How to Create a Download or Thank You Page

Part 20: A Long Look at Download Pages

How to create a download (thank you) page.

Some people get very worried about thieves stealing their ebooks. There are a lot of people online who are less than honest and think nothing of hacking their way into your site’s download page, ripping it off and distributing your hard work to all and sundry.

Is this a real problem?

Yes. I once received an email from a subscriber who said this:

“Why do you bother to try to sell your book to people in my country? They won’t buy it. Don’t you realize that as soon as any ebook is published it will be copied by people from my part of the world and sold for a fraction of the price you are charging?”

Well, maybe. I do sell quite a lot of ebooks at full price to people from that person’s country, so his sweeping generalization cannot be completely true. But even if there is an element of reality in it, should we worry?

My personal view is no.

I doubt very much if any of the people who are grabbing my ebooks for pennies on the dollar would have ever bought a full price copy in the first place. Have I lost a sale? No, I don’t think so. But I have gained an opportunity to get my name distributed more widely, and to advertise affiliate links, or subscription sign up pages within the ebook that they have taken.

Although there are reasonable safeguards that I can put in place to deter casual pirates, the ‘professionals’ will get my book whatever I do.

In Internet marketing, time is money, and I figure that the more time we spend worrying about the threat of piracy, the less time we have to make money. Not to mention the stress all that worry may cause.

Here is what I do.

I normally create the ebook in Adobe Acrobat with the security settings set so that the book’s contents cannot be changed or copy and pasted. This affords a small measure of protection against casual plagiarism.

Password protection. I don’t like it and don’t use it, but if you are really worried about security, you can create PDF files that can only be opened with a password. To my mind, this just annoys legitimate purchasers and does nothing to deter pirates (who can easily pass on the password anyway).

Another problem with password protection is that inevitably ‘real’ customers will forget their password and you will have to provide customer service for an indefinite period.

Now for some common-sense safeguards.

When you upload your ebook to your website ready for customers to download it, put it in a folder that nobody can guess the name of and on a web page with an equally obscure name. The URL may look something like:

http://www.mydomain.com/a3f7t/eht38s.htm

(Don’t bother to click on it as it doesn’t exist!)

You’d be surprised how many ebooks are stored on easy-to-guess URLs like http://www.mydomain.com/thankyou.htm

Those ones are just asking to be ripped off

Another way to add an extra layer of security is to make your download URL point to a redirect page. For example, the URL http://www.mydomain.com/a3f7t/eht38s.htm would arrive at a page which is comprised of the following HTML code :

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv=”Refresh” Content=”0;URL=http://www.mydomain.com/q5tge6/et35h.htm”>
</head>
<body>
This page will redirect in a few seconds.
If not <a href=”http://www.mydomain.com/q5tge6/et35h.htm”>Please Click Here</a>
</body>
</html>

This page will then redirect the visitor from the first URL to the one embedded in the page.

The benefit of this is that you can change the actual download page and folder – even the entire domain – anytime you like by simply amending the html on the redirect page – without ever having to worry about old customers having dead links.

An even better, and faster way to accomplish the same thing is to use a PHP redirect. With this, you create a page that comprises just this line:

<?php header(‘location:http://www.the-redirect-page.com’); ?>

(Change the URL to the appropriate one.) Save it with a php suffix and when you point a link to this page, it will immediately redirect the viewer to the one you’ve coded.

If you want to take security to a higher level, software solutions are available that will make sure that only the person who has made the purchase can access your download page.
What should a download page include?

* Zip or not?

Even though PDF files are already compressed to some extent, they can often be quite large. Running them through the Windows XP or Vista compression program (right click on the files or files, select ‘Send to’ and then select ‘Compressed (zipped) folder’) or using a program such as WinZip will often make them a little smaller. The result is that the file that you offer for download is now called myfile.zip rather than myfile.pdf.

For users or most modern browsers, that is a crucial difference because they generally have PDF reading capabilities built in. That means that if your thank you page offers a PDF file for download, your browser will open it to display rather than download it. And THAT can cause no end of confusion because customers do not end up with a copy of your book on their hard drive. As soon as they close their browser the book is lost.

If you are offering a PDF file from your download page, you must tell your customers to ‘right click on the download link and select ‘save target as’. This forces the browser to save the file rather that just display it.

However, .zip files are downloaded correctly so by offering your ebook in compressed form (whether that process actually makes a smaller file size or not) you are able to avoid the confusion.
Back to what your download page should or could include.

* A link to the ebook.

This is one of the things that appears to most confuse Internet beginners, so I’ll explain how you make a link to a book.

When you have made your ebook into a PDF and zipped it (if you want to do that). You will have a file called something like ebook.zip

Upload that file (usually by FTP) to your web space – ideally into a folder with an unguessable name. It doesn’t have to be the same folder that the download page itself is in. In fact, it is probably better that it is not.

Now your ebook will be in a location something like http://www.mydomain.com/hel28d/ebook.zip

Create a hyperlink on your download page that references that URL. The HTML that achieves this would be:

<a href=http://www.mydomain.com/hel28d/ebook.zip>Click Here to Download</a>

Now, when anyone clicks on the link they will be asked if they want to download the zip file.

* A link to an unzipping utility.

Windows XP and Vista are pretty good at unzipping files, but some recent versions of programs like WinZip can baffle it. It always best to explain the zipping and unzipping process to your customers and to offer them a link to the latest WinZip trial (currently http://www.winzip.com/ )

It is a good idea to also inform Apple Mac users that they can get a free decompression tool from Stuffit Expander. The URL for that is http://www.stuffit.com/mac/expander/index.html

* A link to Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Once again, Windows can display PDF files perfectly happily, but as not everyone has that operating system, it is a good idea to tell your customers where they can get a free copy of Acrobat Reader. This is the link you’ll need to display: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

* Instructions and contact details

Never assume that your customers have as much knowledge about ebooks, downloading and reading them as you have.

In fact, it is safe to assume that some will have almost no idea what an ebook is.

I actually got this email from a very nice lady who had just bought one of my ebooks:

“I’ve bought your book, but my printer hasn’t started yet. Can you make it start from where you are, and how can you add the cover if I don’t have thicker paper?”

There is always one!

Try to explain everything that they need to know or do, in plain English.

However, there will be people who are confused, so make sure you display a contact email address prominently so that they can get in touch with you. It is also worth mentioning which time zone you are in so that they don’t panic if they hear nothing for a few hours.

* Payment details.

It is also a good idea to reiterate how much their credit card has been charged and who the payment has been made to (i.e. ClickBank)

* Upsell

The best time to extract more money from a customer is just as they’ve parted with some. If you have already prepared a backend product, now is a good time to tell them about it and perhaps to offer a special deal.

* Bonuses

If your product is sold with bonuses, create download links for them and add in any instructions that may be required.

* Opt-in form

The thank-you (download) page is a great place to grow your email list! Explain to your customer that by purchasing your book they are eligible for free updates if and when the book is revised, but in order to notify them, you will need their valid email address. It is acceptable also to explain that by providing their email address they will also receive your newsletter as an unadvertised bonus!

Note that you should set your autoresponder to double opt-in these people.

* Privacy statement

Naturally, if you have an opt-in form, you must display a privacy statement to the effect that you will not share their email address with anyone.

Some Optional Extras

* Some people use their thank-you page as a valuable advertising medium in its own right. Among the clever uses that I’ve seen are:

* Cross promotions with other ebook marketers – in other words, you display a small ad to their ebook on your thank-you page and they do the same for you on theirs.

* Offers of subscriptions to other ezines (where those publishers also display your sign-up details.

* Affiliate ads to ebooks on related topics.

It is up to you!

How many of these ideas you use is entirely up to you. At its simplest, a download page doesn’t actually need any of them at all – even a download link is optional! Many Internet marketers have a download page that consists only of an email sign-up form and nothing else. The customer has to fill in the form to be emailed the ebook. Their reasoning is that they simultaneously capture the buyer’s email address, and avoid the need to protect the download page – as there isn’t one.

I personally prefer to make my download pages as informative as possible as I see them as the beginning of a relationship with my customer.

And in my experience, a confused customer is one who is far more likely to ask for a refund.

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