A page for a downloadable guide

The page matters more than the file

A document behind a form cannot be read by a search engine or an answer engine, cannot be linked to meaningfully, and cannot bring anybody to your site who did not already know about it.

The same content as a page is findable, quotable and useful immediately. Everything our page on choosing sources describes applies to the page and to none of the file.

So write the guide as a page first. The file becomes a convenience for people who want to print it or keep it, which is a real want and a secondary one.

Gating, and when it is worth it

Gating trades reach for addresses. For most small businesses that trade is poor, because the list is small and the lost reach is permanent.

It is worth it when the material is genuinely substantial, when the audience is narrow and identifiable, and when you will actually use the list rather than collecting it out of habit.

The middle path works best. Publish the page openly, offer the file for an address, and you keep the reach while still collecting details from the people who want the document.

Collecting addresses properly

Say what you will send, how often, and how to stop. An address collected for a guide and then used for a weekly newsletter is a consent problem rather than a marketing tactic.

Ask for as little as possible. Every extra field costs completions, and a form asking for a company name and a phone number to release a document collects considerably fewer of both.

Our page on email collection and consent covers the rules. Nothing here is legal advice, and the requirements differ by where your readers are.

What the page around it needs

The list below is what turns a download into a page that works. Most guide pages carry the first item and almost none of the rest.

• The substance of the guide readable on the page itself
• What the guide covers, in specific terms
• Who it is for and who will not need it
• The file format and roughly how long it is
• A form asking only for what you will use
• A clear statement of what you will send and how to stop
• A route to contacting you for anybody who wants help instead

Accessibility of the file

A document exported from a design tool is frequently unusable with a screen reader. Tagged headings, real text rather than images of text, and a reading order that makes sense all have to be deliberate.

Our page on accessible documents covers what that involves. It is more work than most people expect, which is another argument for the page carrying the substance.

Where the file is not accessible, the readable page is the accessible alternative, and it should be obvious rather than hidden behind the same form.

Keeping the guide current

A downloaded file cannot be updated. Every copy anybody saved keeps whatever it said on the day, which makes dated material in a file a longer-lived problem than dated material on a page.

Put a version and a date inside the document itself, and keep the page the authoritative version. Then an old copy at least announces its own age to whoever is reading it.

Review both together. Our page on keeping content current covers the routine, and a guide with figures in it needs it more than most pages.

Following up

Somebody who downloaded a guide has told you what they are working on. That is a better signal than almost anything else your site collects, and most businesses never act on it.

Follow up with something useful rather than with a sales message. A short note asking whether the guide answered the question starts more conversations than an offer does.

And keep the promise you made on the form. If you said one email, send one. Doing otherwise costs you the list and, in several jurisdictions, more than that.