A question about website pages and landing pages

[The Bass Bagwhan]

As I look towards more promotions and such, I'm considering reworking my website so that every book I've released has its own webpage and thus default landing page. A part of my thinking is that experiments with external links to anchors in Wordpress have been crap, so my current design of a single page for each genre showing multiple titles isn't ideal. However, it means over twenty extra pages and any Home Page menus will be long ...
Has anyone got a different idea to suggest? Thanks!

[LilyBLily]

You need an expert opinion from a website designer. (Which I am not.)

Each of my books has its own page on my website, with its own buy buttons. I think websites are important for social proof, so people can look me up and see that, yes, I wrote those books. But I don't think many people find or buy my books or sign up to my mailing list from my website. 

[Post-Doctorate D]

My initial plan was for each book to have its own domain name and website.  That was a bad plan.  That was when I was under the delusion I might actually sell a book or two or more a day where the book sales would more than cover the expense.

Now I have each book with its own page with a nice, human-readable URL.  One book still has its own domain name, so I just forward that domain name to the book's page.

I don't see a problem with it.  I don't have twenty books yet so it's not that long of a list, but there are ways to simplify if the list gets long.

Best results will be if you make your website your central hub, not an after thought.  In my opinion, too many people drive traffic to their social media accounts rather than using social media to drive traffic to their websites.  Facebook doesn't need you send them more traffic.  Zuckerberg* is rich enough already.  You need the traffic going to a site you control.


*Spell check tried to correct that to "Sucker berg".  LOL.

[guest14]

It depends on what kind of website you're running. Advice will vary widely otherwise and not be much use to you.

[Simon Haynes]

I have a static website with hand-coded html. It's been around for about 19 years now, and the links are the same as they were way back then.

I maintain a page for every book, but I have a nifty text compiler which uses a ton of shared elements, includes and variables, so I only have to plug in the book title, the various product codes and string for the cover art and my new page is done.

(The programmer's approach to webpage creation!)

 

[Michelle Louring]

It's an art to make a good website menu, but it can be done!
If you have many books in multiple genres, I would go with a three-layer menu where the top layer had a dropdown called "Books", with each genre in the second layer dropdown, each of those being a fold-out menu with the individual book pages.

I have no idea if I'm making sense at all, as I usually make a game of Pictionary out of explaining these sort of things to my coworkers 

Bonus question: Is your website a wordpress.com site or a self-hosted Wordpress site?

[katc]

It's an art to make a good website menu, but it can be done!
If you have many books in multiple genres, I would go with a three-layer menu where the top layer had a dropdown called "Books", with each genre in the second layer dropdown, each of those being a fold-out menu with the individual book pages.

I have no idea if I'm making sense at all, as I usually make a game of Pictionary out of explaining these sort of things to my coworkers 

Bonus question: Is your website a wordpress.com site or a self-hosted Wordpress site?

I did something similar on my site. I only write in one genre, but my menu drops down like that so visitors can choose which page they'd like to view and [size=78%]I have separate pages for each book, too. I'm not sure about a default landing page for each book, but you never know until you try, right? I say give it a go and see how it looks. [/size]

[Simon Haynes]

I use dropdowns, but I had to change the top-level menu into a non-hyperlink, because smartphones got invented and they don't have the equivalent of a hover.

Now, if they tap the top level menu, the menu pops out, but it doesn't jump to a page right away. They get to choose from the submenus.

[Michelle Louring]

I use dropdowns, but I had to change the top-level menu into a non-hyperlink, because smartphones got invented and they don't have the equivalent of a hover.

Now, if they tap the top level menu, the menu pops out, but it doesn't jump to a page right away. They get to choose from the submenus.

I usually do separate menus for desktop and mobile, as what makes a good desktop menu is completely different from what makes a good mobile one.
But if there are dropdowns, I prefer the top-level not to be clickable either way. Less confusing that way.

[Simon Haynes]

I use dropdowns, but I had to change the top-level menu into a non-hyperlink, because smartphones got invented and they don't have the equivalent of a hover.

Now, if they tap the top level menu, the menu pops out, but it doesn't jump to a page right away. They get to choose from the submenus.

I usually do separate menus for desktop and mobile, as what makes a good desktop menu is completely different from what makes a good mobile one.
But if there are dropdowns, I prefer the top-level not to be clickable either way. Less confusing that way.

I've been incredibly slack about updating my sites for mobile users.  About 10-15 years ago everything was tables, and while I changed to css and divs eventually, it's still not quite there.

[Michelle Louring]

I've been incredibly slack about updating my sites for mobile users.  About 10-15 years ago everything was tables, and while I changed to css and divs eventually, it's still not quite there.

If I was you, I would just start all over using a CMS. Just the word "tables" is making the web designer in me shudder. I know what cleaning up after that feels like.
Might seem like a lot of work, but it would save you a lot of time in maintenance later!

[The Bass Bagwhan]

Thanks everyone, I'll be going for separate pages. It's a self-hosted Wordpress site and I've never quite found a theme that does everything I'd like, fortunately a good mate is a very good designer and owes me for a hunch of voice overs I did, so hopefully he can tweak ... I just wanted to determine what I wanted. I'm actually pretty good at getting the basics out of any theme, but I don't work on it often enough and have to relearn half the stuff when I pull my finger out.


I was mostly interested if anyone had come up with any innovations. Looks like one page/one book is still best. Thanks!

[Simon Haynes]

I've been incredibly slack about updating my sites for mobile users.  About 10-15 years ago everything was tables, and while I changed to css and divs eventually, it's still not quite there.

If I was you, I would just start all over using a CMS. Just the word "tables" is making the web designer in me shudder. I know what cleaning up after that feels like.
Might seem like a lot of work, but it would save you a lot of time in maintenance later!

It's really not. I used includes for the top and bottom of every table, so I only had to change a handful of places, do a search/replace, write my css code and then recompile all 850 html pages. (That's not a typo.)


I wrote my own html editor, and I couldn't use anything else now.  I'm aware the site looks dated, but it's a really low priority for me.

[Lex]

It's an art to make a good website menu, but it can be done!
If you have many books in multiple genres, I would go with a three-layer menu where the top layer had a dropdown called "Books", with each genre in the second layer dropdown, each of those being a fold-out menu with the individual book pages.

That's what I've got, though instead of genre, my second-level menu is by series, and I don't list the individual books on the menu at all. The series page is a gallery slider with all the books listed in order.


One of the reasons I avoided putting the individual books on the menu is because my main series is up to 7 releases. It's an open-ended series, and if/when I get to the point where I have 30 releases in that one series, I just don't think it's a good use of the menu to have every single book listed.

[Tom Wood]

... I think websites are important for social proof, so people can look me up and see that, yes, I wrote those books. But I don't think many people find or buy my books or sign up to my mailing list from my website.

That's how I see it too. Your website has to be there and look nice if someone stumbles across it, but it's not likely to be a big driver of sales. I think Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads are almost in the same boat too, at least for someone like me starting from zero. They are required because they are expected, but I don't think they will have much impact beyond being social proof.

[Simon Haynes]

... I think websites are important for social proof, so people can look me up and see that, yes, I wrote those books. But I don't think many people find or buy my books or sign up to my mailing list from my website.

That's how I see it too. Your website has to be there and look nice if someone stumbles across it, but it's not likely to be a big driver of sales. I think Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads are almost in the same boat too, at least for someone like me starting from zero. They are required because they are expected, but I don't think they will have much impact beyond being social proof.

I'm in a slightly different boat, because I started treating my website a bit like a blog 10 or so years back, and I posted a lot of articles on writing and publishing. (I was trade published at the time)

I still get around 200 page views per day, even though it's not really mobile-friendly.

However, I also run a software site for various apps of mine, and that gets around 1500 hundred page views per day. Still not a lot, but every page has a banner for one or another of my books on. (Right now they're all for a non-fic title of mine, and since 90% of the visitors to my site are writers, that's not a bad thing.)

[Post-Doctorate D]

About 10-15 years ago everything was tables, and while I changed to css and divs eventually, it's still not quite there.

Good ol' reliable tables, how I miss thee.

I've got to read up more on CSS Grid now that it's becoming more widespread, in the hopes that it will restore sanity and stability to web design that we lost when everything became anti-table.

[Simon Haynes]

About 10-15 years ago everything was tables, and while I changed to css and divs eventually, it's still not quite there.

Good ol' reliable tables, how I miss thee.

I've got to read up more on CSS Grid now that it's becoming more widespread, in the hopes that it will restore sanity and stability to web design that we lost when everything became anti-table.

CSS grid would be useful. I'll look it up too.

I currently have an issue where there's a Div sidebar on the left (inside a container), then a float div to the right, but I can't get another div to sit below that float div without a clear, and WITH  a clear it puts it far left, below the sidebar. Argh!

[Lex]

CSS grid would be useful. I'll look it up too.

I've used this responsive grid a hundred times. It's super simple and very flexible:


http://www.responsivegridsystem.com/

[Tom Wood]

... I currently have an issue where there's a Div sidebar on the left (inside a container), then a float div to the right, but I can't get another div to sit below that float div without a clear, and WITH  a clear it puts it far left, below the sidebar. Argh!

Experiment with the 'overflow: hidden' attribute for the upper DIV. I know it makes no sense when there's nothing to overflow, but it works in my situation that is very similar.

[Simon Haynes]

... I currently have an issue where there's a Div sidebar on the left (inside a container), then a float div to the right, but I can't get another div to sit below that float div without a clear, and WITH  a clear it puts it far left, below the sidebar. Argh!

Experiment with the 'overflow: hidden' attribute for the upper DIV. I know it makes no sense when there's nothing to overflow, but it works in my situation that is very similar.

Awesome! That seemed to do the trick.

 :Tup4a:

[Tom Wood]

Awesome! That seemed to do the trick.

Cool! I accidentally came across that trick in a tech forum somewhere while trying to figure out a text-wrapping issue. I have no idea why it works.

[spettro]

Thanks everyone, I'll be going for separate pages. It's a self-hosted Wordpress site and I've never quite found a theme that does everything I'd like, fortunately a good mate is a very good designer and owes me for a hunch of voice overs I did, so hopefully he can tweak ... I just wanted to determine what I wanted. I'm actually pretty good at getting the basics out of any theme, but I don't work on it often enough and have to relearn half the stuff when I pull my finger out.


I was mostly interested if anyone had come up with any innovations. Looks like one page/one book is still best. Thanks!

In a matter of days, we'll unveil a radically different kind of landing page architecture for our new trilogy series, available as of last week in all major stores worldwide except laggardly B&N and Tolino (which is re-thinking its retailing role.)
Our new approach is a Wordpress single page Author/Series site, designed after months of audience, device, and landing page research.
Since we expect as much as 80% of our visitors will be on a smartphone, the compact site is mobile-friendly first, then OK for tablet or desktop visitors. Readers who are interested will be able with a minimum of scrolling to
-  laugh at the punchline from our Facebook ad teaser
-  learn the most important (to the largest proportion of prospects) info about the new series
-  one-click to go directly to their preferred store worldwide (over twenty on Day One, with another dozen on the way)
-  get a free 30K novella-length intro via BookFunnel, or,

On or about 20 October they'll also have the option of buying a special half-price "Sneak Preview Full Trilogy Boxed Edition" from our site immediately, using Woo Commerce and Book Funnel.

Readers who are uncertain will be able to easily scroll down to find a wealth of additional, supporting information about the trilogy, the author, and the company.

We are developing our own new dark romantic comedy genre, so we have to aggregate our audience and engage a worthwhile proportion of them to come check out our series. The only viable place to do this is in Facebook, where we know at least 25 million women in our target audience are active on an average of four times a day. We know these intelligent, busy, mature women are not on Facebook to find a book, so we are not advertising one (or three). We're offering entertainment.

With this approach, the landing page is *everything*. Bringing visitors to a conventional website is basically ineffective, since they can be distracted immediately and never even see the CTA.

If our experiment succeeds, I'll report back. If it fails, I'll also report back, and provide the GOFundMe link where I can hopefully recoup my retirement savings.
Do not PM me please for more info, like the series title. or the landing page URL. We won't be giving the URL out since we want ONLY Facebook members who've clicked on our Facebook ads to access the page. Later, we'll have a regular website, naturally.

[NathanBurrows]

How very mysterious. So you don't want us to PM you until after you've got the GoFundMe page up and running. Have I got that right?

[spettro]

How very mysterious. So you don't want us to PM you until after you've got the GoFundMe page up and running. Have I got that right?

The GoFundMe was a joke. Now that the three novels have completed the triple edit and book production stage, we're going hard to get the landing page up. No time to kibitz, in other words. Let's see how we do, and then provide some field-demonstrated conclusions.

I only commented because I know OP, and we had theorized six months ago about a different way to a) sell direct and b) to send people who preferred to buy at a regular e-bookstore to the bookstore sales pages. Since then, a lot of research has been done, and it was clear that we'd need a mobile-friendly solution. We now have the first phase ready to begin. So my comment was meant  to suggest that sending prospects to a conventional website was in most cases a commercial error.

The underlying theory says that if one wishes to make a commercial success as an Indie and is persuaded that going wide is the best plan, then they need to rethink the different ways if reaching the reader prospects. Relying on the bookstores to fill the "discovery" function is (for many cases) doomed to economic failure. The slow process of "organic" list building is not effective. The traditional idea that one can attract enough readers in softly, softly social media and blog campaigns is a poor use of scarce time resources. Amazon has become a way for authors to spend money for Amazon-centered promo services of dubious value. The genre formulas and category conventions have become a way for bookstores to list books without doing anything to actually *sell* them. Bookbub wants to be in paid advertising, to our ultimate cost.

Our titles cannot qualify for Bookbub, are not copycat genre works, and may not appeal to more than a small percentage of readers. So we had to face the challenge of aggregating our several audiences, one audience at a time. The investment needed to do this simply must result in near term sales, or we burn through our marketing budget.

[The Bass Bagwhan]

I fear this might be a stupid question, but I'll ask it anyway ... what's the difference between a standalone product page on your own website with all the links, pricing, etc., and what's considered a "landing page"?


Thanks!

[guest14]

I fear this might be a stupid question, but I'll ask it anyway ... what's the difference between a standalone product page on your own website with all the links, pricing, etc., and what's considered a "landing page"?

Thanks!

Strictly speaking - not a lot!


A web page on your site gives people the opportunity to move off the page to other areas (become distracted by all the pretty colours)


A landing Page is designed to go nowhere - except scrolling down. Each scroll down brings more information that drives the visitor to the conclusion - BUY ME NOW!

[spettro]

I fear this might be a stupid question, but I'll ask it anyway ... what's the difference between a standalone product page on your own website with all the links, pricing, etc., and what's considered a "landing page"?


Thanks!

You're right that there are many similarities, EG in the price info and the purchase links.

Tobias is also correct in his basic answer, in saying the purpose of the landing page is to keep you on it until you decide to either "convert" to the offer or leave the page entirely. but when one really gets into the topic, it becomes apparent that there are enormous differences in landing pages and conventional websites. The landing page (LP) is about marketing (not simply "BUY!") and the author site is about the author. If your targeting and ads are effective, you're bringing visitors to the LP who *expect to be sold or asked to signup for some offer*. They are not offended by the persuasion process because they expect it. Your job is to make your case in the minimum time and make it super-easy for the persuaded minority to "convert". The whole flow of info is different.

(You also have the job of using the Facebook tools to "re-target" those who left without accepting the offer. It's a truism that it takes seeing a message on average seven times before many folks finally "convert". This aspect of the process leaves most authors cold. But if one is proud of their offering and intends to sell it widely, this "re-marketing" is an essential corollary to the LP concept.)

After I PMed you way back I went to school on LPs. LPs are possibly the fastest growing segment of the internet commercial industry. But I learned quickly the industry leaders knew nada about selling books. Being one of the world's oldest surviving programmers and app designers, I saw we'd have to learn all the "experts" could teach us, then start our project at ground zero in terms of design models.

I'm not going to write a tutorial on this. We have books to sell. I'll therefore answer your question this additional way. You can get a satisfactory author website up in a week. With maybe an additional week, you can connect it to Woo Commerce and BookFunnel and be selling your books direct. To build a landing page *to sell books in quantity* has taken me and a few helpful folks at various WordPress software services months. Mainly because while the tech stuff is doable, the *marketing content* is really, really, *really* hard to do it "right". Said hopefully. 

And to those who are put off by my refusal to do a full show and tell at this early stage, I'll add that this is a "stealth launch", using my simple proprietary geotargeting method. Most of our prospective readers around the world won't even be aware of the new series for many, many months. By launching selectively, we have the opportunity to test and tweak every aspect of the visuals and copy, in a number of cultural settings. We also have the time to get our follow-on series ready for launch to the list we build through the first 6-8 months.