The Landing Page: Why You Need One to Promote Your Book on the Internet

If you want to have a book signing to promote your book, you need a place to have it. A bookstore, the library, or a restaurant are good locations. To promote your book on the Internet, you need a place to show off your book and to sell it. A landing page is the best location to do this.

A landing page? We could just call it a “web page,” but I like the sound of “landing” because that’s what you want people to do, “land” on your landing page. A landing page is where people will learn about your book and buy it. Your landing page will be an Internet address (http://www…) that you can give out to people so they can get more info about your book… and purchase it! Your landing page is the best sales tool that you have for selling your book on the Internet.

Your landing page can be a page on your web site or another web site, a BLOG, or a web site all its own. As an example, here’s a landing page for the first book I ever marketed on the Internet other than a writing book, Barbara: the Story of a UFO Investigator. http://www.awoc.com/ufo Here’s a landing page with a URL of its very own for Sally Jadlow’s historical fiction book, The Late Sooner. http://www.TheLateSooner.com

A good landing page does these two things. There are other things that a good landing page might accomplish, but these two are the most important:

1. A good landing page gives the visitor all the information they need to make a buying decision.
   

Information like reviews, excerpts, testimonials, chapter outlines, background information, study guides, recipes. Anything related to your book that will attract visitors and sell the book.


2. A good landing page makes it easy for the visitor to buy.
   

I’ve visited several landing pages that convinced me to buy their book, but I couldn’t find a place to buy it! There were no links or the links that were there sent me to a bookstore where I still had to search for the book. Make sure you have plenty of “Buy” links throughout the landing page. Links that will take a person directly to a page to buy your book by clicking on the title of the book and/or clicking on the cover of the book. Make it very obvious.

Once you have a good landing page, it’s easy to sell your book. The next sentence is the big secret to selling books on the Internet. Find interested people and get them to visit your landing page. Link to your landing page everywhere. The URL (http://www…) of your landing page is the link that you include in your emails, blog posts, your bio at the end of articles you write, advertisements on other websites, etc. You will also want to include the URL on your business card, bookmarks, post cards, banners… whatever material you use when you promote your book. I even see authors displaying the URL on their cars.

A good landing page is your first and most important tool when you begin an Internet marketing campaign for your book. Take the time to build this tool right and you will see your book sales sail.

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