If you are an artist and want to promote your work online, you need a portfolio to share and showcase your talent. There's no discussion here.

But sometimes, it is not easy to create a digital portfolio that honors your job. You need to have knowledge of design, programming, and even SEO to make your portfolio attractive, intuitive, and easy to find for your potential clients.

A tough task, indeed.

This is why more and more tools are being developed to facilitate this process and to offer you the possibility of creating a portfolio in a simple way, without any technical knowledge.

One of the best-known and most widely used by professionals all over the world is Behance. The Adobe team knows this perfectly well, which is why they have developed a tool designed to convert your Behance profile into your own customizable online portfolio website with just a couple of clicks, among many other possibilities.

Do you want to discover each and every one of them? In this guide, we’re going to explain what Adobe Portfolio is and how you can use it to create your professional portfolio in just one day.

What is Adobe Portfolio?

As I was anticipating at the beginning of this article, Adobe Portfolio is a great online platform that allows professionals to design and showcase their portfolio websites with ease. It is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, which you probably already know about, and it’s made specifically for creatives.

So whether you're a photographer, designer, illustrator, or any other type of artist, Adobe Portfolio may be the solution you were looking for to start reaching more people and keep growing with your work.

One of the first things you'll love about Adobe Portfolio is that, of course, it seamlessly integrates with any other Adobe Creative Cloud application, allowing you to easily share your projects from programs like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Lightroom, for example.

Of course, to do so, you will be able to decide among hundreds of beautifully designed themes and templates that you can customize to match your style and brand.

You will have a great time exploring each and every one of them!

Another appreciated feature is the automatic responsive design, so when you are creating your portfolio, you will not have to develop an adapted version for each type of device. Adobe Portfolio does it for you so you don't have to waste time. Your portfolio website will automatically adjust and look great on various devices, from desktops to mobile phones.

Super useful.

Although these features are not exclusive of Adobe Portfolio, you can find them in many other solutions. For me, what makes the difference over other options is the ability to own your portfolio and host it on your own domain, so you don't depend on third parties or have to deal with watermarks that detract from the look and feel of your portfolio.

It looks professional and unique, as if you designed and programmed it yourself by hand.

Lastly, Adobe Portfolio allows you to optimize your site for search engines, making it easier for potential clients to find you. Something that will always come in handy to close new contracts and be able to continue living from what you enjoy the most: your talent.

But we will discuss all of this in more depth later. For now, let's take a closer look at how you can start using the tool as soon as possible.

1. Getting started with Adobe Portfolio

Enough discussion, let's start exploring the tool by just following these steps here:

• Access Adobe Portfolio: The first thing you will have to do to start using Adobe Portfolio is to enter the platform. To do so, just go to the Adobe Portfolio website here and log in using your Adobe ID. If you don't have an Adobe ID, you'll need to create one from scratch.
• Choose a Plan: Adobe Portfolio might be included in your Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. If not, you can follow this link to choose a plan that suits your needs.

Once you're logged in, Adobe Portfolio will automatically sync with your Adobe Creative Cloud account. This means that you can easily import your projects from other Adobe applications if that’s what you want, such as Photoshop or Lightroom.

As explained at the beginning of this guide, Adobe Portfolio is also designed to be easily integrated with Behance, as it is one of the most used solutions by creative professionals around the world.

So if you have a Behance profile, linking it to your Adobe Portfolio account not only will it make the whole process of creating your portfolio easier (as the projects you have there will be automatically uploaded to your Adobe Portfolio), but it will also help you to increase your exposure, as visitors can explore your work across both platforms, enhancing your online presence.

Cool, right? Let’s create an awesome portfolio, then.

2. How to easily design your portfolio?

This is a no-code tool, so the first thing you’ll need to do after entering your Adobe account is to choose a pre-made theme for your portfolio website.

As said, you will be able to browse through the available themes to select the one that best aligns with your style and the type of work you do. You can also choose whether to design a full portfolio or just a welcome page, as you prefer.

Remember that you can customize the theme later or even change to a different theme, so don't worry if you're not set on a specific design just yet.

Once you have done this, you can start tailoring your new portfolio. Here’s what you need to do to achieve it:
• Upload your projects: Once you've selected a theme, it's time to start uploading your projects. You can do it one by one or easily create pages by importing content from Adobe Lightroom or Behance, as I explained before. To do it, just use the “Integrations” feature on your left:

• Organize the content: Use the drag-and-drop interface to organize your content within each project. Rearrange images and text to create visually appealing layouts of your choice.
  
• Add pages: Need more pages in your portfolio? Don’t worry; Adobe Portfolio allows you to create multiple pages for your website. This is particularly useful if you want to divide your work into different categories or themes. For example, you could have separate pages for photography, design, and illustration.
• Customise the layouts and design: Every theme in Adobe Portfolio comes with its own default layout. However, you can customize these layouts to suit your preferences. Adjust the placement of images, text, and other elements to create a unique and visually pleasing design.

Change the fonts and colours: Choose your favourite portfolio's typography and color scheme to match your personal brand or style. Adobe Portfolio provides many options to change fonts and colours, ensuring that your portfolio reflects your creative vision.

All the changes you add will automatically appear to your right, so the design is updated before your eyes in real time, which makes everything much easier to use and understand.

3. Every project counts

Each of your projects deserves its own space online. So when you're designing your portfolio with Adobe Portfolio, you'll be able to create a dedicated page per project. This page will display your work and any accompanying descriptions or details you desire to add.

The tool also allows you to smoothly upload high-quality images and media to show your art in the best possible light. One pro tip here: Ensure the media you upload is properly optimized for web display to ensure fast loading.

Of course, you can also accompany each project with a detailed description. This give you the opportunity to explain the concept, process, and inspiration behind the work. This will help visitors to better understand your creative approach and the story behind each of your pieces.

Once you’re happy with how each project looks, you can use the drag-and-drop feature again to arrange them in a logical and visually pleasing order. Consider the flow and narrative you want to convey as visitors explore and enjoy your portfolio.

In addition to project pages, you can create custom pages with unique content. These pages can include an "About Me" section, a resume, contact information, or even a blog.

If you have content hosted on external platforms, such as YouTube videos or articles on Medium, you can embed it directly into your portfolio pages.

Make sure your portfolio includes a clear and easily accessible space for visitors to contact you. Providing contact information is crucial, whether it's an email address, a contact form, or links to your social media profiles. So don't skip this step!

4. How do I upload flipbooks to my Adobe Portfolio?

An excellent and convenient way to exhibit your work online is to use a flipbook in your portfolio. This innovative format allows you to create interactive files with which you can add images, videos, links, audios and many other elements to offer the visitor a unique experience within your portfolio.

At Heyzine, you can convert any of your PDF projects to a wonderful flipbook for free with just one click.

This will not only allow you to smoothly create as many flipbooks as you need for your portfolio, but you will also be able to add extra features to your projects, such as the possibility of using forms in your files, protecting your private projects with a password if you wish, or collecting information about the visits your flipbooks receive, among many other functionalities.

If you are already a flipbook lover and want to upload yours to the portfolio you are creating with Adobe Portfolio, in this guide here we explain how you can do it in five easy steps.

Be sure to check it out if you're interested.

5. How to set a custom domain for your portfolio?

My favourite online tools are those that not only make your life so much easier, but also allow you to customise 100% the entire interface so that no one even notice you've used them to achieve your goals.

And that's exactly what you'll be able to do by using a custom url that will add a professional touch to your brand new portfolio website.

Just go to settings > domain name and start setting everything up. If you already have a domain, you can link it to your Adobe Portfolio here. If not, Adobe offers the option to purchase a domain directly through the platform:

Easy, right?

In fact, in this “settings” section, you can find many other extra features to professionalize the look & feel of your portfolio, such as the ability to edit the favicons, the web clip icon, the thumbnails that will appear when sharing your portfolio on networks, and many other functionalities that I invite you to explore.

The options are endless!

As you will see, you can also use this tab to optimize your portfolio for search engines within the platform by configuring the SEO settings. For example, you can add relevant keywords, meta descriptions, and titles to improve your website's visibility and reach potential clients through the SERP.

Of course, you can also control the visits your portfolio receives and which channel they come from by integrating it into your Google Analytics account from this same settings section.

Basically, you get it all in one place, so be sure to take a good look at it when you are setting up your portfolio.

6. How to publish your portfolio online?

Ok. That’s it.

It looks like the work is all done and you are finally ready to share your portfolio with the world. That’s huge!

But before publishing your portfolio, though, I advise you to preview it to see how it will appear to visitors. Make sure all the images, text, and media are displayed correctly.

If you notice any issues during the preview, you can easily make changes before publishing. Modify layouts, update content or rearrange projects until you're satisfied with the overall look and feel of your portfolio.

Take your time.

Once you're satisfied with your work, it's time to go live! Click the “Publish Site" button to make your website accessible to the world. You can share the URL with potential clients and anyone else who may be interested in your work.

I mean...who wouldn't be?

Now that you have your portfolio online make sure to regularly update it to showcase your latest work as you get involved in new challenges. Just use the same process you followed initially to add new projects to your portfolio.

I’m sure your creative journey will evolve over time, and so will your portfolio. So, every time you need to rearrange the order of your projects or remove outdated work, simply access the editing interface and make the necessary changes.

Occasionally, you may want to update project descriptions, images, or other new content. Make sure your portfolio accurately reflects your current skills and style.

7. Will my Adobe Portfolio be responsive?

As mentioned before, Adobe Portfolio themes are designed to be automatically responsive, meaning they adapt to different screen sizes. However, it's a good practice to preview your portfolio on various devices to ensure everything looks and functions as intended.

Use the mobile preview feature to see how your portfolio appears on smartphones and tablets. As always, you can adjust layouts, font sizes, and other elements if needed to create an optimal mobile viewing experience:

8. How do I promote my portfolio?

I have no doubt that your portfolio will look wonderful, but it will be of little use if no one visits it. That's why it's so important that you take advantage of the different ways that the platform offers you to promote it.

You can start by integrating your social media accounts with your portfolio to share your work with a broader audience. You can easily connect your Adobe Portfolio to platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

As I had also advised you before, If you have a Behance profile, it is a great idea to link it to your Adobe Portfolio in order to increase your exposure. Visitors can explore your work across both platforms, enhancing your online presence.

Of course, if you have any other communication channel that you use to talk to your audience and potential clients, don't hesitate to announce the launch of your new portfolio there.

Everyone deserves to enjoy such a marvel!

First things first:

What is a travel brochure?

A travel brochure is a printed or digital publication designed to provide information about a particular destination or travel experience.

These brochures are typically created by travel agencies, tourism boards, or businesses to attract visitors and provide them with information about the destination.

The goal of a travel brochure is to inspire and inform potential travelers, encouraging them to choose the destination for their next adventure.

In this article, we aim to help you with the creation of your travel content, providing some useful tips and considerations to have in mind to start from scratch with your brochure.

• Outline the travel brochure
• How to create a travel brochure?
  - What’s inside a travel brochure?
  - What to add to the design of a Travel brochure?
• Things to consider when creating travel brochure
  - Who is your audience?
  - What to avoid?
• Make an online travel brochure

Outline the travel brochure

In the first place, it’ll be necessary to select the destination that you’re going to make the content about and investigate its most famous places, culture, traditions, foods, markets, and seasonal events.

Consider when the travel brochure will be distributed. When possible, the best option is to work on different brochures for each season to make it more appealing and useful. For example, you can use summer or winter pictures, warm or cold colors in the design, add more relevant information about events or activities on the dates, and so you can create a brochure with a much more specific context for the traveler.

With that in mind, you then can create an outline of everything you will include on the brochure, and most importantly, you’ll need to verify that the information you’ve collected is trustworthy. Make sure that the sources where you took this information from have comments, reviews, or is an official site.

When someone decides to travel to a city and is looking for a brochure, he most probably has never been there, so you want to ensure that the people reading your content get the best information possible in a straightforward and clear way. You can always add links or references for the reader to expand the information and go deeper.

Use illustrative pictures that will allow the reader to discover the charm of the focal points like monuments, and nature, and have a brief idea of what that place is about. Make sure that these pictures are high quality, and try not to use pictures that don’t show authentic colors. Making a place look better than it is with an overly retouched image will only make the traveler disappointed and blame the brochure or, worse, the brand.

Add maps to your brochure to make it more useful. They could be interactive so your readers can see the places they want to visit and what will be around.

Include recommendations about places where the tourist can eat typical food, where they can go shopping, carnivals, events, etc. And, of course, mention your services, such as if you offer guidance, accommodation, transportation, etc.

You can also contact the best places when you do not offer these specific services. It is usually possible to reach agreements or partnerships with them. Keep in mind that the satisfaction of your reader is more important than the profitability of a partnership.

How to create a travel brochure?

What’s inside a travel brochure?

The cover often features a captivating image or illustration of a key attraction from the destination. It may also include the destination's name and a slogan representing the place.

A brief introduction or welcome message that sets the tone for the brochure and entices readers to explore the destination. This can be about the city, the country, or an introduction to your services.

Add the main destinations. This section must highlight the main attractions, landmarks, and activities that make the destination unique. It may include images, descriptions, and key selling points. Add information about historical facts about the destination.

Add a map of the area to help readers get a sense of the geography and the location of major points of interest. The map can be interactive or have the places highlighted with illustrations. As we mentioned, this will help your readers spend more time looking at the brochure, which will help your brand retention.

Include accommodations, like information about hotels, resorts, and other lodging options in the area, including information about amenities, room types, and contact information.

Descriptions of various activities and entertainment options available in the destination, such as tours, excursions, and cultural events. Here it is necessary to consider when the travel brochure will be distributed in order to include only the events of the specific season and not to overload it with unnecessary information.

Information about local cuisine, popular restaurants, and dining options, including special dishes or culinary experiences unique to the area. When possible talk to someone who lives near the area. Many of the best restaurants are not very public, and your reader will appreciate a good, not-so-well-known place to eat.

Select the appropriate information about transportation. Add details on how to get to the destination, and the most exclusive or affordable ways. This section may also include links to buy transportation tickets. It's something most travelers don't like spending time on.

Make sure to include useful information such as local customs, language tips, currency details, and other practical advice.

It's also a good idea to save some space to add quotes or testimonials from previous visitors, providing positive feedback about their experiences in the destination.

Always include your contact details for the tourism board, travel agencies, or businesses mentioned in the brochure and near the testimonials or in the context of the services offered, allowing visitors to seek further information at the right time.

What to add to the design of a Travel brochure?

The role of a travel brochure design is important to create visually appealing and informative publications. As one, you can use different tools that will prove templates to have somewhere to start with your design, for example you can work with Canva, Venngage, InDesign, among others.

Travel brochure designers are responsible for conceptualizing the visual elements of the brochure. This includes selecting appropriate images, graphics, and layout styles that capture the essence of the destination. For example, using a classic font for an Athens travel brochure, a modern background for a Tokyo travel, or a warm color palette for a Caribean trip.

You should also ensure that the brochure aligns with you branding guidelines to reinforce the brand identity.

The layout and composition of the brochure involves arranging text, images, and other design elements in a way that is aesthetically pleasing and guides the reader through the content logically. For example, you can add "Did you know?" boxes with facts or tips, relevant maps or infographies in-between the text or maybe a layout with testimonials at the bottom of each section.

Choose the right typography for readability and to maintain the overall theme of the design. You should choose two fonts or three at most to keep the design consistent, and it should be very legible in case the traveler is on the move.

Selecting high-quality images that showcase the destination's attractions and atmosphere is key. This is the first thing that will catch your reader attention, and it can be difficult to differentiate from any other travel brochure about the same place. You can be creative by using close-up pictures for what would normally be a landscape. Or combine images of a monument: a small one easily recognizable and a larger one with unusual or uknown details. Including photos of people enjoying activities can also help your reader reflect on what will happen when he gets there.

While designing the brochure you also need to organize information in a structured way. You can emphasize a travel route, a theme, the history behind a place or the importance for quick or long travels. Depending on the research of the destination and the target audience, you must choose the appropriate organization.

When you know the brochure will be printed, using a print-first approach is a good idea. It is easier to make a printed document become digital than the other way around. You need to consider specifications such as paper size, folds, bleed margins, and the minimum resolution of the images you will use. Always keep in mind what sections will become interactive when online. This will help you take the appropiate design decisions early on. For example, a printed map should be large enough to be easily navigable when converted to a Google map in the digital version.

Bring a creative flair to the project, exploring innovative ways to present information to stand out. Add interactions like videos, webs to official sites, typical music of the country, links, among others, this will make the content more interactive and fun to watch for the travelers.

Things to consider when creating a travel brochure.

Who is your audience?

The target audience for a travel brochure can vary depending on the destination, the purpose of the content, and the marketing strategy. However, in general, the primary audience includes:

• Individuals who are considering traveling to the destination
• People who have a general interest in travel
• Bussiness travelers
• Tour operators
• Educational institutions or cultural organizations
• Event planners promoting conferences or special occasions
• National, or local governmental entities promoting their city or region

You don't have to stick to the general category you are targeting. Go as deep as you can researching the target audience:

• Analyze the destination main attractions: Will it attract families? honeymooners, cultural enthusiasts?
• Understand the demographics: Is it a destination for older or younger people? Is it an expensive or luxury destination?
• Think about the travel motivations: Is it a leisure or a business travel? Must be an adventure or a relaxed experience?

This will help you define the tone of the text and the design of your brochure, and will make it easier for you to decide what to recommend for places to go, routes to follow, restaurants to eat, or activities to do.

What to avoid?

Things to avoid when making a travel brochure:

Avoid overloading the brochure with too much information. A clean and organized design is more attractive and more accessible to readers.

Try not to mislead the reader. They are trusting you for a travel to an unknown place. Focusing on their interests and preferences will help your brand more than any promotion or partnership.

Keep the information updated. What could be worse than planning and going to a remote site only to find that it is closed for renovations? Keep a list of the activities and update your brochure often. Make it clear to your readers when you updated something and they will see that they are in good hands.

Don't leave the digital version aside. Ensure that it is digital and mobile-friendly. Many people access travel information on smartphones, so the brochure should be easily viewable on any device. Allow your readers to download the content in case the connectivity is a problem, so they can access the brochure always.

Poorly edited images can impact the overall quality of the brochure. Images are what will initially attract your readers, they need to be high-quality and represent the destination well.

Long paragraphs of text can be overwhelming. Aim for concise and engaging content. Use bullet points, subheadings, and captions to break up the text and make it more friendly. Avoid using complex langage, keep the language simple and accessible.

Make an online travel brochure

Now that you created the best possible travel brochure you can make it online with Heyzine. A few and easy steps and it looks like this:

We have various guides on how to create your travel brochure flipbook, add interactivity, group them in digital bookshelves, or embed hem to your website.

Go ahead and inspire more people to travel the world.

Artificial intelligence is here to change everything. We have long suspected the huge power it will have in our personal and professional lives, and more and more tools are using its potential to offer a better service to their users.

And that is precisely what Microsoft has done with its newly released editing tool, Microsoft Designer. A very powerful design solution that is sure to become a real alternative to Canva Plus, it is also one of the first Microsoft tools to incorporate Copilot, an AI assistant that allows you to design all kinds of things in the blink of an eye.

So let's cut to the chase and see how you can start using Microsoft Designer today to create professional designs with no design knowledge at all.

• What is Microsoft Designer?
• How much does Microsoft Designer cost?
• Getting Started with Microsoft Designer
• Discovering the editing panel
• Downloading your designs
• Sharing the designs online

What is Microsoft Designer?

As mentioned at the beginning, Microsoft Designer is a powerful tool that offers a wide range of design features to help users create visual content through artificial intelligence.

It is available within the Microsoft Office suite, but you can access it directly using this link here. The tool is free to use for now, and it provides a user-friendly interface and a large number of different tools for creating visual designs, such as brochures, posters, presentations, and more.

Whether you're a student, professional, or business owner, Microsoft Designer can enhance your design projects in just two clicks.

How much does Microsoft Designer cost?

Microsoft Designer is currently available for free to everyone. However, it is expected that in the future, as new features are added, some of them will be limited to Microsoft 365 paid plans.

In any case, right now and in the medium term, we can enjoy all the benefits and AI power of Microsoft Designer at no cost.

Getting Started with Microsoft Designer

To access Microsoft Designer and start using the tool, you will have to log in first to your Microsoft account, of course. If you don't have an account, you will need to create one from scratch. Don't worry, though, it's free, and you can do it in just a couple of minutes. You will land on the Microsoft Designer start page when you have done so.

One of the first things that may surprise you is that you don't have the typical blank canvas like in other editing platforms, where you have to come up with a design on your own.

Instead, what you find is a space to your left that invites you to describe the type of design you want to create. So you can use it to type in any idea you have in your head, and the artificial intelligence will create several design proposals based on the concept you have chosen.

Let's look at an example. Let's say I want to create several posts on Instagram to promote the sales I'm going to do in my business during the summer.

All I have to do is ask the tool for ideas and it will design different proposals that I can explore and edit as I wish:

When you add the description of your idea, you can also upload your own images or ask the tool to generate new images through AI.

Although if you are uninspired or just not sure what you want to create, different default templates will appear on the homepage before you type anything at all.

But that's not all! If you hover your mouse over each asset, it will show the text that has been used to create each of these sample designs you're browsing through.

Back to our summer sales design, if for whatever reason we don't like any of the Microsoft Designer templates, we can click on "generate" again and 15 new designs will be created automatically right before your eyes.

At the top of the designs, you will see an option to choose the size of the asset. When you do so, new designs will be re-created to fit only the size you have chosen for your masterpiece.

Discovering the editing panel

This brings us to the design interface. If you are a Canva user, you will find it very easy to switch to Microsoft Designer, as the editing panel works similarly.

Since we have selected a design, we can start modifying its elements directly here, so we don't have to start our post from scratch, which will save us a lot of time and headaches. But before we start modifying our design, let's take a quick look at the sections of this editing panel.

The first thing we see on our right is a column with several ideas based on our post, in case we are not sure or want to continue exploring more options. If there is one that convinces us more, we simply have to click on it, and it will replace our first choice.

If you don't want to see more ideas, you can click on the X, and the column will disappear to give you more space while you edit your design.

I'm happy with my post for now, so let's continue exploring the editing panel.

As with other editing tools, all design elements can be selected and modified easily by clicking on them. For example, if I want to move or modify the text of my summer post, I can do it by just selecting it with the cursor and dragging it to where I want, which makes it much easier for me to modify my design:

Also, when I do so, some guidelines will appear to help me make sure my text is centered, as well as a set of extra tools to fully customize the text in question.

Through this top bar, I will be able to change the font, size, color and other aspects of the text, to align them 100% with the design guidelines of my project. If I need to add new texts to my post, I can do it whenever I want from the Text section on the left.

But that's not all, of course. If we want to add extra elements to our design, such as a logo, we can do it through the My media section.

This functionality will allow us to upload elements from our computer, from the phone and through other sources where we have saved the files we want to use.

I'm going to upload the Heyzine logo, of course. As you will see in the screenshot below, every time you upload an image, Microsoft Designer will allow you to add edits, adjustments and effects, in case you need them. You can see them
on the left side of the screen:

But that's not the coolest part. As you will see, after uploading the Heyzine logo to the design, a column reappears on the right-hand side to offer me new ideas that combine the three elements I currently have in my design: the logo, the image and the text. Nice, isn’t it?

Of course, apart from the multimedia elements that we can add to the design, Microsoft Designer also offers a lot of royalty-free visual elements that we can use in our post.

To access them, just go back to the menu on the left, click on "visuals" and choose the type of graphic element that best suits your needs.

You have at your disposal: Images, Filled Shapes, Organic shapes, Videos, Icons, and Graphics.

What is quite neat here is that the artificial intelligence seems to understand the context of the design you have created and therefore suggests related visual elements so that you can find exactly what you are looking for.

In fact, you may even find what you didn't know you needed for your design. Crazy! And if, for whatever reason, you don't come up with anything you like, you can generate your own image through, again, the platform's AI.

You just have to click on Generate and describe the type of image you want to create:

In case you haven't yet fallen in love with this new Microsoft tool, let's take a look at one last feature of the dashboard, the Brand Kit.

As its name suggests, it is used to set up a brand kit with the colors and typography of your company or project. This way, you can save them as default and use them whenever you want, which will save you a lot of time with your new designs.

If you haven't designed your company's brand kit yet, you can use some of the suggestions the tool gives you to start shaping it.

Downloading your designs

Are you satisfied with your design? Then it's time to show it to the world!

The first thing you can do, of course, is to download it to your computer or phone. You can choose between PNG, JPEG or PDF format.

You can also make the background transparent if you need it. Once done, if you want to create more designs, you can do it by clicking on New Design or
from this button on the left:

If you click on My designs you can retrieve any of the previous assets you have created within the platform and continue editing to create as many assets as you need.

Sharing the designs online

In this quick guide, we have seen how you can create a simple post to share on networks, but Microsoft Designer also allows you to design reports, catalogs, brochures, and other formats that you can export to PDF and use in your business.

Once you have it, you can choose to leave it as is or go one step further and make it interactive.

With Heyzine, you can let your readers interact with the design you've just created and share it online, offering a breakthrough user experience.

To do this, click here and import the PDF document you created in Microsoft Designer. When the conversion finishes, click Customize to add elements and interactions to your file.

This will not only help you create your first flipbook, but you will also be able to add interactive images, embed videos, take the user to specific pages of the document, use forms in your file, and many other features. It's very intuitive, but you can also find how to do it here.

You can even protect your publications with a password, if you wish, share them easily on any of the communication channels you use in your business, collect information about the visits your documents receive, and much more.

Discover all the possibilities Heyzine offers, create your interactive online PDFs, and share them. It's completely free.

Ready to try it? Combine Microsoft Designer with Heyzine and make a difference with your next presentation!

Heyzine flipbook and bookshelf links are private by default. That means we never publish or share your publications anywhere, so unless you do it, Google or other search engines will not be able to find and index your publication.

Besides that, for an extra layer of security, you can always set a password to your flipbooks to ensure only certain people can access them, or also protect your flipbook so it's available on specific websites only.

But sometimes, you might want it to be public, but at the same time, prevent Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and other search engines from crawling and listing your flipbooks on their sites.

We will see in this guide how you can do it.

• Disable Google Search indexing for all your flipbooks
• Disable Google Search indexing for specific flipbooks
• Unlist already indexed publication

Disable Google Search indexing for all your flipbooks

When you want to make all your flipbooks and bookshelf uncrawlable by search engines, the solution is to go to your account page > domain tab, change the selection to "Search engine indexing disallowed" and click save.

This way, you don't have to worry about new or past publications. All of them will be marked as not indexable.

Disable Google Search indexing for specific flipbooks

On the other hand, you might have both public and private flipbooks. Not a problem. Just click the flipbook you want to configure, publish settings > advanced tab, disable the toggle, and remember to click save.

This will make the specific flipbook not indexable by search engines, while the rest of the flipbooks will keep their own settings.

Unlist already indexed publication

The configuration we mentioned above adds a special header to your flipbooks that instructs search engines never to crawl or index your pages. If you have changed the setting when Google or another search engine has already indexed it, you will have to wait until it tries to crawl it again.

In case it's something urgent, reach out, and we will start an internal process with the search engine to unlist your heyzine flipbook or bookshelf as soon as possible.

Visitor statistics are a vital metric for measuring success and understanding your audience. However, it's simply impossible to get data when it comes to PDF documents, files, or other basic online services. With the Heyzine Professional Plan, it can't be easier to understand your reader's behavior.

You can find out the number of visits and visitors over time, the duration of the visits, all the interactions, links, and hotspots clicked on a document, the website and location your readers come from, and much more information.

Let's see what data you can extract from each of the sections of the statistics
page.

• Where can I find the stats of my documents?
• How do I view stats per page?
• How do I know where my visitors are coming from?
• How do readers interact with my documents?
• How can I export the data?

Where can I find the stats of my documents?

Very easy. Just log in to your account and go to the stats icon at the top of the dashboard:

Once there, the first thing you can do with your stats is to filter them by time and publication.

To do this, you just have to choose the time frame you want to analyze and decide if you desire to see the data from all your documents, a flipbook tag, or just from one of them in particular.

When you do so, you will see three metrics appear in the first graph of your statistics:

• Views: This metric shows how many visits your document has received.
• Visitors: This metric shows how many visitors your document has received.
• Visit duration: This metric shows the average time spent on your document

So, if a user visits a flipbook 3 times, the statistics will show 3 views from 1 single visitor. The chart below will show you the evolution of your views, visitors, or visit duration over time. You only need to click the metric you are interested in.

How do I view stats per page?

If you scroll down toward the bottom of the statistics page, you will find a chart that ranks flipbooks by relevance according to the number of visitors, views, or visit duration. You can see from the TOP 5 to the TOP 20 publications. You can also choose to see this information in a bar chart or a pie chart with the button at the top-right corner.

The information in this section changes depending on whether you have chosen to view the stats of a group of your flipbooks together or just one of them specifically.

If you have chosen this last option, or you click the bar, the chart will show the TOP Pages of that publication in particular according to the visitors, views, or visit duration it has received.

By changing the base metric and checking this panel, you can easily discover which pages are visited more often and which ones your audience is spending more time on. This will help you improve the most relevant content in your publication.

The graph typically has this shape where the first pages have more visitors than the last ones. It allows you to see where the big drops are and add or improve the content on these pages to get your audience to keep reading.

How do I know where my visitors are coming from?

Moving forward, on the right side of the screen, you will see a list that
shows information about the source of the visitors.

If you look closely at this chart, it allows you to break down the information into:
• Source: Is where your website's traffic comes from (individual websites, Google,
Facebook, Instagram, etc).
• Medium: This is how it got there (organic traffic, paid traffic, referral, etc).
• Campaign: It is the specific promotion or campaign you are offering to your
audience.

This feature is intended for those users who use UTMs in their flipbook links.
In case you don't know, a UTM is a set of parameters you can add to your links without altering the web, allowing you to collect extra information about your visitors. But let's see an example.

Imagine you have created a flipbook with your catalog of products that will be on sale for this year's Black Friday, and you have decided to share the flipbook link on your business social networks.

Using UTMs in your flipbook, you can simply add parameters to the link you share with your followers, for example:

https://mydomain.com/myflipbook.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=BlackFriday2023

Now when a visitor clicks this link you crafted, there will be a "social" item on the medium, a "facebook" item on the source, and a "BackFriday2023" item on the campaign panels on the stats page.

You can also filter the data by these parameters. So you can, for example, know how the campaign is performing over time and take action when needed.

How do readers interact with my documents?

Now we know how visitors interact with a specific flipbook or a specific page in a document. But we can go deeper and see what exactly they are interacting with.

On the interaction type chart, we can see how many people have downloaded the PDF, watched videos, listened to audio, and so on with any of the interaction type you have added to a Heyzine flipbook.

If you want more specific information on each interaction, you can click on the bar you are most interested in (e.g. downloads), and you will see the evolution of the PDF downloads over time.

On the right panel, you can also see the number of visitors for each specific link, audio, video, embed, and all the other hotspots.

Lastly, at the end of the stats page, you can find a map to understand from which part of the world your visits are coming. And again, you can click it to filter all the information on the stats page and see the behavior of visitors from specific countries.

How can I export the data?

Going back to the top of your stats panel, you will see these two little buttons that allow you to export the information you want with a single click:

You can choose whether you want to get a PDF report or if you prefer to export the information in Excel format.

And that's it for this guide! If you don't want to miss a single detail about what's going on in your documents, take a look at it from time to time and monitor the evolution to keep making your content awesome.

A lead generation form is an online form designed to capture information from potential customers, such as their name, email address, or other relevant details.

Capturing lead forms can help you get the desired information from your audience, which can help you improve your publications or keep your readers updated about your content.

Creating a lead generation form in a PDF is not possible, but you can do it with a heyzine flipbook, and we will show you how in this guide.

• How can I create a Lead Form?
  - Form options
  - Privacy policy
  - Form fields
  - Form style
  - Form behavior
• How to see collected leads?
• Lead capture form in action

How can I create a Lead Form?

Upload your PDF to heyzine, go to the editor, click the capture lead form menu, and turn on the “enable capture lead form”.

Form options

The page where it will appear is the most important setting of the lead form. You should place it on a page where your reader has already had time to engage with your document and is ready or curious to know more. So he is willing to give you details to contact him.

If you don't want to force the capture of the information too much and you don't mind lowering the number of captures, a good option is to enable the Allow skip button so your readers can leave the form without filling it. This option is also useful when you are just looking for some feedback about your publication, and you don't want to bother them at all.

You can also add the text of your preference to take place as a title of the lead form. In the same way, you can select the text you want to appear in the submit and skip buttons. So you can personalize the form to your brand or publication tone and language.

Privacy policy

Most data captured in a lead capture form, like the name and the email, are considered personal data, so it's important to comply with GDPR and other data protection regulations. Heyzine makes it easy for you. You can simply enable the option, add your company name and the link to your privacy policy.

Your reader will need to check the box agreeing to your privacy policy to be able to send his information.

Form fields

In the Fields section, you can add the fields you prefer regarding the information you want to collect from your readers. The most common fields are the name and the email, but you might also want them to answer some questions or maybe give you a rating.

You can add as many fields as you want, each with a field type that defines what your readers need to input.

For example, the email field type will ensure the format of your reader email is valid, although it's impossible to verify it's real. The Review type will show five stars for your users to rate a question, and the Paragraph type will allow them to write some text.

The fields also support markup links, so you can add a check option and use brackets to add a link and square brackets to enter the text you want to appear in place of a link. For example: [Heyzine](https://heyzine.com).

Also, you can choose if you want each field to be mandatory or optional.

Form style

In the last place, you can select different styles for your lead form, by adding a theme and selecting a picture that matches the design of your document and brand.

Form behavior

So how does it work for your reader? He will visit the flipbook and will be able to go through the pages of your document until he reaches the page you defined for the lead generation form. At this point, he must type the mandatory fields and check the privacy policy.

After he submits the form, we place a cookie on the browser that's strictly used to never show the lead generation form again on that browser.

This helps mitigate duplicated leads on your reports, and it avoids bothering your visitor when he already sent the form.

Bear in mind if you are doing some tests outside the heyzine editor, you will need to clear your browser cache for the form to show up again.

How can I see the collected leads?

If you go to the Leads dashboard, you’ll be able to find all of the information collected. There’s an option to filter them by date, document, and or grouped documents by tag.

A chart on the top of the dashboard will show the performance of your lead generation forms over time.

A good idea is to try duplicating the flipbook and creating different forms to compare which captures more or better leads.

You have different options to manage the data from the lead list, like searching for specific information, changing the view, filtering by field, and different downloading options that could be useful if you want to present a report.

The export formats available to download the lead list are CSV, TXT, Excel, and PDF.

Finally, you can also choose the be notified by email when your document has just collected a new lead. This will help you reach out faster to ask for more information or convert him into a customer while you are still on his mind.

A lead generation form in action

This is a demo of how a lead generation form looks in action with a heyzine flipbook:

A digital bookshelf is a place where you can store and show all your online publications at once. Your readers will be able to browse through your content and read your flipbooks all in one place that matches your style. You can make it look like a realistic representation of a physical bookshelf or a minimalistic page where you group your publications.

Creating a digital bookshelf is an easy task, but many options exist. This guide will show how to create a digital bookshelf with the most important things to keep in mind. Let's get started:

• Create an online bookshelf and add flipbooks
• Add a header to your digital bookshelf
• Layout and design options
• Change background, logo, and controls
• Password-protect a bookshelf

Create an online bookshelf and add flipbooks

If you don't have any publications yet, you should start creating a few. There is a quick guide about how to create your first flipbooks that might be useful.

To start creating the first bookshelf, just go to the bookshelves section on the left of your dashboard and click New Bookshelf.

Then, choose the flipbooks you want to include. You can browse them directly by the flipbook’s name on the search bar or use the filter by tags to find them faster. Select as many as you need and click Add. Your brand new bookshelf will show up in the preview section.

If, for some reason, you would like to remove a flipbook from your bookshelf, just go back to the Add flipbook menu and deselect the flipbook by clicking on it. It will update for all your readers right after you click Save.

Easy, right? Let’s move on to more features!

Add a header to your digital bookshelf

You can add a title, a subtitle, and a description to your shelf to give more relevance to your brand and explain what your library is about.

This is the first thing your readers will see and it's also the text that will show up when they share the bookshelf on social networks, so it's important to spend some time choosing the best possible copy.

To add it, click on Header and type the text in the fields, as seen here:

From the Style section, you will be able to change the font, color, and background of your texts, and in the Links tab, you can add links to your website, social networks, or any other site you wish to include.

When you have different topics or many publications, it's also a good idea to use the links section to point your readers to different bookshelves and use it as a menu.

This is what it would look like so far:

Layout and design options

Let’s talk about the Layout section. Here you can choose how your flipbooks are going to be displayed.

The Flat grid option will show all flipbooks frontally, while with the Bookshelf layout, you can get closer to that representation of a physical library we were talking about at the beginning of this guide. Here you can also decide whether or not to add a shelf below the publications.

Oh! And you can always reorder your flipbooks by clicking on the flipbook and dragging it to the position you want it to be. You can do it from the Flipbook order tab.

Change background, logo, and controls

If you want to fully customize the design of your bookshelf so that it fits the branding of your business or the topic your publications are covering, you can smoothly edit the background by clicking the menu option.

You can upload an image, select a predefined one or search for one that suits your theme in the Background menu.

To complete the creation of your bookshelf, you can optionally select which controls you would like to enable the readers to use, such as searching for a specific word among the flipbooks or letting them share your bookshelf link.

Password-protect a bookshelf

Password-protecting your digital bookshelf allows you to control who has access to your content. It's an easy task, but it can be accomplished in different ways. You can find a detailed explanation about each option in the flipbook password-protection guide.

The process is the same. You only need to take into account that when you set a password to the digital bookshelf, you don't need to add a new one for those flipbooks that already have a password set.

If you don’t need a password for your bookshelf, the flipbooks that do have a password will still require a key to access the content.

This way, you can have both public and private content on the same bookshelf, or make all your content private with a single password.

Conclusion

Voilà! Here you now have an original, innovative, and groundbreaking way of sharing your flipbooks with whomever you want.

Would you like to give the digital bookshelves a try? Sign up for Heyzine to get access to this and other great features.

Brands are more than just profit-seeking marketing concepts: they are entities with personalities and values that they transmit to their target audience.

The impact of brand consistency can greatly benefit both brands and customers in the long haul - being consistent is one of the most important priorities of brands around the world.

However, achieving consistency and coherence is not always easy, unless we have a successful brand book at hand.

But what is a brand book? This guide will show you all you must know about brand books and why your brand needs one.

• What is a Brand Book?
• What’s the Purpose of a Brand Book?
• 5 Essential Elements of a Brand Style Guide
• Wrapping Up: Understanding the Concept of Brand Brooks
• FAQ

What is a Brand Book?

A brand book is a document that gathers, showcases, and describes all the guidelines and rules for how a brand should be communicated across multiple marketing channels.

A brand book includes all the essential components that employees, the marketing team, target audiences, and other individuals must know about the brand to achieve brand consistency through different means.

If we look at the different brand book examples in the market, we can see that successful brands decide to create a brand book to unify the company’s vision, communication style, and branding decisions in all external and internal communications.

The result is the creation of a strong brand identity that characterizes consistent brands in different industries and markets.

What’s the Purpose of a Brand Book?

Brand books are useful and make a brand unique if created correctly. They provide authenticity and easily show what the brand stands for.

88% of consumers say that authenticity in a brand is one of the most important factors when it comes to supporting and purchasing goods or services from a brand.

Therefore, let’s take a look at the main goals of brand books for companies.

Explain all the elements that describe a brand

From the brand platform and foundations to the core values of a company, brand books explain all the elements that should describe the mission statement of a brand.

This includes key components such as brand promise, tone of voice, brand’s identity, and the main brand’s mission.

The first impression that people have about a brand personality will stick with them for a while, and it will determine how a brand’s target audience perceives a company.

And although first impressions are mostly visual, understanding the vision statement of a brand can drive consumer passion efficiently.

Establish a consistent brand identity

Coherence and consistency across the many communication channels are some of the most important aspects of a brand image.

Business consistency helps customers to build trust, and statistics show that almost half of the consumers prefer to support brands that they know and trust over the ones that they don’t.

Beyond focusing on visual elements, which are also important, a brand book is the best brand guide to follow to achieve similar brand messaging on all channels.

Educate people on a common brand culture

Following the guidelines in a brand book ensures that all individuals in a company are on the same page.

The company’s own brand book it’s its “brand bible,” and new employees must comprehend and internalize the brand persona that the business tries to showcase.

This is especially useful for creating employee consistency. Picture this: an employee goes to work dressed in a suit, and then the next day, the same person comes wearing ripped jeans, sunglasses, and clothing styles that are not on-brand.

This can certainly contradict the steadiness that a brand is trying to achieve.

Coordinate actions, marketing efforts, and the branding strategy

When a brand communicates, it should do it in a standardized and invariable way.

Imagine that a brand has different logos on different platforms or different tones of voice - this would negatively impact important branding elements.

Therefore, in order to coordinate actions and marketing efforts, most brands follow the communication guidelines established by the brand book.

This allows the possibility to show the company’s purpose similarly in press releases, social media channels, websites, and other channels.

Foster brand evolution

Brands evolve over time - that’s a fact. Brand books are a great way to demonstrate the evolution of a brand through the passing of the years.

For instance, if the brand logo has changed, then comparing the old one to the new logo is a great way to show how the brand has changed.

Of course, the key element of a brand’s personality is its purpose. But the future is bright and has new things to offer, which is why brand books also help brands to transition from one stage to another smoothly.

5 Essential Elements of a Brand Style Guide

Brands create a brand book with a previously determined purpose in mind. Although a brand style guide can be heavily different from one brand to another, there are a set of brand book key elements and visual guidelines to follow.

1. Logo guidelines and usage

A brand’s logo is the most important visual element of a company. It’s necessary to establish logo usage guidelines based on the brand’s needs and communication goals.

For example, some logos need to be resized or placed differently depending on the design elements of a social media post or a billboard.

This creates the need to determine how the company must use its logo across all channels to ensure great logo optimization.

2. Color palette and typography

The primary and secondary colors of your brand determine the entire visual aspect that your target audience will associate with it when they think about the company.

Standardizing the brand’s color palette across all channels is a great way to maintain visual consistency.

Likewise, having a defined font style is one of the best ways to keep the brand’s message unified. Many brands use only one or two primary typefaces, so choosing the appropriate fonts and sizes for different types of content is necessary.

3. Imagery and visual language

A brand's visual language shows what the brands want to transmit to its audiences with its visual content.

Photos, illustrations, interactive elements, and graphics must always follow the brand guidelines on all communication channels to properly transmit the brand identity to everyone.

4. Brand tone, story, and values

One of the most important parts of a brand's personality is the words they use to express its voice.

There are words that brands like, and words that brands don’t like. The implementation of guidelines regarding the brand’s tone of voice is important to ensure on-brand communication in a persistent way.

Some brands will have a more serious and formal approach, whereas other brands will want to sound more confident and direct.

5. Brand guidelines, style, and personality

If we look at the most relevant brand book examples, we’ll soon realize that they have a defined style that goes along with the public perception of the brand.

Therefore, when companies create a brand book, they make all the necessary changes to ensure that people can quickly identify the brand book with the overall sentiment of the business.

Brand books are customized and adapted to the needs of the brand, which means that even if there are basic steps to follow when creating a brand book, the truth is that the key relies on adapting the book to the unique points of view of the company.

Wrapping Up: Understanding the Concept of Brand Brooks

Brand books are more than simple manuals: they establish the behavior and path to follow for brands to achieve one of the most important factors in marketing - consistency.

Nowadays, having an original voice and showing coherence helps brands to establish real connections with their audiences, which undeniably increases the value of brands over time.

That’s why we see successful brands with great brand books that help them through their missions, and learning from them is the best way to find our own brand’s voice and style efficiently.

FAQ

Is a brand book necessary?

Yes, brand books are necessary. According to Forbes, brands with established style guides have more chances to succeed in competitive markets than brands that don’t pay attention to the way the public perceives them.

What are the most common brand book formats?

Normally, the standard formats for a brand book are PDF, online flipbooks, and slide format (Google Slides, PowerPoint, etc.). It depends on the brand’s needs and requirements as a whole.

Paper-printed catalogs have been around since the 19th century, and nowadays, the printed catalog industry is still relevant in the United States.

The digital era has pushed businesses into the next logical step of printed product catalogs, which is the creation and implementation of digital catalogs.

Implementing digital catalogs provides many benefits and advantages to e-commerce businesses around the world - that’s a fact. But why is it beneficial to use digital catalogs? Let’s dig deeper into the pros a digital product catalog provides to a brand or company.

• Digital catalogs in Ecommerce: Overview
• Print catalogs vs. Digital product catalogs
• Who can use digital catalogs?
• Why is it beneficial to use digital catalogs? 5 benefits
  - Get more information about customers and potential clients
  - Provide better product and service accessibility
  - Make product inventory more visually attractive
  - Save costs and time
  - Digital catalogs are easy to keep updated
• FAQ

Digital catalogs in Ecommerce: Overview

Digital catalogs, also referred to as online catalogs due to their online nature, are the digital version of old, classic paper catalogs.

The goal of an online product catalog is to show online shoppers and potential buyers the products or services of a company in a visual and well-organized way.

According to Statista, retail ecommerce sales in 2023 will surpass 6,1 billion USD. Retailers can enhance sales by appealing to potential customers who access their websites through mobile devices or desktop computers.

Since most consumersexpect at least 5 different product photos before buying online, an online catalog is a valuable asset during the buying process that facilitates access to product data to potential clients.

Print catalogs vs. Digital product catalogs

Statistics show that more than 40% of consumers shop online to save time. Browsing through the physician pages of a paper catalog takes time, whereas checking a digital catalog can be quickly done by using a simple text search.

The new generation (Gen-Z) prefers ecommerce over physical store shopping - this doesn’t mean that having a printed version of a product catalog is useless, but it does show that the interest of new customers is more leaned toward digital sales.

Overall, digital catalogs are more convenient, cost-effective, easy to access, and efficient than printed catalogs.

Who can use digital catalogs?

Online stores, retail stores, and product manufacturers are the main places that can benefit from digital catalogs.

A retail business can create and implement digital catalogs to promote and sell its products via online channels. Likewise, digital catalogs are a natural fit for an online store that users browse through computers or mobile phones.

Product manufacturers can employ digital catalogs to showcase their products to retailers, distributors, and other potential clients in an all-digital way.

Why is it beneficial to use digital catalogs? 5 benefits

The benefits of digital product catalogs can provide companies and brands with a clear advantage over their direct competitors.

Print catalogs have been powering and enhancing the sales of products and services for several years, and now, the digital aspect of an online catalog opens the door to learn more about potential consumers and the impact of certain digital marketing efforts.

Let’s take a look at 5 of the most prominent digital product catalog benefits.

1. Get more information about customers and potential clients

Digital catalogs implemented into a website facilitate not only the browsing of products and services but also provide insightful data about buyers and user views.

Companies and brands that create a digital product catalog through a tool or software like Heyzine, can measure the impact of a certain catalog page, implement links, videos, and customize them to improve purchase processes.

You can also learn more about your customers by analyzing key customer data related to your company’s digital catalog.

This information represents a competitive advantage that can be used in a company’s marketing campaigns.

2. Provide better product and service accessibility

Digital catalogs have a wider reach than paper catalogs for an obvious reason: they are distributed digitally, which provides additional benefits to customers and buyers who prioritize online shopping.

This provides better product and service availability data. Customers can see information about a new collection of products released in an easier and more natural way through a digital catalog.

It is also possible to filter products, use quick text search, and browse the catalog by product descriptions or visual elements.

3. Make product inventory more visually attractive

It has been mentioned before that most digital shoppers prioritize the presence of product images before making a purchase decision.

Digital catalogs have customized visual elements that enhance the way a customer perceives the products of a brand.

For instance, products with bigger grids and more unique designs are perceived as main products, whereas product photos with smaller grids represent secondary or complimentary products sold by retailers or online stores.

Digital catalogs provide more visual freedom than a paper catalog: they can be updated, edited, and enhanced frequently without interrupting business processes.

4. Save costs and time

Printed catalog production implies printing and distribution costs that digital catalogs do not face.

Retailers and ecommerce stores save a lot of time, money, and effort by producing digital catalogs instead of classic, print catalogs.

Likewise, browsing and exploring a digital catalog is quicker than doing the same with a paper catalog. In a world with more than 6.8 billion mobile devices, prioritizing digital catalogs over classic print catalogs is certainly a cost-effective decision.

5. Digital catalogs are easy to keep updated

One of the biggest advantages of digital catalogs is the fact that they can be updated frequently and easily.

Up-to-date product data provides customers with the information they need to drive their purchases in an efficient way.

Moreover, if a brand or company needs to change a product price, improve service descriptions, or create a whole new page, it is possible to do all this inside a digital catalog without major production costs.

Digital change is already upon us, and taking advantage of the different tools that power ecommerce will put businesses one step ahead of their competition.

Customized, unique, and brand-tailored digital catalogs have many great advantages that both customers and businesses can enjoy and experience.

FAQ

Are digital catalogs effective?

Yes - product catalogs showcased digitally are efficient and have proven to enhance digital business sales organically. Even paper catalogs remain relevant in today’s digital age, so implementing a digital catalog is certainly an effective way to improve marketing efforts.

We have been living in the digital era for over two decades now. Traditional and electronic commerce have both evolved in different yet highly related directions.

Ecommerce sales in the United States exceed $400 billion per year, so ignoring the new trends is not an option if we want to succeed in an incredibly competitive industry.

You might know what a print catalog is, but what is a digital catalog? Let us further elaborate on this matter.

• What is a digital catalog?
• How do you use digital product catalogs?
• What’s inside digital catalogs?
  - Online catalogs in different formats
  - Brand and style related to a company
  - Multiple pages with products and prices
  - Rich images and graphics
  - Different grid sizes and visual designs
• Digital catalogs have an ending
  

What is Digital Catalog?

A digital catalog is a simple collection of product data, images, prices, and information that potential customers can browse digitally.

Such catalogs are the digital versions of classic, print catalogs that have been around since the year 1872.

In short, a digital product catalog is a well-organized digital file that showcases all the products and services of a company as a printed catalog would, but digitally.

How do you use Digital Product Catalogs?

Some of the biggest benefits of digital catalogs over printed catalogs are related to the fact that many businesses and online retailers have immediate access to product data on the catalog, which makes it easy to keep it up to date.

The benefits of digital catalogs are primarily enjoyed by online store retailers, sales and marketing teams, sales reps, and ecommerce stores that implement ecommerce catalogs.

The ultimate goal of a digital or electronic catalog is to provide customers with all the information they need regarding products or services in a simple and visual way.

Showcasing product images, product categories, product descriptions, and information about new products in a representative and digestible way improves customer experience and reinforces purchasing decisions.

What’s inside Digital Catalogs?

Most digital product catalogs have features that remind us of a classic paper catalog or physical catalog.

The characteristics of digital catalogs might vary from one business to another, but as a general rule, most of them share common characteristics.

1. Online catalogs in different formats

Common format for many digital catalogs and online magazines is PDF - it’s easy to read, and after downloading the file, no Internet connection is needed to open it again, which reminds customers of paper catalogs.

But besides PDFs, catalogs viewable directly on the brand website in the form of interactive flipbooks or even as a mobile app are a thing in today's digital world. They are more interactive than PDFs - often times including rich media like videos or GIFs.

As technology and new trends advance, business owners and teams have employed different marketing tools to adapt digital catalogs to them.

2. Brand and style related to a company

The design and style of digital catalogs are highly related to the tone of the brand.

The entire selection of products or services of a company is its voice, and digital catalogs should be in sync with what the company represents.

That’s why digital catalogs are not generalist tools and, instead, they are tailored to the personality and style of the business.

3. Multiple pages with products and prices

Digital catalogs consist of multiple pages with several product prices, descriptions, and inventory levels.

In order to maintain the attention of readers and potential customers, the pages of digital catalogs are varied and designed uniquely.

Most digital catalogs integrate robust search technology to quickly find products. In the case of a digital catalog, a simple and efficient text search allows customers to find products they are interested in within just a few clicks or taps.

4. Rich images and graphics

One of the greatest benefits of printing catalogs in the past was the fact that product images led people to purchase certain products more frequently.

It has been proven that 83% of digital purchase decisions are influenced by images (source: Search Engine Journal), so harvesting the power of visuals in a digital catalog is a must to ensure their effectiveness.

Images in a digital product catalog have different sizes, distinguishable colors, and provide a smooth catalog experience that keeps customers visually hooked.

5. Different grid sizes and visual designs

In a digital catalog, less can be more. The combination of complex and simple visual designs makes digital catalogs easier to scan and read.

Principal products, those that bring the most revenue to a company, usually have larger grids than “B” class products.

The combination of grid sizes helps customers easily distinguish between primary and complementary products in a natural way.

Variety is key when it comes to visual design, and it can be accomplished by turning the visual focus of products into a mix of both complex and simple layouts that showcase their relevance.

Digital Catalogs have an ending

Most digital catalogs are not too short nor too long, but they all have an ending. Digital catalogs are finite, and when potential customers finish reading them, they should be satisfied with their content.

Setting an “end” to digital catalogs prevents product cannibalization and overwhelming customer experiences.

In ecommerce, the average attention span is just around 10 seconds, which creates the need to show a set of highlighted products in a visually attractive way to grab people’s attention.

The always-evolving world of digital marketing pushes us to replace print catalogs with digital catalogs. For many, making this change represents a big challenge, mostly if there isn’t a clear starting point.

Fortunately, with Heyzine, you can create custom catalogs that resonate with your brand’s style and personality.

Ebooks have become the new way to gather information and learn something new. Moreover, most writers have ditched the traditional publishing methods and opted for eBooks. You no longer need the permission of a publishing house or any other gatekeeper to get your content to the public.

Many people are familiar with Amazon Kindle, one of the world’s most popular repositories for digital services. However, it can come with several issues that can make a couple of writers cringe. There is where Gumroad comes in.

• What is Gumroad?
• Create your content
• Get the link
• Publish on Gumroad and sell the membership

What is Gumroad?

Gumroad is a simple but powerful e-commerce platform that lets you sell digital services. These can be books, courses, memberships, and more. The platform is packed with various tools that make this process seamless.

Getting up and running is also very easy. You just open an account, add a product, start selling, and get paid for your services.

The Advantages of Using Gumroad

Gumroad acts more like a support structure than a gatekeeper for online publishers and writers. You don’t have to use their platform to get the most out of it. Gumroad is designed to integrate with other systems that you may prefer.

That means you can set up your digital services store either on their website or integrate it on an already existing one that you have more control over. You even get a custom domain to link back to Gumroad’s site.

Gumroad allows you to integrate their payment platform and “follow” button on your existing site. That makes it easier for people to buy memberships, courses, eBooks, and follow you for more content without leaving your site.

Selling eBooks online freaks out many people not because they lack content. Rather, the process of handling payments can be too daunting.

Suppose you are selling directly through your blog or other platforms. In that case, you have to figure out the best payment methods, keep the customer’s payment details safe, deliver the eBook once the customer has paid, and deal with accounting, tax, credit card fraud, among other things.

Gumroad handles that. It can take just 30 minutes to have your eBook available for purchase and download.

The Disadvantage of Gumroad

The biggest downside of using Gumroad is their hefty payment fee compared to other online payment services such as PayPal.

They have two options when it comes to fees:

1. Pay no monthly fee but pay 8.5% + 30 cents for every sale
2. Pay $10 per month then pay 3.5% + 30 cents per sale. This option comes with other perks, such as removing Gumroad branding from your sales emails.

However, considering they handle all the intricacies of payments, including VAT taxation which can be daunting to file in EU countries, the fees are worth it.

How to create and sell an ebook with Gumroad

To sell a publication, magazine, or flipbook with Gumroad, you need to have created it first in a format that’s shareable on the internet. That is where Heyzine comes in.

Your eBook will probably be in PDF format by this stage. That means all content has been written, edited, and approved for publication. For the best user experience, you need to convert your eBook in PDF format into a flipbook.

A flipbook, flipping book, otherwise known as a digital flipbook, is an interactive eBook that brings the look and feels of print publications into the digital world. That means your readers will have a more natural feel with the eBook.

Flipbooks also allow for richer content compared to standard PDFs. You can add animated page flips and multimedia embeds for readers to play video or audio content.

Create your content with Heyzine

Head over to the PDF to flipbook conversion page, click the upload button, and select the PDF file from your computer. It will take a few seconds for the page to reload and show you a preview of the results.

The final conversion may take longer, but no more than five minutes. There’s no limit imposed on the size or number of pages.

Customize the Flipbook

You can change many things to fit the document's style and the reading experience you intend your readers to have.

Click the customize button to get into the editor, where you can change things such as the page turn effect. If you are uploading a magazine, catalog, or brochure, the “Magazine” effect works fantastically. Professional documents can use the “Slider” effect.

You can also add your company logo and link so that readers can directly get in touch. Moreover, your flipbook will look more professional.

Get the flipbook link

Once everything looks well-presented and stylish, you can get the flipbook link from the share menu.

Flipbook links are private by default. They are not shared anywhere unless you do, and if you want more security, you can always set a password for your flipbook.

Publish the link on Gumroad and sell the membership

After you’ve signed up on Gumroad, head over to “New product” and select “Membership”. This option allows you to set up recurring payments for users to access your membership area.

Add the product title, description, and optionally, customize the last part to your product/membership URL. Finally, add a thumbnail and cover image.

The thumbnail will show up in Gumroad Library, Profile, and Discover pages, while the cover image is what your audience will see when they view your product and profile.

You can add more details about what your members will receive under “Product Info”. You can further explain the different membership tiers here. Membership tiers allow you to charge differently for more content or perks.

Finally, upload the content to each tier. When you click “Upload your files,” select the “link to external page” option. Paste the link to your flipbook here.

Focus more on creation, less on payment and distribution

Creators should be more focused on their content, which is the heart and soul of what they do. Using tools such as Heyzine and Gumroad for content distribution will save you from the headache of delivering your content online spectacularly and earning seamlessly from it.

Are you a restaurant owner hoping to bring your menu online? Don’t sweat, Heyzine has you covered! We will provide you with a free QR code that you can download and give to your customers. Avoid the hassle of making your patrons look up your menu online and make it easy for them to view your menu by simply providing them a QR code to scan.

We'll help you create restaurant menus with zero ads and no watermarks. Share your menu easily with Heyzine. Did we mention that it’s all free?

Step 1: Click here to go to Heyzine and get started!

Step 2: This is what you’ll see when you go to the homepage. Right there in the middle, either upload your PDF menu or drag and drop your menu anywhere in the white box.

Step 3: This is what will pop up next. On the side, you can see the example menu we uploaded. Go ahead and put in what you want your menu to be called in the “Title” box.

Step 4: Click on the “Page effect” box and choose how you want your customers to see your menu. Do you want your customers to just slide on their phones to view your whole menu? Choose the slider option! Do you want them to swipe sideways and view it as a real menu? Choose the book option!

Step 5: Once you’ve chosen your page effect, click the “Share Flipbook” button. Here is your unique URL link if you want it. If you’re looking solely for a QR code though, click the far right option “QR Code”.

Step 6: Once you download the image you will see your customized QR code that will take patrons to your menu. From here, you can save it or print it! Save it in case you ever need it again, but make printed versions so you can pass those out to your customers or put them on tables.

Update restaurant menu

Okay, you have the menu ready, the QR printed and everyone is enjoying it, but you need to change a price, remove a dish or simply correct a typo.

No problem, it's as easy as changing the original document and using the "replace PDF" option in the Heyzine editor.

The changes will be available instantly and you don't need to print new QR codes.

Order Up!

There you go, it’s as simple as that! We hope this helps make it easy for you to convert your menu into a QR code.

And remember, Heyzine has you covered for all your flipbook needs!

Ordering system

Heyzine is the best way to create and update QR menus easily and quickly, specially when you have your menu ready in a file. But let's say you need something a bit more complex yet with options like order taking, payments, a website, or you need a full ordering system in place, you should then use something like GloriaFood; they also provide some ways to create a QR code restaurant menu and many other features for a complete restaurant platform.

When we start to have a large number of flipbooks on the account, we soon find the need to organize them to have more control over what is online at any given moment and to find them fast. In this guide, we will see how to easily categorize flipbooks with tags.

First, we have to assign tags to the flipbooks from the dashboard, flipbook settings. It's possible to select an existing tag or create a new one by typing the name and pressing enter.

It's also possible to assign as many tags as we want if a flipbook belongs to different categories.

Now on the dashboard, it is as simple as filtering by one of the existing tags.

With the list view, we can see the different tags assigned to each flipbook and sort them with the controls in the upper-left corner. Using the search box on, we can find flipbooks by title, subtitle, description, or private note.

To edit the tag, we can use the three dots next to the tag label in the filter menu. It's possible to remove it from all the flipbooks or nest it as a subcategory of another tag.

With Heyzine's Professional and Premium Plans, you get a lot of data about the visits to your publications directly on the flipbook statistics page. Still, sometimes, you might want to dig even deeper or integrate it with the rest of your website visitor's data. You can use Google Analytics for this, and here we'll show you how easy it is to set it up.

The first step is to register a Google Analytics account here. It's free.

It will start asking for an account name, to accept their terms and conditions, and a few other things about your business, like the size and industry.

After that, in the "Business objectives" step, you will choose how you plan to use Google Analytics. This is not too important, but it will set some defaults for you.

Moving on, we come to the "Data collection" section, which is the most critical part of the initial configuration. Here, we have to choose the "Web" platform:

"Set up a data stream," type your Website URL, and type anything for the stream name. In case you don't have a Website, you can simply use "heyzine.com" and click "Create data stream":

It will show us the installation instructions after a moment, and we will have to select "Install manually" to get the Google Tag code. Then we will click on the copy icon:

Back to heyzine now, we go to the Account Page and the "Scripts" tab, where we will paste the Google Tag code and we will click Save:

After about 24 hours, the installed script will become "Active," and a new "Delete" button will appear. From that moment on, the script is installed in all the flipbooks and bookshelves on your account.

To test that everything is fine, we can now open one of the flipbooks or bookshelf on a new incognito window or a different browser. We need to do this because the script is not loaded when using a browser with the heyzine session opened to avoid tracking your own visits.

Google Analytics will show that the data collection is active and will start showing your visitor's data:

If you want to learn more about Google Analytics and some more configuration options, we recommend this article from Moz.

Finally, as always, if you need help with the configuration, just contact us at support@heyzine.com.

E-Learning has gone from being a complementary study option to have a central role in learning in K-12 schools and higher education. The most popular learning platform chosen by institutions and teachers is Moodle because of its ease of use and flexibility.

Uploading learning content as plain PDFs doesn't provide the modern aspect and lacks the interactions needed to create a great learning experience. You can solve this by adding heyzine flipbooks to your Moodle courses, converting boring textbooks to engaging experiences.

There are several guides on how to create flipbooks, it's an easy and fast process. But through this guide, we will see how to embed them to Moodle.

The first step is to look for where we want to add the flipbook, the easier way is to add a link to it, but it's often better to directly show it inside the content to ensure the students don't lose context or attention.

When we know where we want to add it, we have to "turn editing on" and "edit the section", just like with any other content.

Once in the editor, we have to show the advanced buttons and change the editor to the Html view.

Now we can go to heyzine, select the flipbook to share, and copy the Html code.

Back to Moodle, we have to paste the Html code in the section.

And that's it! After saving the changes, everyone will see a realistic textbook directly inside of the Moodle course.