Take the mystery out of landing pages!

In my last post I spoke of the difficulties I had upgrading my WordPress blog to a new theme. Today’s post is an extension of that one.

Landing pages have become an important tool for bloggers and others that have products to sell. They offer an opportunity to collect followers’ info more directly before that person moves on to someone’s else’s digital home. But when I decided to add such a page to my new blog, I didn’t have a clue how it worked. Nor could I do it myself. Then I learned from one of the Goodreads’ authors’ groups I’m part of that Fiverr offers technicians (among other things) from all over the world who will do this kind of work for a low rate.

So I began my quest and ended up with someone from Bangladesh who didn’t speak English all that well. But he sounded sincere about creating a brilliant page. Still a neophyte, I jumped in, trusting that he would come up with a design I would like. Eventually, after much back and forth and many corrections of his English on my new landing page, I ended up with something I liked. It had a greeting from me, the author, as well as a slider that contained all of my books. Someone visiting my site for the first time would always land there but also have the option to go further. If they didn’t go beyond the landing page, visitors at least would be aware of who I am and what my novels focus on. Overall, I was pleased with the results.

However, I didn’t have a clue how to connect this new page with the rest of my site. I hadn’t realized this wouldn’t be part of the job description. No one had mentioned that it isn’t automatically integrated, and the person who created my page didn’t know how to do it. Worse, integration might not be a possibility. That led me on another search for a WordPress technician who could help me.

This time I was more cautious on Fiverr. I checked the reviews and ratings of a few individuals who looked liked possibilities. I also wanted someone whose English was very good. I ended up explaining what I needed and requesting quotes from a half dozen people. It was clear from how they responded just how capable they would be to fulfill my needs. The ones who didn’t get back to me quickly, I dismissed. There also were two or three who told me it was impossible to integrate the landing page, but they would be happy to create a whole new website for a price. Hah!

Finally, though, a wonderful Bangladeshi WordPress expert, Nayan, gave me a detailed, comprehensive overview of what he planned to do, and his rates were extremely low. I’ve worked with him since to completely integrate the new landing page with my upgraded blog, and I’m really pleased with the results. It’s now all of a piece and my digital world is whole again. I hope you learn from my mistakes.