How to Create a Reader Magnet Landing Page

How to Create a Reader Magnet Landing Page [3 Easy Steps]

Are you looking to grow the size of your author email list? An effective landing page can boost your conversion rate, leading to a lot more subscribers, and a lot more book sales. In this article, I tell you how to create an effective reader-magnet landing page.

3 easy steps for creating a great reader-magnet landing page

1. Choose a landing-page design

A landing page is a specialized web page that has one specific purpose, around a visitor taking some action. The page should be optimized to do one thing really well, instead of multiple things kind of well.

The purpose of your reader-magnet landing page is to convince people to enter their email address to get the free digital item you're offering. Claiming this offer should be the only call to action, or CTA, on your page.

Don't use this page to post links to purchase your books, follow you on social media, or anything else.

​If you already use software to manage your author website, you may be able to build a landing page with it, using a pre-designed template.

If you don't have an author website, or the platform you manage it with doesn't offer landing pages, you should check out these tools for creating landing pages.

They have collections of pre-made templates.

​Once you have access to a landing-page tool, browse its design templates and find one that's a fit for your reader-magnet offer.

2. Customize your reader-magnet landing-page template

Though many landing-page templates are excellent, some lack all of the sections you'd ideally want, while others have too many. Fortunately, landing-page tools let you easily customize these templates. 

Remove any section that isn't necessary, but be sure you have enough to properly build excitement around your offer.

Here are some layout guidelines:

• Header. Delete navigation links here. The more non-essential links on the page, the more chances your visitor has to click one and abandon your offer before claiming it. 

 

• Headline. Grab people's attention with a bold, attention-grabbing headline about your reader magnet.

 

• Offer Summary. Summarize your offer, mentioning what the reader will get - ex, a book - and that it won't cost anything.

 

• Offer Image/Video. Include an image, or video, that conveys what the reader will be getting. This can be a book cover, or possibly a book trailer. Make sure your image/video doesn't cause your page to load slowly, though. Speed is a critical factor in a landing page's opt-in rate, ie, the percentage of visitors who claim the offer.

 

• Call to Action (CTA) Button. This is the button someone will click to get your offer. Keep it "above the fold," ie, viewable as soon as your landing page loads, without a visitor needing to scroll. Clicking this button should reveal an input box for the reader's email address. 

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• Footer. Like the header, remove any links.

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​Your landing-page template may come with a template for a confirmation page, which is the page people come to after they've claimed your offer. If you have access to a template like this, you should customize it too. 

The first thing you want to accomplish with a confirmation page is giving readers the necessary information to receive the claimed item. For instance, text on the page might let people know to check their inbox for a PDF download link.

The confirmation page is also an opportunity to present visitors with another offer. This isn't necessary, but it can be effective.

For example, after claiming a free book from you, a reader can be shown an offer from you to purchase another book at a discount.

3. Integrate your landing page with an email-marketing tool

Once a reader claims an offer, you want to automate the delivery of the reader magnet. Here's how to do that:

• Create an account on an email-marketing platform, such as MailerLite

 

• Integrate your account with your landing-page tool - the tool should provide a simple guide on how to do this

 

• Upload your reader-magnet file to Google Drive, and get a public download link for it, which won't cost you anything

 

• Set up an automated email to go out to all new subscribers of your email list, with the Google Drive download link included in the body of the message

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