How Free eBooks Can Help To Build Your Blog / Website’s Traffic

Promoting your blog or website is all about bringing traffic to your site. There are more than 3 billion people on this planet who are mostly online at any time within the 24-hour period. That’s your market. If you can just have a tenth of 1% of that visit your site, you could be a millionaire in a day. But bringing in visitors is not enough. You need to make your blog or site interesting enough for people to linger, interact, download, return and buy from it if it’s an e-store. Otherwise, word of mouth will render promoting your site useless.

Downloadable Freebie

It rides on the internet’s reputation as an information source…

Few things attract potential visitors to a site more than the prospect of getting freebies. Not just any freebie, but practical useful freebies, one that is relevant to whatever it is you’re talking in your blog or website. It may be a small application, a white paper, a browser toolbar, a video or music file. Just make sure you own the content or have the giveaway rights to it or you risk being penalized under the IP laws.

One of the most relevant and easy freebies across any niche is an eBook. Here are the reasons why:

• eBooks are relatively easy to produce. No need for a publisher or agent. You simply use what you know to create interesting content on your word processing software. Then with free software, you can have your work printed as a PDF file, the most common eBook format.
• It rides on the Internet’s reputation as an information source. Your eBook should have content that interests your target readers. And since you are using it as means to promote your website, it needs not be an opus magnus. Even a 5-page presentation style eBook that contains interesting factual bits is enough.
• Your eBook can just be an excerpt of a larger work, a review of several eBooks you are promoting in your blog, a simple short story or a summary of a tips and how to’s. It can be an introduction that creates interest for readers to visit your blog. The important thing is that it has anchor points that link to your website or blog. You often see statements like “to learn more, click here.” If you are promoting a site, your eBook should end with such a statement. But even before reaching the end, your eBook content should have anchor texts within the body that points or links to relevant sections in your blog.
• The advantage of an eBook is its level of interactivity that users can enjoy. You can include survey forms that get submitted to your site which can bring your reader to your site automatically to see the survey results. You can embed images, relevant sound files from interviews, presentation files and video that expand the usefulness of the eBook that would otherwise increase its pages.
• eBooks can have more repeat visit especially if its content becomes a reference guide that people can read and re-read. A summary of how to’s, glossary of terms in a discipline, scientific formulas or food recipes, among others, have excellent referential value.

Just make sure it’s hassle free to get it downloaded. That means having a host server with enough bandwidth to allow for unhampered multiple downloading. The last you want is to alienate your reader with painfully slow download speeds.

Reaching the Widest Audience

Broaden your horizon…

Getting the widest possible readership to your eBook guarantees the traffic to your site, provided, of course, that your eBook has the anchor texts that readers can click to go to your site. Here are some things you can do in this direction.

• Serialize the eBook. That means breaking down the contents of a large work into installments part that readers can download every week or month. Get the reader excited about the rest of eBook content by creating an intriguing first installment.
• Get your reader to register for the eBook. But the registration should not go beyond taking the name and email address of your reader. This way, you can send email alerts to your readers about content and errata updates to the eBook. Be sure the reader can click on the update from the email which brings them automatically to your site where they can download the updated version.
• Include a reader feedback in your eBook which links directly to your site. Ask how you can improve the content eBook and what problems relevant to the topic that need to be addressed. Then produce an eBook to cover these unaddressed concerns. Send email alerts to your readers or announce it in your site for them to download eBooks about these concerns.
• Translate your eBook in the major languages. There are sites that offer translation service free while some provide free toolbars for the purpose. But even if you have to pay minimally, it’s worth it to get your work to reach the widest global markets.
• Media sharing sites can promote your work. Upload a video about the eBook content or related subject in media sharing sites like YouTube or a set of images related to it in Picasa and other photo submission sites. Be sure to overlay your images and video with your site’s URL at the bottom.
• Consider submitting your eBook to review sites or encourage readers, relatives, family members, colleagues and friends to make a short review of your eBook. Just be sure your family members don’t use their surnames. Gather these reviews and post them in a review site or your own.
• Create as many short articles that refer or point to your eBook as you can. They will also point to your website to get it downloaded. Upload them to article directories or popular e-zines. Don’t forget about press release sites for appropriate articles announcing your eBook and where it can be downloaded.
• Join secondary blog sites that reblog content from other blogs including yours. One popular blog site is Tumblr.com where you can post summaries about your blogs along with images and other media content that can promote your main blog. Needless to say, be sure to make your eBook downloadable from it as well.
• Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter can be the ultimate in marketing your work. Be sure to link your eBook download site to them and post summaries, excerpts or initiate discussions about your eBook that creates interest to download it.
• Promote yourself. Social sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as professional sites like LinkedIn allow you to post your personal bios and work samples to establish your credential. Be sure to get your eBooks downloaded from these sites or point to your download site. Once you have established your credibility, your eBooks shouldn’t be difficult to promote.
• Join community discussion forms related to the eBook you are promoting. This is more of a long term promotion tool. Be sure to establish your credibility and trust among forum members before introducing your work. You can put your eBook download site in your forum signature.
• Join or be a guest blogger in other blogs. Post comments in blogs dealing with topics related to yours. Place your blog URL on your signature. That way, an interesting comment can trigger your reader to click on your URL to visit your site. Keep your comment meaty enough to invite response from readers. That means no simplistic posts like “I agree” or “Keep it coming.” Share your insights about a blog’s article and you will have people flocking to your own blog or site.