How offering a free e-book can generate website traffic and leads

An e-book offers value to your customers and is a great source of leads for you, they also increase the traffic to your website. Learn how.

May 20, 2019 • 6 minute read

Updated on Jan 21, 2020 by Kym D.

Kym D.

@whiteshepherd

Writer & Editor | Unleashing the Power of Words

Writing an e-book is a savvy strategy to market your business and expertise

You’ve done the market research, you know your customers inside-out and you’ve developed a great product. You’ve spent the last several weeks working on a shoestring budget making sure your venture has an effective presence on the web.

Most of the hard work is done, your new website design looks amazing. Everything is in place and you’re ready to roll. That market research is paying off, your online advertising is working, and traffic is starting to flow.

So, what exactly can you do to keep climbing the search engine rankings? Now that you’ve got people to visit your website, how can you make sure they stick around and explore? What’s the best way to convince your potential customers that your site is an authority in your niche?

Let customers know you’re founded to find ways to help

How can you convince consumers that buying from you means a product based on a drive to solve their problem? You want to let them know that this is your business, that you’re passionate about it. To get to this point, you’ve done some hard yards. Everything you’ve worked for has been because you want to make their life easier.

To show them you’re not just out to make a quick buck, give your potential customers something that’s valuable to them before they’ve spent a cent on your product.

In this article, you’ll see how providing an e-book can generate new leads. We’ll examine how it can help reach new customers. We’ll discuss the advantages of coupling great website content with an e-book. We'll also find out how it can be a cheap method to gain consumer trust.

For your website to rank well, it’s got to read well

Every website will prosper with great content . On the modern internet, it’s no longer enough to have a nice looking site with a user-friendly interface. You can throw a huge design budget at a website, but if you don’t populate it with engaging content, you’ll largely be wasting your time.

Search engine crawlers have evolved. They’re savvier and wiser than ever before. You can’t just stuff websites with keywords anymore. To rank well, your website has got to read well. When you base good search engine optimization (SEO) around well-written content, the crawlers will view you as an authority. That’s when you’ll begin to climb the rankings.

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The better your website content, the more useful you become to buyers

The good news is that investing in site content won’t only please the Google bots. When your site is useful, engaging and informative, people are far more likely to stick around. They’ll begin to view you as a reliable source of information. As a result, they’ll be more inclined to buy from you.

A great strategy for building traffic and consumer confidence is combining all those things. Great content, a useful offering and a confident, informative statement will create goodwill. One way to achieve this, is to make yourself an e-book.

E-books are effective marketing tools, and you can make them cheaply

Publishing an e-book means dealing with a subject you’ve already researched extensively. You'll base it on material you know very well, which saves time. This makes an e-book a cost-effective place to start reaching out to your new market.

Engage a good freelance writer to produce some attractive and informed content for your website. You'll likely be able to get a deal on a package to put together an e-book at the same time. If you’re a cash-strapped founder or entrepreneur, a freelancer is a much more cost effective solution than an agency or hiring an in-house writer.

You solve problems, so use an e-book to let people know on social media

An e-book will deliver for your business in a few different ways. Look at it like this: You already solve a specific problem for people, so try giving them a strong hint you’re around, and that you want to help.

An e-book is an asset you can take straight to your social media accounts. Everyone is on social media in this day and age. It’s essential to harvest website hits from Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, so do it with an offering. Giving can be a great way of getting something back.

Include links back to your website within your e-book text. You’re basing the book on information that’s strongly linked to the service or product you provide. Including relevant links back to your site at various points will drive traffic. You’ve already made sure that the content on your site is well-written and informative. Links can be a great way to show potential customers you’re an authority in your field.

Additionally, e-books can pay for themselves quickly. They give you the ability to link social media users back to a landing page where you can harvest a visitor’s details.

Turning website visitors into leads: e-books attract your target market

Getting a name and an email address means you’ve turned a website visitor into a valuable lead. Not only that, they're a lead who’s already interested in the type of products you sell. Gated content can be a very productive way to get visitors onto your website, and to get them shopping. Giving away your free e-book, but requiring a user to visit a landing page and sign up for it, is a great way to do this.

Top tip : Don’t forget to include social media sharing buttons on your landing page. They’ll enable impressed visitors to tell their own followers.

If an e-book is useful to people, they’re often prepared to part with their email in exchange. Then all you need is for the e-book to be well put together and written. If you get that part right, you’ve developed a genuine lead who’s a perfect match for your customer base. You’ve also proved that your company solves problems.

Now that you’re here, stand out and make good first impressions

Getting a foothold can be hard. The internet is an incredibly competitive place in 2019. When you’ve put so much effort into conceiving a product or service which solves a problem you have to promote it. When you’ve fought to jostle for a place in a crowded marketplace you can’t stand still. Sometimes the difference between success and failure is making your company stand out.

Websites come in their millions, and they live or die by the quality of their content. These days, people have endless choice. If your offering isn’t useful or entertaining, they’ll just move right along. A website that’s a combination of useful and engaging will impress potential customers.

In the internet age, a website is your first point of contact with potential customers. A great e-book will alert those customers to the fact you exist. It can make sure that the first impression you make is a great one, and it can build some trust.

Making an e-book cost-effective: How your freelance writer can help

An e-book can be a great vehicle for exploiting some free marketing techniques on social media.

It can be tempting in the spirit of budget conservation to try and do the writing yourself. The fact is it'll take long hours and tedious late nights promoting an e-book. You're the right person for the job, because that’s how you got your company this far. However, the only way an e-book is going to let you down is if the content isn’t top notch.

When funds are tight but your project demands premium content, freelancers are your flexible friends.

An e-book doesn’t have to be expensive. Make it part of your website build from the very start. Use a good freelance content writer and it’s possible to make an e-book for minimal cost. When you’re budgeting, ask your freelancer to do a cost for all your content, including an e-book.

Freelance writers thrive on volume of work. They’ll be able to compile website content interchangeable with sections of the book. They’ll also be able to keep the research on the e-book in line with the theme of your site. This will save them time and save you money.

If you’ve already got a website up and running, build the e-book into your next content refresh. Refreshing content regularly is a very important part of website maintenance. It keeps your company looking current, interesting and relevant.

Bigger design houses may not be flexible or cheap enough to multi-task. Most good freelancers can plan your new content to squeeze an e-book out at the same time for very little extra cost. As we’ve said, freelancer writers love volume, and it’s surprising how much they’ll give back.

If you’ve got an established website and you’re not planning on a content refresh any time soon, try getting a freelancer to write some blog posts for you.

As with website content, a freelancer will give better rates for volume of blog posts. The research needed will be almost the same for the blog posts and the e-book. You’ll probably find yourself getting a great deal.

Blog posts are a great way to reinforce your authority. Optimized posts attract website users via search results. They can also be a great accompaniment to a new e-book. You can use them to promote it on LinkedIn, Facebook and anywhere else you can think of.