Copy Life

When creating an ad copy, you should make it believable and
persuasive. Some of us are missing some crucial things to
include. Here are 7 tips to help you create a powerful ad copy.

1. Use a “P.S.” at the end of your ad copy. This is where you
either want to repeat a strong benefit or use a strong close,
like a free bonus. For example, “P.S. You can get (product),
worth over ($), for the low price of ($)!” Another example,
“P.S. I can not guarantee the (No.) bonuses will be here
tomorrow!”

2. You could end your ad copy with a discounted price. Just list
your regular price and then offer a discounted price off the
order ‘right now’. You could also offer a rebate that takes
effect instantly. For example, you could say, “Instead of paying
$99, you could order now and get an instant rebate of $20 – you
only pay $79!”

3. You could end your ad copy with a free sample or trial of
your product. If your ad didn’t attract them to buy, maybe a
free sample or trial would. If you were selling an e-book, you
could give them a free sample at the end of your ad copy. For
example, you could say, “If you’re still not sure about
ordering, download a FREE sample chapter!”

4. Motivate people to buy your product. Tell them positive
things. For example, you could say, “You can now reach your
goals and change your life if you buy our product.” If you come
across positive in your ad copy, they will become positive about
reaching their goals using your product.

5. Never assume people believe the information in your ad copy.
You need to back-up all your claims with indisputable evidence.
For example, you could include testimonials, expert
endorsements, third party tests or studies, strong guarantees, a
list of customers, pictures of customers, etc.

6. Create a bond with your visitors by bringing up likes or
dislikes you have in common with them in your ad copy. Just make
sure you do your research. For example, you could say, “I hate
it when you have to wait in line for a long time at the
drive-through.” Another example, “I really like it when I have
extra money to spend.”

7. Ask people at the end of your copy why they decided not to
buy. This will give you new ideas on how to produce ad copy
that’s more profitable. Have a web form or e-mail link in place
so they can answer you. You may find out they don’t like your
guarantee or graphics. It could be anything.

Use these 7 tips and you’ll create your own powerful ad copy.

You’re ready to launch that new product or promotion, & you’re really counting on a piece of advertising copy to come through for you.

You’re looking for stellar results! And, you’re determined to do everything in your power to get them. Which means surveys, thorough testing, and ongoing refinement of your ad copy.

Hold the phone!

When you’ve got your draft, run it through this 12-point inspection. Cover off these basics, and you can be sure you’re off to a running start.

1 – Do You Have A Compelling Headline?

Does it generate curiosity or envy? Does it promise a benefit that will compel someone with an interest in what you’re selling to keep reading. Remember, your headline is the ad for the ad.

When I am being paid to write direct response ad copy, or a sales letter, or have a very important sales objective of my own, I normally write 25 headlines before I begin the body of the piece.

Then I’ll pick half a dozen that I think will work & test them. The best of the rest, I use as sub headings throughout the piece to propel readership, and draw skimmers & skippers back into the copy as they move down the page.

2 – Are Your Headlines Pleasing To The Eye?

I most often find that headlines work best when they are centered on the page, & present a balanced appearance in terms of the shape they create. Encasing them in quotation marks also serves to grab more attention.

Long top headlines tend to reduce readership, but if they help qualify more effectively they can improve sales! Try them, but look for ways to modularize the text using punctuation & spacing so your readers don’t suffocate trying to read them. Sometimes a long top headline is better presented as two or even three separate headlines.

3 – Is Your Opening Provocative & Arresting?

Does it trip the reader, interrupting the internal turbulence of the day? Each line of your ad copy must serve to “sell” the reader on continued reading, especially at the beginning.

You are looking to build enough momentum & interest to convey the points necessary to generate a greater desire for the product than it’s price. Generally speaking, the higher the cost of the product, the more words required.

4 – Are You FAB Balanced?

You must focus on painting a picture of your prospects future life, as a result of their purchase. Does your copy promise emotional benefits? Does it pledge the realization of positive feelings, or the relief of negative ones?

Does it show how these outcomes are achieved with concise descriptions of the features & advantages that will deliver them? Your ad copy must strike a balance between emotion & logic if it is to be effect.

5 – Are You Creating Excitement & Enthusiasm?

Demonstrate your personal belief in what you are selling. Will your message quicken the readers pulse? Is it upbeat, positive, & full of inspired energy? Is there a sense of WOW?

6 – Is Your Body Copy Highly Readable?

Remember simple is best. Keep sentences short. Use a plain 10-point to 12-point font. Paragraphs no more than a few lines. Words that are comfortable & specific to the audience you are targeting. Inject subheads to break up text. Highlight important points.

7 – Do You Have High YOU density?

Remember to you use the words YOU & YOUR to the hilt. Your reader is auto translating to ME & MINE.

8 – Are you speaking intimately?

Can you get a strong sense of personality when you review your letter after being away from it for a while? Visualize yourself, or the character you are personifying, writing a personal letter to your perfect prospect. Never write to a crowd.

9 – Are you inspiring the readers imagination?

You must trigger mental images with your writing. The mind has difficulty distinguishing between vividly painted word pictures, & reality. Daydreams enchant, & emotions flow in their wake.

When you have emotion, you have desire. When you have desire, you have suggestibility. When you have suggestibility, you can direct action. Your levers are allegory (storytelling), metaphor, similes, verbs, adjectives, & specificity.

10 – Do you offer proof?

Specific testimonials & convincing guarantees worked into your ad copy are essential.

11 – Is your offer irresistible?

People are greedy, & they don’t part with their money easily. Are you piling bonuses on top of your reasons why they should part with their hard earned money, in exchange for immediate action?

12 – And finally, do you have a killer P.S.?

For some reason, the P.S. at the bottom of a sales letter gets read a lot. Make it stop your reader in their tracks, like a deer in the headlights! Associate a positive outcome with taking the desired action, or a negative one with delay or inaction.

So there you have it. Exercise this 12-step ad copy checklist before your sales rubber hits the road.

Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto Canada. and
publisher of the world famous copywriting anthology “Masters of Copywriting” featuring the marketing
wisdom of 42 of the world’s greatest copywriters, including Clayton Makepeace, Joe Sugarman, Joe Vitale,
Bob Bly, and dozens more! For a FREE excerpt visit the below link.
http://www.SellingToHumanNature.com/Copywriting-Secrets.html

For more on advertising visit my blog

In this article we outline the key points that you MUST incorporate into every sales letter you wield. These four factors really will make or break your sales page. Then we’ll discuss some hard-hitting sales letter tactics that I’ve used myself with explosive results. Unlike other scams these tactics actually add value to your package while increasing your credibility.

First, why even bother writing good sales copy?

Well, in an online world where your prospects are already wandering around in a state of confusion and mistrust, your sales copy is the one chance you have of establishing credibility, building trust and convincing your prospect that your product can solve the very problems that torture them day in, day out.

We Start With The Basics – AIDA

Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

It’s absolutely crucial that all your sales pages contain this powerful mix.

Attention – Your Title Can Turn Off Your Prospects Before They Even Read A Word Of Your Actual Sales Letter.

Your headline MUST create attention in your prospects minds. Get into your prospects head and ask yourself this important question:

”What is the most important BENEFIT that can solve the biggest PROBLEM/HURT that my prospect faces.”

Then put this into your sales letter headline. You need to create serious waves here – the headline must draw your prospect into the main body of your sales letter. A good headline gets them there.

Interest – Is Your Sales Letter The Life & Soul Of The Party?

Do you like talking to the dim-witted dullard at the party? What about the chattering fool who yaps away endlessly about himself? No. Neither then does your prospect want to spend time with a sales letter that’s either lacking any emotion or (going completely the other way) stuffed to the brim with pointless fluff.

To create interest in your prospects, you need to understand your products benefits and their own concerns. You need to understand your industry and what your product has that your competitors don’t. Like a devilish murder mystery novel, each paragraph must be more exciting than the last.

As interest builds, so your chance of capturing the sale increases.

Desire – Make Them Almost Taste The Benefits & Then Make Them DESPERATE To Get It!

To create desire, you’ve got to convey the BENEFITS of your package. Go ahead and tell the prospect what they will gain when they click on the order button. What about the pain they’ll avoid? Time saved? These are things that people look for before spending their hard earned cash, and they want to know that your product delivers.

Action – The Last, All Important Word

You’ve got to urge your prospects to take action NOW. Make the order button prolific and readily available. If your product has limited availability or is a (genuine) special offer, then let your prospects know about it.

AIDA is a simple yet powerful guideline of setting up sales letters that do what they’re supposed to – convert targeted prospects into customers. Now let’s look at some advanced tactics. These, when incorporated skilfully into an AIDA based sales letter have the potential of driving your response rates through the roof.

Beyond AIDA – Strategies To Maximise Your Sales Letter Responses

I could have settled with just using AIDA to create my sales letters, and I’m sure I would have continued to do well. But would I have achieved some of the OUTSTANDING results I’ve enjoyed in more recent years? Almost certainly NOT.

Now, I’ll walk you through some legitimate tactics that I use to make my sales letters hyper-responsive. The great thing about most of these is that they benefit the CUSTOMER too – and ultimately that’s the best way of increasing your sales in the long run.

Tactic Number ONE – Limit The Number Of Licences Offered (Digital Products)

If your product is digital (eg an eBook or membership site) then consider placing a limit on the number of licences available. This benefits you as the information developer because it creates genuine urgency to purchase. If customers miss out, they’ll have to pay a higher price to get in and that’s a powerful motivator. The benefit to the customer is that the limited number of licences means they have a better chance of success if they use the private label rights content/videos etc provided.

There’s of course also a downside to you on this – limited licences mean that once your product gets to higher levels, the natural forces of price vs demand means that you’ll sell less when the product price moves up. Even so, I can tell you I put a licence limit on many of my products and it creates a frenzy of sales as people try and get in at the lowest price levels. It’s a potent order trigger.

Tactic Number TWO – Pile On The QUALITY Bonuses!

It’s true – both the number of bonuses and their respective quality can really be the “title clincher”. A platter of highly targeted bonuses that are in demand can be enough to get your prospect to buy immediately.

You can even implement the following tactics with your bonuses:

- Fast action bonuses where (for example) the first 50 people to order get a bonus that everyone else doen’t.

- Time limited bonuses – where the bonuses only apply for a certain length of time or number of orders.

Make your bonus graphics visible on your sales page and if possible link to the full sales page of each bonus. If you produce many products, avoid serving up the same tired old bonuses – it can count against you as your existing customers may begin to feel they’re missing out on the bonus experience and your repeat sales may actually suffer.

Tactic Number THREE – Free Updates For LIFE!

Customers love paying for something ONCE and getting additional value from that purchase for months and even years into the future. That’s just plain common sense, yet the vast majority of digital products that I see being offered online do not come with updates of any sort.

The beauty of this model is that as you add more and more content/resources/ related to your package it becomes increasingly attractive to new prospects. The icing on the cake is that your existing customers are delighted and that establishes further trust and credibility and that’s a very big plus.

So there you have it – a summary of writing sales pages that sell and additional sales-letter tactics that genuinely increase the credibility, value and pure WOW-factor of your packages.

What I’m about to share with you is a secret so juicy that most copywriters don’t dare let it out to the public because it could put them out of business. It took me about four years to refine this technique and now I’m ready to spill the beans to you. This one hidden technique alone can forever change how you write emails, sales copy, direct mail…in fact anything you need to write so you get more leads and convert those leads to sales.

I figured it out the hard way – struggling for years making lots of mistakes in my copywriting. I don’t remember the exact moment this technique revealed itself to me…but I use it all the time now. Last week I shared the secret for the first time to a good friend…

We were sitting at an elite golf club here in South Florida. She was complaining how everything in her business was taking off beautifully…except for one thing…
She HATED writing copy.

For her writing copy was like walking on a wet carpet with socks on.

And it’s not like she can outsource copywriting so easily. The good copywriters charge as much for one sales letter as a used Cadillac (or two!) (And good luck trying to find someone who’s reasonably priced and still an effective copywriter.) There’s no avoiding the fact – if you want to succeed in business you must write great copy.
I leaned closer to her, “Do you want to know the secret to writing great copy that has your personality AND that works AND that you can write in a fraction of the time?”
“You’d better tell me!” she said.
Okay…here’s what to do:
There’s two parts to this technique – Swiping and Infusing. The first part is swiping…

 Part 1 – Swipe the Structure of Master Copywriters

Bookmark the sales copy of master copywriters: John Carlton, Dan Kennedy, Ali Brown, Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero, etc. Get on their lists and keep all their emails.
When it’s time for you to write your sales letter or email simply follow their STRUCTURE. When they establish credibility, you establish credibility. When they agitate, you agitate. Go down the line and imitate the architecture of their letter or email.

Look – it’s called COPYwriting for a reason!

Now let me be clear…don’t copy them exactly! That’s plagiarism. It’s not cool and will get you in trouble. AND you don’t have to copy them exactly – this is where the second part of my technique comes in…

 Part 2 – Infuse Your Personality in Your Writing

Follow the layout of great copy from the masters…but don’t copy their style. It’s their style – not yours. Instead, look at what they wrote and ask yourself, “If I was sitting at a coffee shop with a potential client, how would I say the same thing in my own language?”

The secret is to write like you talk.

When you’re excited about something, how do you talk? Do you have a certain rhythm to your speech? A special flow? THAT’S what you want to capture in words – while sticking to the structure of the masters.

This may take some practice…

The biggest mistake I see entrepreneurs make when trying to write copy is they think they have to sound important. It’s like they put on a Napoleon hat that says “Doing Official Business.” No, no, no. That’s not it at all. You want to write like you talk to your best friends.

There’s an art to writing like you talk. It’s still crafted writing. Look at Hemingway. The trick is writing like you talk and then editing like crazy. The best book on the subject is “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser. (This book changed my life. In college I spent weeks laboring over a simple essay. After I read this book I can now write pages and pages with ease and grace.)

As you get good at this technique you’ll look forward to writing that next article or email. And your readers will appreciate it because your writing is suddenly interesting. This all translates to a more loyal following and more sales for you.

Good luck and have fun with your writing. Make it your own. Make it another form of self-expression and you’ll be free from ever having to pay ridiculous amounts to a copywriter.   

© 2008, James Roche

Congratulations, you’ve finally finished your ad copy. You’ve
gotten feedback and it all looks good. Now do something to make
your copy even better. For instance? Well… 1. Use a hand
written letter on your ad copy instead of text. Write the ad on
a piece of paper, scan it and publish the ad on your web page.
Adding a personal touch will always increase your sales.

2. Publish a list of famous and respected customers who have
bought from you on your a copy. People will think that if these
people bought from you, they should also trust your business and
purchase your products. Make sure to get their permission first.

3. Show before and after photos for your products on your web
page copy. Show the problem picture and then beside it, show the
picture of the resolution to the problem when they use your
product.

4. Include an article or review that has been written about you
or your business with your ad copy. This will show people that
your business is respected and will increase your credibility.

5. When you offer free bonuses in your ad copy, also list the
dollar value beside each bonus. People will feel they’re getting
a good deal and it will increase the value of your product.

6. Hire a famous person to endorse your product or service. Make
sure the person is well known to your target audience. Include
their picture and statements on your ad copy.

7. Include your own picture on your ad copy. This will show
people that you’re not hiding behind your ad copy and will
increase their trust. Also, include your contact information
below the picture and a brief statement or quote.

8. Tell your potential customers on your ad copy that you will
donate a percentage of their purchase price to specific charity.
This will show them you really care about the people. They may
just buy your product to donate to the charity.

9. Ask your potential customers plenty of yes and no questions
in your ad copy. The questions should remind them of their
problem and make them think about what will happen if they don’t
purchase your product.

10. Tell your potential customers they will receive a free prize
if they find the five words in your ad copy that are misspelled
or spelled backwards. The longer you can keep someone reading
your copy the greater chance of them purchasing.

No there’s no substitute for good ad copy. But remember you can
always use your imagination to add to your ad copy. Bad pun
intended.

When it comes to filling our web sites with words, we tend to lean towards what I like to call the “cocktail party approach to web site copy.” What do I mean by this? Well, let’s pretend you’re at a cocktail party, you’re huddled with a group of friends gabbing about everything under the sun, around you hundreds of other conversations are mingling with your own making the voices sound like a “hum” to anyone just observing this party. That’s what it’s like to a web site visitor when you’re cramming a whole bunch of cocktail party copy onto your home page. It’s confusing and it’s white noise and chances are good that it will result in a “click” signaling that the party’s over and your visitor is long gone.

Two of my personal pet peeves are 1) people who want to give me every piece of instruction under the sun on their site. I don’t care if I’m developing cold-fusion. If you give me more than 300 words of directives I’m outta there. And 2) don’t yell at me. That’s my mother’s job. When you use lots of CAPS OR EXCLAMATION POINTS (!!!)I feel like you’re yelling at me and frankly, lots of exclamation points scare me. I mean let’s be honest, no one can be that excited about anything. When I spoke to AME’s Internet expert, Nancy Hendrickson (she’s also one of the top copywriters in the country), she told me about the elements of good copy. “The Internet has made ‘brochure-style’ writing obsolete,” Hendrickson told me. “Studies have clearly shown that people do not read web sites – they skim them. That means your copy must be written to catch the eye – and keep the visitor on your site. How do you write scannable web site copy? By incorporating:

lots of white space
bullet points
highlighted and bolded words
images

In addition, your copy needs to use simple words, short sentences, and include the keywords your site visitor probably used to find your site in a search engine.

Writing Great Web Site Sales Copy
When it comes to the Net, “maybe’s” rule. Unlike storefront businesses you don’t have to get a “yes” or “no” answer, you can get a maybe and still make the sale. “Maybe I’ll sign up for the newsletter now and decide if I want the book later” or “Maybe I’ll just get one of the reports and come back later for the book.” On the Net you may be dealing with more maybe’s than you are yes’s or no’s, so your site (and your web copy) should reflect this sales strategy. We’ll go more into depth about selling on the Net in another issue, but for now start thinking about everything you could sell (besides your book) that will help address the “maybe” visitors out there. Before you put pen to paper to write your sales copy, be clear about your goals. While you may be building the site to sell your book, as you start to look at the broader reach of your message, your goals might change.

Regardless of these goals, one of the best things you can do for your site is add a means to capture a name and email address so you can market to your visitors again and again and again. At AME, our newsletter (the one you’re reading) goes out bi-weekly. While the newsletter may require a lot of time to write and create, it’s worth its weight in gold because it allows us to stay on the radar screen of our customers and web visitors. “Marketing wisdom,” offers Hendrickson, “shows us that your best customer is your current customer. That means if someone is interested enough to visit your site, they’re probably interested enough to learn more about your current book and your next book. How do you notify them? By capturing their e-mail address.”

When it comes to sales copy, the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) is more important than ever. Says Hendrickson: “People want to know what benefit they’ll receive from buying your book. Don’t be shy – tell them! Will they get an inscribed book plate, will they laugh for 6 hours, will they learn something fascinating, or will they be applauded at Christmas for all their cool book gifts? Although visitors want to know you, the person, sales copy is much more about telling them how their life will be better, safer, happier, funnier once they’ve bought your book.”

Once your sales copy is written, do NOT make your visitor search all over your site in order to buy your book! Put your BUY THE BOOK button in an obvious, easy-to-find space. You may be laughing now, but we’ve worked with authors who buried the BUY link so deep in the site it was impossible to find! The reality, of course, is that most authors don’t really like writing sales copy, and that’s okay. However, unless the world is filled with your relatives, you’re going to need sales copy to sell your book. So, if you feel you don’t have the skill or desire to write good sales copy, hire a professional and let them write the words that will help you strike web site copy gold.

When it comes to filling our web sites with words, we tend to lean towards what I like to call the “cocktail party approach to web site copy.” What do I mean by this?

Well, let’s pretend you’re at a cocktail party, you’re huddled with a group of friends gabbing about everything under the sun, around you hundreds of other conversations are mingling with your own making the voices sound like a “hum” to anyone just observing this party.

That’s what it’s like to a web site visitor when you’re cramming a whole bunch of cocktail party copy onto your home page. It’s confusing and it’s white noise and chances are good that it will result in a “click” signaling that the party’s over and your visitor is long gone.

Two of my personal pet peeves are 1) people who want to give me every piece of instruction under the sun on their site. I don’t care if I’m developing cold-fusion. If you give me more than 300 words of directives I’m outta there.

And 2) don’t yell at me. That’s my mother’s job. When you use lots of CAPS OR EXCLAMATION POINTS !! I feel like you’re yelling at me and frankly, lots of exclamation points scare me. I mean let’s be honest, no one can be that excited about anything.

When I spoke to AME’s Internet expert, Nancy Hendrickson (she’s also one of the top copywriters in the country), she told me about the elements of good copy.

“The Internet has made ‘brochure-style’ writing obsolete,” Hendrickson told me. “Studies have clearly shown that people do not read web sites – they skim them. That means your copy must be written to catch the eye – and keep the visitor on your site. How do you write scannable web site copy? By incorporating:

lots of white space
bullet points
highlighted and bolded words
images

In addition, your copy needs to use simple words, short sentences, and include the keywords your site visitor probably used to find your site in a search engine.

Writing Great Web Site Sales Copy
When it comes to the Net, “maybe’s” rule. Unlike storefront businesses you don’t have to get a “yes” or “no” answer, you can get a maybe and still make the sale. “Maybe I’ll sign up for the newsletter now and decide if I want the book later” or “Maybe I’ll just get one of the reports and come back later for the book.”

On the Net you may be dealing with more maybe’s than you are yes’s or no’s, so your site (and your web copy) should reflect this sales strategy. We’ll go more into depth about selling on the Net in another issue, but for now start thinking about everything you could sell (besides your book) that will help address the “maybe” visitors out there. Before you put pen to paper to write your sales copy, be clear about your goals.

While you may be building the site to sell your book, as you start to look at the broader reach of your message, your goals might change.

Regardless of these goals, one of the best things you can do for your site is add a means to capture a name and email address so you can market to your visitors again and again and again.

“Marketing wisdom,” offers Hendrickson, “shows us that your best customer is your current customer. That means if someone is interested enough to visit your site, they’re probably interested enough to learn more about your current book and your next book. How do you notify them? By capturing their e-mail address.”

When it comes to sales copy, the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) is more important than ever. Says Hendrickson: “People want to know what benefit they’ll receive from buying your book. Don’t be shy – tell them! Will they get an inscribed book plate, will they laugh for 6 hours, will they learn something fascinating, or will they be applauded at Christmas for all their cool book gifts?

Although visitors want to know you, the person, sales copy is much more about telling them how their life will be better, safer, happier, funnier once they’ve bought your book.”

Once your sales copy is written, do NOT make your visitor search all over your site in order to buy your book! Put your BUY THE BOOK button in an obvious, easy-to-find space. You may be laughing now, but we’ve worked with authors who buried the BUY link so deep in the site it was impossible to find!

The reality, of course, is that most authors don’t really like writing sales copy, and that’s okay. However, unless the world is filled with your relatives, you’re going to need sales copy to sell your book. So, if you feel you don’t have the skill or desire to write good sales copy, hire a professional and let them write the words that will help you strike web site copy gold.

The Internet is a virtual goldmine – call it a virtual El Dorado, if you will. And, there’s a gold rush out there. Just about every small business owner is doing his best at selling his product, waiting to get that big break – something that will bring home the bacon, the ham and the pudding, and much more.

But, to get that big break is not so easy. And one of the reasons for that is small business owners treat their website as a display unit – a showcase for displaying their wares. Well, they couldn’t be more wrong because a website is much more – the website should be treated like a salesman who not only displays products but also communicates with the visitors and manages to convince them to buy the product. And for that to happen, a website needs good, sorry, make that great, copywriting.

Fundamentals of Good Web Copy

First impressions are the truest and they stay for a long time. And any website’s copy must create that killer first impression that can go a long way in making a sale. Needless to say, good web copy should be absolutely free from grammatical mistakes, and so it is essential to hire the services of a professional writer to create outstanding web copy. Apart from the grammar and writing part, here are the other fundamentals of good web copy:

1. It has to be accurate. A single false claim or even an exaggeration can have disastrous consequences. Every fact that is mentioned must be reliable or verifiable. Remember, if an exaggeration is discovered by a customer, he will blast the website on his blog and on various bulletin boards. Moral of the story: Say what you mean and mean what you say.

2. It has to be written in a conversational style. Like we said before, the website acts as a salesman and, just like a salesman, it should communicate with the visitor in everyday language, without confusing him with long words and big sentences. Think about how you talk in real life and then put it down on paper, and get it fine-tuned by a professional. Remember: short words, short sentences help!

3. The copy needs to be organized and should flow seamlessly from one paragraph to another without jumping the gun. There is beauty in logic and people love to read an interesting bit of copy that takes them by the hand and leads them through the jungle of words.

4. The copy has to be to the point. A heavily worded document is tedious to read and web visitors have short attention spans. Combine these two facts and figure it out for yourself!

5. Hype and oversell kills. Avoid them. Stick to the basics. Period.

6. Finally, the copy must be interesting to read. There’s no joy in reading short copy with short words that just goes blah blah and does not interest the visitor. It must be ensured that the copy has enough twists and turns to compel the visitor to read it in its entirety and then make a purchase. A website owner must liken writing copy to making a movie – plot, character, story, tautness, drama and suspense.

Okay, What’s Next?

Okay, let’s say now that you have sufficient knowledge to write web copy that will hold your visitor right up to the end. The next step is to build in the pitch that will make the visitor act and buy the product. And you can build up the visitor’s desire and make him act by building a value proposition, by making him an offer he cannot refuse!

And, to build in this value proposition the website owner has to persuasively tell the visitor that if he buys from his website he’s getting a whole lot of benefits, along with a knockout deal on the price too. Once the website describes these benefits, it must then create a sense of urgency by announcing a time-limited offer or limited-visitor offer – something that will make the visitor act immediately on impulse and clinch the deal.

This is one of the oldest sales techniques and it doesn’t fail – provided you have got all the fundamentals of good web copy going and the product you are selling does have some sort of a market – no matter how small the market may be.

A Few Tips & Tricks

1. Always proofread and perfect the copy before it is published.

2. The copywriter must always place himself in the reader’s shoes before he writes the copy. If the copywriter does not get motivated or enthused by his own writing, then he must junk it until he gets it right.

3. The copy must not be written in an “I-am-clever-and-I-know-it” vein. Rather, it must connect with the readers by considering them as equals.

Conclusion

To conclude, you must get your inspiration and energy from these two super quotes: “The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean” by Robert Louis Stevenson, and “Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish” by John Jakes.

Now combine the two and see the wisdom in them and go ahead and write that eyeball-grabbing copy you always wanted to write but didn’t do so because you were waiting for a spark that would egg you on. And we hope this article has given that boost to your imagination. Good luck.

For most of my life I have been searching for the right diet. You name it and I have tried it, Weight Watchers, Body for Life, Slimfast just to name a few. I even tried Atkins and other low carb diets without any significant weight loss.

Fortunately I persevered and tried again and again because this was one of my major life goals. This was because with each diet I was gaining more weight afterwords. So the need was becoming much more acute because of the health risks that were very serious.

With each diet failure I felt that I had learned something that was unique about that particular diet. This made me realize that I should really become an avid student of diets to learn if there was something I was doing wrong. So I kept reading about the success others had achieved with the Atkins diet and I could see there must be a missing link.

That is when I found out that the Atkins diet was not about just eating tons of cheese and hot dogs, but was rather a well though out diet plan that I needed to get a copy of. So I borrowed the book from my public library and read it from cover to cover. This led me to the realization that I needed to follow the Atkins diet plan as it was exactly in the book.

What happened was after I got serious about the Atkins diet I lost a bunch of weight. Pretty soon I was free of over thirty pounds !

To make sure that I would be very successful I summarized all the details and read it over every week to make sure that I was doing everything right.

Hello all,
I am dying to get a copy of this expansion for the Sims 2, but can’t seem to find a copy anywhere in Ottawa. Please post if you’ve seen copies and where. Thanks!