You’ve worked so hard getting that much elusive traffic to your site. You’ve taken out a few ezine ads that have returned a good number of clickthroughs, you’re getting some traffic from the major search engines, and still you wonder why your cash register isn’t jumping. You know you’ve got a good product or service. What’s the problem?
Well it might be the sales copy on your web site.
Far too often I see the same mistakes on web site after web site. Let’s take a look at 10 points of writing good copy and see how many of these you have incorporated into your own site copy.
1) ATTENTION: You MUST grab the visitors attention immediately with your headline. You’ve got about 2 seconds to get their interest or they are gone. How many web sites have you seen that start out with a phrase such as “Thank you for visiting my web site. Here you will find some great products” BLAH BLAH BLAH. Bye bye visitor.
The headline of your site must pull the visitor in, make them want to learn more. I’m not going to give you sample headlines as that is not the purpose of this article, but if you don’t have a killer headline, the rest becomes somewhat irrelevant.
2) INTEREST: Once you’ve managed to convince the always skeptical visitor that they need to keep reading with your great headline, you need to start building overall interest in your product or service, how will the potential customer benefit from your product or service. Never EVER start talking about yourself, you must focus on the benefits your product can provide to the visitor.
3) BUILDUP and CREDIBILITY: So far so good, you haven’t lost them yet. Now comes the tough part. Up to this point you’ve lured them in with some great writing, but now you have to start backing up your claims. This is where you need to throw in some testimonials. Any testimonial you use must be 100% authentic.
4) PROVE YOUR CREDIBILITY: I recommend you always use the person’s real name, city and state in the testimonial.
Testimonials that simply use someone’s initials are always looked at with a skeptical eye, and you know why, no one really knows whether they are real or bogus. Ask the person giving the testimonial if it is OK to use one of their real email addresses in the testimonial. This way people know they can contact this person to verify the authenticity of the testimonial. I have given a number of testimonials through the years and always allow my email address to be used. I have also received a number of inquiries from people wanting to verify if my testimonial was real. It was, and a few of them also became MY customers.
5) BELIEVABILITY BUILDERS: Make certain at this point you offer a no hassle guarantee. A Strong guarantee does not increase refunds, it reduces them. Make the potential customer know that you stand 100% behind what you sell and if they have a problem or are dissatisfied in any way, you are there to help them.
Don’t make them have to hunt around for email addresses or phone numbers. A simple, “if you ever have any problems you can just pick up the phone and call me at 555-555-1212”
Don’t make financial claims you can’t backup. If you are going to brag about how much money you have earned, you better have copies of notarized bank statements on your site showing EXACTLY how much you made. If you haven’t made $500 per day selling a given product, don’t say you have. It’s just not believable. 6) SCARCITY: The limited time offer has been working wonders for years and using it on a web site is no different. Telling the visitor that when the product or special price is gone, it is gone, tends to build a sense of urgency. If they don’t act now they may lose out. They may not lose out, but you need to convince the always skeptical buyer that if they don’t act now, your great offer will be history.
7) ACTION: Quite simply, make it easy for the visitor to order now. ie; Call this number to order now: or, Just CLICK HERE to go to our secure order page.
Don’t make the visitor jump through hoops or have to look all over your site for a place to make an order.
8) THE WARNING: Learn to play on the visitors fears and emotions. Use a simple statement like this:
“Listen, you can go on making no money for the next 20 years, It doesn’t matter to me, but if you’re serious about changing your life, all it takes is one simple phone call and you’ll be on your way to a new beginning.”
You are touching an emotional flash point. If they’ve gotten this far into your sales letter, you obviously have their interest, so hitting those emotional buttons can be the one thing that makes that sale.
9) NOW: This is building off the emotional buttons you pressed in #8. You need to again drive home the urgency. Convince them they owe it to themselves, that they don’t have to struggle anymore, that there is a better way etc. This is pretty much the icing on the cake.
10) THE POSTSCRIPT: Always end with a PS. You can restate #6, while rewording it differently, remind them this is a limited offer. You can also use the PS to throw in added bonuses by stating that if they act now you will throw in this bonus, or that bonus. You start piling on.
If you’ve followed these 10 points you pretty much have the outline of how some of the best copy writers in the world construct copy that has turned ordinary people into millionaires.
Remember that getting the visitor to your website is just the start. Once they are there you better know what to do with them.
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