Landing Pages for Idiots Question

[dkrause]

I know this will be a silly question to most of you, but is a new "need" for me.

My site, http://www.thedianekrause.com, uses the Outreach theme. I would like to add a landing page dedicated to a cookbook I'm getting ready to publish. I would like to use a separate URL for the landing page. Specifically, the cookbook is titled "The Dinner Creations Cookbook" and I have purchased the domain, http://www.dinnercreationscookbook.com.

I'm trying to understand how the unique URL gets assigned (or redirected) to the landing page on an existing site.

I do already have http://www.dinnercreationscookbook.com set up on my hosting account. Do I just need to have that domain redirected to the landing page on http://www.thedianekrause.com after I create it? Or is this handled some other way?

Thank you, from the Idiots (really, just Ignorant) camp! 🙂

http://www.thedianekrause.com

[Bill Murray]

Your question is more complicated than I suspect you imagine it to be because of the SEO issues involved.

Since you have the domain dinnercreationscookbook.com, that domain will be an exact match domain for searches for the keyword phrase "dinner creations cookbook". Some believe that the value of exact match domains is declining, which is probably true. Still, an exact match domain will make ranking for that term easier, all other things being equal.

Therefore, you have to decide whether the value of that keyword and the boost from having an exact match domain is worth the time & expense of building out a site on the domain dinnercreationscookbook.com. Note that the exact match benefit is limited to searches for that exact phrase, and early on, the value will likely be low (since the book hasn't been published), but if sales of the book take off, the exact match domain can prove very valuable. If it is worth the effort, then your landing page question changes, because you'd likely have a page on your domain thedianekrause.com linking to your cookbook site. The page on thedianekrause.com wouldn't be a landing page, because you want the cookbook site to be the focus for that project. The page might describe you as an author or books you've written, but your goal would be to direct all traffic for the cookbook to the cookbook site.

On the other hand, if you decide the exact match domain is not worth the effort of building a 2nd site, you'd then build a landing page on thedianekrause.com, ideally where "dinnercreationscookbook" was in the landing page URL.

You can redirect every request to the domain dinnercreationscookbook.com to the landing page on thedianekrause.com, and your best bet is to work with your hosting provider to do that. If your host is using Apache servers, the simplest and fastest way would be to use redirects in an htaccess file.

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[David Chu]

Hi,
If you haven't done it yet, it's not a silly question. 🙂

Let's say you make a landing page on your site with the URL
thedianekrause.com/dinner-creations-cookbook
.. or something similar.

You have the brand new URL (dinnercreationscookbook.com) set up on your hosting account - in most such accounts, there should be some kind of admin area that relates to your URL. Somewhere in there, possibly buried in a menu, there should be someplace where you can tell the URL to redirect to the landing page's URL. That would handle it, and it can be pretty quickly tested. If you're not sure if your URL has a redirect option, check with your host to find out, and where in the menu it is.

That's one way.

Cheers, Dave

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Dave Chu · Custom WordPress Developer – likes collaborating with Designers

[dkrause]

Thank you, gentlemen! You answered my question.

Bill -- Yes, I knew there were SEO considerations, and I ran those past my favorite "web guys" for input. I had already purchased the domain, and I have a hosting account that allows me up to 5 domains, so there's no additional fee to host it, beyond what I'm already paying. I don't plan to do an entirely separate site, mostly because I don't want the maintenance of it. So I've decided just to do a landing page and have the new domain direct to that landing page. The initial question I ran past my "web guys" was whether there was any benefit to making use of the separate URL, or would keywords within the landing page on http://www.thedianekrause.com be sufficient? We tossed it back and forth, and I decided to go ahead and set up the separate URL since it wasn't a great deal of extra time and/or expense.

David -- Thank you for the great explanation. That was exactly what I wanted to know. I guessed that was how it works, but wasn't entirely sure. I'll go into my hosting account and look for the re-direct. If it's not a DIY task, I'll get in touch with my hosting guy and have him complete it for me.

Thank you again. You guys were very helpful.

Diane

[David Chu]

Diane,
Glad to help. Bill's SEO points are well-taken.

I might opt for a separate URL, too, one that you can mention when you're interviewed on a radio or TV program, that someone can actually remember and go to easily. Yours is like that - nice and easy.

Whereas I hear other people who have made some convoluted URL with 12 words, dashes, underscores, and other silliness. Hilarious, and no doubt generated by committee in some conference room. 🙂

Good luck on selling the book!
Dave

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Dave Chu · Custom WordPress Developer – likes collaborating with Designers

[dkrause]

Thanks, David. Oh, and I forgot to add this other detail for Bill. The book is actually already published. It's a collection of recipes from a food service business we ran and closed in late 2008. We had a very loyal customer base, and many of them wanted the recipes -- hence the cookbook. I sold several hundred within the first year, but I still keep copies on hand because I do still get an order every now and then (don't do any active marketing). I've been printing copies locally, so I could do very small print runs. At this point, I have the ebook thing down, so I'm taking the cookbook content and creating an ebook version. I'm also going to go ahead and do an updated print version through CreateSpace so I can list it on Amazon.

My reason for the unique URL is that old customers who might want to look for the book will know it by that name -- or someone who has a friend with a copy, and they want one themselves. Basically, people shopping for this book will know it by name and search for pretty close to the exact term. I'm curious to see how the ebook version will do. It was a minimal investment since the content was already created, so it was a "why not?" type of project.

David -- yes, I agree on the interesting URLs! This one is kinda long, but one my target audience will know.

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