tweet and copy the link generated instead.
Make sure that each social media link opens a new window in your browser for an opportunity to share it online.
Use of images
Most will go with stock images as their ebook’s visual content. But even images from stock photos are limited and can only provide you with specific images that complement your content.
This is where Visme and PicMonkey come in.
Visme is a visual content tool that lets you create infographic, presentation, and banner ads, to name a few. You can also create image using the same drag and drop feature of this tool.
Choose from a wide range of font styles, icons, images, and backgrounds to come up with content to keep readers engaged.
You can also create your PDF using this tool. Choose the presentation creator and begin building your ebook here using its premium features. Once finished, save the file in PDF format. Easy!
You can also publish the ebook here and protect it with a password. Once people pay you for the ebook, send them the password so they can access the ebook from the site.
Unlike Visme, PicMonkey is mainly an image editing online tool. But what it does, it does quite well.
Aside from creating an image from the bottom up, you can touch up an existing image using different filters to enhance their presentation.
Actionable items
You want your ebook to be useful to readers. Aside from providing them with tips and advice on how to do a specific thing, you want to actually get them to do what you explained. There’s a tendency that they may not do it at all. After reading the ebook, they’ll store it in their hard drives and never to read it again.
To avoid this from happening, you need to create actionable sections in your ebook. Below are ideas on how you can usher action from your readers:
- Create a printable checklist or to-do list that readers can easily follow after reading the ebook
- Offer a discount to any of your products at the end of the ebook
- Create a supplementary material, i.e. webinar, e-course, about a topic in your ebook so readers can learn more about it
The three tips above are just suggestions that you can pursue to mobilize readers into action. You can come up with your own actionable items that fit the message of your ebook. But the point is that you want to continue providing value to readers even after they have read the ebook!
Sell your ebook
You have the option to turn your ebook into a free download for readers upon subscribing to your email list. But if you want to earn from all the hard work you’ve put into your ebook, you can sell them as well.
A platform to help you do this is Spaces.
The difficulty when selling online is that you have to manage the payment coming in to your bank account and sending them the file to close the transaction. This can take time, effort, and additional resources to complete. If you do not have any of these, then you might as well not sell your ebook.
That is why Space is a good solution for site owners on the go. It allows you to create a mini-site or landing page where you can sell all your ebooks, among other products. It manages the payments coming in for your ebook and sends the order out to the payee. All you need to do is sit down and watch the money come in!
Conclusion
Setting up your ebook following the tips above should help maximize its earnings potential. Of course, your ebook won’t sell by itself. You will have to apply a content promotions strategy to drive traffic to your ebook page and increase sales.
Once readers purchase your ebook, its compelling content should encourage them to perform the actionable items you indicated. By getting your readers to get to this point, you can tap into your target audience and build a better authority in your industry. This can result to even greater traffic and better conversions!
That wraps up the post!
If you have suggestions or want to share more ideas on how to make an ebook, please feel free to comment below and let’s discuss even more!
Images: “Author’s Own“
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