Marketing on the web has becoming increasingly complicated. With a new social networking sites popping up just about every day, and the old networking sites continually making changes, it is a wonder the marketing departments of today have any time at all to manage a website. For this reason, E-books often get pushed aside by businesses.

Fortunately, an E-book is not another social networking site or another catchy design to place onto your website. In fact, an E-book, or electronic book, is quite different than your typical web marketing strategies.  E-books began by taking printed texts and putting them online or into an EReader, such as the Kindle or Nook, which gives readers the feeling of reading on a page as opposed to the feeling of staring at a computer screen.

The Bare Basics to Creating an E-book That Rocks

Although these books may have started by republishing the classics, small businesses are now beginning to create E-books exclusively for the digital screen to help increase their subscriber list. The great thing about E-books is their ability to utilize what Americans love most—digital. Consider a few of the tips below to help create an E-book for your company:

  • Length. Many companies choose to write a mini-report, about ten to fifteen pages, as opposed to a book. Mini-reports are shorter and less specific, and in many cases this will still be plenty of information for your customers. After all, reading a book about the young kids trying to climb to the top of the mountain and defeat the dragon is a bit more interesting than an entire book about e-mail marketing software. Making your mini-report available in digital form will have the same benefits an E-book would offer. However, do not count out writing a book. If you can write an entire book about your field, your credibility will increase.
  • Content. Choosing a topic for an E-book is easy. If you have a new product or service you want to highlight, write your E-book on that subject. It is also a good idea to look through your blog or your customer feedback and see what people are interested in reading. Once you have your topic picked out, it is time to start writing. Make sure your content is informative as opposed to sounding like a sales pitch, and break up the copy with bullet points and subheadings for easy reading. Finally, make sure to add your contact info to the end of your book for those using an EReader.
  • Availability. E-books are usually offered on a company website using an autoresponder email service. When a customer sees the offer for your E-book and wants to download it or send it to their EReader, then they must provide their email address and name. This is a great way to help you build your subscriber list. If you’ve never used an autoresponder email service, consider one of the most popular, AWeber. This software will send the book out to anyone who signed up on your website.
  • Price. Your customers or potential customers are paying a price by giving you their email addresses and names. In other words, be prepared to give your E-book away free of charge. The goal of an E-book is to establish credibility and help build your subscriber list, so selling the material would likely deter people away from wanting to learn more about your company through the E-book. Besides, generating more exposure is likely to bring in more business than putting a price on an E-book.

Trying to read a newspaper can be difficult, reading online can give you a headache, and reading a book isn’t the greatest when it comes time to travel. An EReader solves all of these problems, and soon I believe everyone will catch on to this fact. This is one trick to marketing on the web that extends beyond sitting at a desk and staring at a computer screen.

If you do decide an E-book is something you want to try, you also have to consider publishing options. You can learn more about your choices here.

So What about SEO?

Your E-books can be a great opportunity for SEO gains if used correctly. You should put a link to the homepage of your website somewhere on the E-book in order to increase clicks, submit the E-book into directories, use Analytics to help optimize your E-book, and more. You can learn more about optimization and SEO for an E-book here. Once you give creating an E-book a try, let us know if it worked for you in the comment section below.