The most important factor in your website making money for you is your web copy. You use words, pictures, and sounds to get across why they need what you have to offer. Therefore, it makes sense to devote considerable time to learning to write better copy. All of your other efforts are useless if your site visitors aren’t led to taking the appropriate action when they get to your website. Many people are intimidated by the “craft” of copywriting, but here are 11 simple things you can do to improve your bottom line:
1) Write and use good headlines. When a person lands on your webpage you only have a few seconds to convey why they should stay. You must immediately get across to them what benefit they will gain from continuing to read your webpage. A strong benefits-filled headline right across the top of your page gets this across nicely.
Benefits-ridden sub-headlines continue this job throughout the page. Study famous, effective headlines and then experiment by modeling yours after them. If your headline doesn’t engage them – they’ll just click away! If you introduction bores them or fails to tell them what your site is all about, they will just click away.
2) Use great title and description metatags. When someone comes across your website listing in a searchengine they have no clue what your website is all about. Use a title metatag that tells them and promises them a benefit for visiting. Continue the “sale job” with your description metatag. You only have a few seconds to convince a person looking at a page of searchengine returns why he should visit your site. A good title and description will get him to visit your site over a site with a higher listing but with poor metatags. Make sure your listings yell “here’s what you are looking for!” Also, use a different set of metatags on each page. This allows you to populate the searchengine database with more benefits-filled headlines and improves your chances of being found.
3) Use a photo on your webpage. It doesn’t matter if you don’t look like a movie star. It engages another one of the senses and lets your visitor know that you’re a real person – waiting to interact with him. Do use discretion though and make sure you photo conveys the image that will help sell your product. You want your picture to build trust and a sense of them “knowing” you rather than uncertainty.
4) Consider putting a picture of your pets or children on your webpage. This also conveys that you are just like your potential customer. People like dealing with people that are “like them.” Since so many household have dogs, and many people are fanatical about their pets, a nice photo of you dog generally enhances the effectiveness of your webpage. Make sure it doesn’t somehow distract from the overall effect of the page though.
5) Put your signature on the page. Just scan it in or use some of the software available to create one. People feel that they can tell a lot about a person by their signature and many top copywriters advise using one on your page. It’s another factor that makes you seem real rather than just a name. It conveys a certain “warmness.” It conveys that you sealed your offer with your signature.
6) State your offer on the page several time using slightly different words. Top copywriters all do this. They state the offer and then re-state it. Some go over the entire package deal several times. This works. If a person reads the entire page he hears the important points several times and the offer sinks in. If the person skims, he still sees the important elements of your offer.
7) Give an iron-clad guarantee. Some credit card issuers and firms such as Clickbank have made recent changes to the length of the guarantee you can offer. Make sure you comply with their requirements, but generally, the stronger your guarantee the more sales you’ll make. Very short guarantee periods will increase your refunds since buyers will be pressured to make a decision on whether or not they are satisfied very shortly after making the purchase. With a long guarantee, they don’t dwell on the time limit and get a chance to really get to know and love your product. I personally like no-questions-asked, 100% money-back guarantees. Make the time limit reasonable but one that reassures.
8) Look very closely at your website colors. Make sure that the text colors don’t clash with the background colors and make them difficult to read. People won’t struggle to read your webpages – why should they! Look at your webpages on several different computers, with different monitors, and use several different browsers. Psychologist also teach that colors dramatically affect our moods. Make sure you aren’t using a color that tends to incite irritability and anger. Use soothing colors or color that tend to make a person feel happy instead.
9) Have a call to action on your webpage. Tell the person specifically what you want them to do. Tell them to “click here to place your order now” or “enter your email address here to subscribe free.” Things that seem intuitive to you may not be to your surfer. People are much more likely to take an action if you tell them to. Tell them exactly how to place that order.
10) Get someone else to review your work. If possible have someone who knows something about the industry and/or copywriting to review your webpages. Have them go through the entire buying process (following your links from page to page). Ask for frank feedback. If you don’t have someone you can use, ask on one of the marketing discussion boards, but also consider who is offering the advice that you receive. This will keep you from making silly mistakes that can kill sales. We often read what we meant instead of what we said. We often use words that won’t trigger our spell checker when we meant something else. For example, the mistake I make the most often is that I write “you” when I meant “your.”
11) Use testimonials. Ask satisfied customers for testimonials. Sprinkle credible, believable testimonials throughout your copy. Testimonials from people “like” your prospect are the best. I have an entire article on how to get all of the testimonials you can use. I’ll run it next week so be sure not to miss it. It details how I have collected hundreds of sales making testimonials.
Start looking for ways to incorporate these 11 simple copywriting tips into your webpages today and you’ll seem immediate results.
Willie Crawford has been teaching Internet marketing for
over 9 years. Take advantage of his uncanny insights and
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