Chapter 5: Creating Exceptional Copy That Sells

In This Chapter

Writing clear, effective, and compelling copy for your website

Using landing pages to drive sales

Motivating customers to buy from you

Even the prettiest website won’t convert a single visitor to a customer unless you use well-written content to entice and inspire taking immediate action. Regrettably, lesser-quality content isn’t typically the first thing on the chopping block when one tries to figure out why a website hasn’t been earning its keep — but after you read this chapter, you’ll understand why content should be one of the first things you examine closely for any improvement possible.

Fortunately, the Internet has been around for a while, so you can learn from others’ experiences. You can follow proven strategies when it comes to writing content for your website. And, of course, you should avoid several taboos.

Understanding the Elements of Effective Website Copy

Everyone is a skeptic on the web. You’ve probably heard about — or maybe even experienced firsthand — some type of online credit card fraud. Or, maybe you know someone who bought a birthday present online, only to receive the package three weeks after the birthday (if at all).

As a website owner and producer of content, your responsibility is to prove to your visitors that you’re worthy of earning their business. The following sections offer tips to help you evaluate current copy or write fresh copy that reassures visitors and helps turn them into customers.

Writing headlines with a hook

You have five seconds or less before a visitor to your website decides to take further action with you or your company. The first line of copy on your page needs to prove to your visitors that they arrived at the informational page they were looking for. A headline is the easiest way to accomplish this task.

A conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors that take some kind of action with you as opposed to leaving your website. This action can be a phone call, completing a contact form, walking into your retail store, or buying online through your shopping cart. Conversion rates can vary dramatically by making even a single change to the headline of a page.

A headline has one purpose: to get people to read more. To accomplish that, your headlines must

• Be intriguing and inviting

• Prove to your visitors that they’re at the right place

Sometimes, accomplishing both of the preceding objectives in just a few words can be like two repelling magnets. People spend weeks and even months testing new headlines to get them just right.

Writing headlines can be the most challenging part of the copywriting process. Follow these steps to use a headline-writing tool to aid the process:

1. Point your web browser to

www.actionheadlinecreator.com

2. To generate possible headlines, answer the four questions on the form and then click the Generate Headlines Now! button.

The headlines generated appear in alphabetical order, as shown in Figure 5-1.

3. Save the generated headlines for editing and future use by exporting them to a spreadsheet.

Use a spreadsheet so you can keep track of when you test your headlines and the results.

Click the Download as CSV button, and then send the headlines to yourself or someone else by e-mail.

If you don’t like any of the suggestions, you can always click the Clear! button, change the answers to the four questions, and rerun the report.

4. In your spreadsheet, tweak the words to fit.

One of the headlines the tool produced is A Breakthrough in How to Save Gas . . . In Only in First Tank Full! This suggestion is a good example of when you need to massage a headline that doesn’t initially seem to be a good fit into something that works. You could change this headline to fit a possible promotion on a sales page in the following ways:

• The first part of the headline, “A Breakthrough in How to Save Gas,” isn’t bad. But “A Breakthrough in Saving Gas” has a more fluid sound to it.

• The second part needs more work. “In Only in” is not grammatically correct. So, that would have to go.

• “In Only First Tank Full” doesn’t sound right either. So, how about “See Results in the First Tank Full”?

Your final headline might be, “A Breakthrough in Saving Gas . . . See Results in the First Tank Full!”

5. To save your revised headlines for future use, choose File⇒Save, give your file a name, and then click OK.

After you write your headline, remember to give it prominence and make it fit aesthetically on your web page. Here’s how to format and place your main heading for maximize impact:

• Center the headline.

• Put the headline in a different color than the rest of your text to make it stand out. Red is a good color for headlines because it stops people in their tracks to read what is so important. Blue is another good color for headlines because of its authority.

• Make the font size of the headline two to four times larger than the rest of your text.

• Don’t use punctuation to conclude a headline unless you’re using a question mark (um, if you’re asking a question in your headline).

Proving that you’re a real human being

We buy things from people we know, like, and trust . . . and often even envy. Your website is an opportunity to start that relationship and then build upon it. Here are some ways to increase the human factor of any specific web page, or the website overall:

• Write from your heart, not from the dictionary. For example, a CPA firm can take a dry sentence like this:

We prepare individual, joint, and unincorporated small business tax returns.

And personalize it, as follows:

So many new clients would tell us their business and individual tax return horror stories with other CPA firms. We just knew we were really on to something special when they would thank us for making the process so easy.

• Add a good photo to your web page. Adding a genuine and original photograph of yourself or your team to any website header or landing page turns a dry, faceless pile of words into a personal endorsement from you and can increase your opt-in and sales rates. Have a professional, studio-produced photo taken and get feedback from all your friends and family — you don’t want to look too scary. If your picture captures the true essence of who you are, they’ll tell you so. And, that’s the picture to use for your website. Figure 5-2 shows a great example of an effective photo.

Courtesy of Chris Warner

• Introduce yourself and your product with video or audio. Video and audio are the highest forms of introduction available for placement on a website (see Figure 5-3). With today’s tools, almost anyone can learn to create his or her own professional-looking videos from home for less than $1,000. At www.animalbehaviorassociates.com, you can find an example of a homemade video for a business that would’ve cost between $2,000 and $5,000 to produce in a studio with professional editors.

One of the most popular questions about audio and video is whether to begin the playback immediately when visitors land on the page or to give them the option to click a Play button. The answer, as you might have guessed, is to test your own results. (You test by using web analytics, the focus of Book III.) Try both ways by having your video start immediately for a couple of weeks and then having your video editor change the setting to force a playback button. If you have to pick one or the other and stick with it, have the automated playback begin immediately when visitors land on the page, but then offer a Stop button as well so that they can turn off the player if desired.

• Encourage contact by phone, e-mail, or live chat. Welcoming communication builds visitor confidence and sets you apart from the rest of the many companies that use the web to avoid communicating with their customers.

• Describe how you were once in the same position as your visitors by telling your story. Consider this fictional example of a divorce attorney attempting to sell her services:

22 years ago, my high school marriage grew apart, only to land in divorce court with an attorney who had never been married and just didn’t understand. I lost everything — including my dignity — and I vowed I would learn to fight for others to never let an experience like that happen to them. Now, with 18 years of experience in divorce law, I have a reputation for always . . .

Good copy is all about getting people engaged so that they want to find out more about you.

• Display your longevity and commitment to an industry. Take a look at Isla Animals (www.islaanimals.org), a nonprofit animal rescue shelter. By looking at the pictures and exploring the site, it doesn’t take long for you to realize that there is a real building with real people. With “Since December 1999” in the header (see Figure 5-4), you become convinced of its longevity as well. Everything about the website exudes a dedication to animal rescue.

Proving your solution does what you say it will do

When it comes to writing promotional copy, there comes a point where you need to stop presenting more features and benefits and start proving that your offer solves the problem. Here are several methods for proving to your visitors that your product or service solves their problem:

• Use testimonials in your website copy. The best testimonial you can have on a website is a video of a customer telling the world how your product or service helped his specific situation. A recorded audio file is an adequate substitute. Printed testimonials are acceptable but are believable only if you can print the first and last names of the testimony provider, along with the city and state he or she lives in.

You must be given written authorization to use someone’s full name and city and state residence for a testimonial!

When asking for a video or audio testimonial, you can help your customers decide what to say by giving them a checklist. You can use the following list for virtually any video or audio testimonial occasion and even try it yourself the next time you attend a seminar where testimonials are being taken onsite:

• Your name and website address

• Why you attended (or purchased a product)

• Your result or at least some bit of information you learned

• A strong recommendation for others in a similar position to attend the next time (or to buy now)

• Repeat your name and your website address

• Provide links to letters of recommendation. A three- or four-line testimonial is adequate, but getting a formally written letter of recommendation printed on your customer’s letterhead with a signature of the person at the bottom is exceptional. When you receive such a letter, you will need to have it scanned. Save the scanned copy as a PDF or JPG image, upload it to your website, and add a link from within a page on your website to the document.

• Share the fact that you’ve tried similar products. You should always know your competition and the quality of product or service they are delivering. Buy as much as you can afford of your competitors’ products so that you can speak wisely about how your offer fills gaps that the other products do not address. Most importantly, you must mention on your page that you’re familiar with similar products but that certain elements of your product are what really set you apart from the rest. Here’s an example:

Now, I’ve personally spent more than $20,000 out of my own pocket buying products that claimed I would learn how to speak 2nd-year college-level Spanish in 30 days. None of them worked because none of them offered V.R.I., my patent-pending, one-of-a-kind Voice Recognition Interpreter tool, where the automated attendant automatically tells you how to correct a sentence before you’ve even completed one! I can tell you for certain that nowhere else can you find this product anywhere on the market today, and soon it will change the way people learn languages forever!

• Show that no competing product is as easy to use. The last thing people want is to learn something difficult or to implement something that takes time to figure out. We want speed of implementation and speed of results. Convince your prospective customer that your solution is simple. And, if it’s not simple, you need to work on its methodology so that it is simple.

Continuing with the Spanish training example, you could use verbiage like this to describe the ease of use:

Learning a foreign language is known as one of the most difficult things to do, especially as an adult. I discovered why this was true after trying every Spanish CD and book I could find. When I created this product, it was really for myself first. I needed a Spanish-learning process that was so easy that my mother at age 73 could figure it out! And, you know what? My mother and I have complete conversations today . . . in Spanish! She just loaded the CD into her computer and pressed the Play button. That was it. No manuals. No complex reading or study. It was all right there on her computer.

Don’t invite your visitors to “check out the competition” — because they will! In the automotive sales business, salespeople will do anything they can to get you to buy their car while you’re on the lot, because they know that after you leave, there is a slim chance you will return to buy their car.

• Describe the product’s popularity. We all like to be part of something that’s popular, and we shy away from being the first to experience something new.

Include a paragraph in your website copy that suggests to readers that they’re really missing out on something and that your product is used by either a large number or a wide variety of people. For example:

Last month alone, more than 350 people made the choice to learn Spanish in 30 days or less using my system.

The objective of conveying your popularity is not to lie! Never lie to your audience. You don’t need to fabricate numbers to be seen as popular, even if your business is in the start-up phase. Simply identify something about your business that really is popular and talk about it. Here are some examples — just add your own number and change the topic to be more descriptive of your business:

Of the more than 100 people I talked to last month who had attempted to learn Spanish through some other means, only 2 reported that the system they tried had worked.

100 people who started learning Spanish using my product last month can’t be wrong.

Of the last 100 people who used my learning Spanish system, the success rate has been a whopping 94%!

Providing clear and easy calls to action

How many websites have you visited where you find yourself pulling out your credit card ready to buy, but the sales page never gives you a link or an Add to Cart button to click? Make it easy for your visitors to take the next step with you:

• Display a phone number in plain view on every page of your website.

• Use different sizes of both links and buttons throughout your copy to take customers to order forms.

• Test different text on buttons and links, and then monitor which brings the best conversion rate.

You have two ways to test the effectiveness of links and buttons on a sales page. First, you can use Google Analytics, as further described in Book III, to track the exact path a website visitor takes through your website from the page he enters through the entire ordering system. The other way is by split testing (or A/B testing) during a Google AdWords campaign, as described in Book IV, Chapter 4.

• Keep your text links blue and underlined. People are used to clicking links that are traditionally formatted as blue and underlined. Use a variety of graphic images to direct your visitors what to do next. See Chapter 3 of this minibook for more information on design.

• Try providing a form at the end of your copy instead of links to other pages. The less you force people to click things to get to the next step, the more chance you have of them taking that next step.

• Reduce the number of distractions. For other pages of your site, it’s natural to offer navigation buttons, special offers on a variety of products, and other news items. When it comes to a sales page, though, reduce the distractions so that a visitor isn’t tempted to deviate from the buying process.

For an effective result, add a red border around your Buy Now buttons. Then add an effect where the red border turns green when you mouse over the button. Your conversion rates will increase. That just goes to show that the most minute changes to your sales page can make a difference in your sales outcome.

Driving Sales with Landing Pages

Whether your visitors find you through search engines or banner ads, or by typing your website address into their web browser, the first page of your site that people see is known as the landing page. If your landing page copy isn’t exactly what your visitors are looking for, they will leave your site and search for someone else’s landing page that offers more relevant results.

The following sections introduce you to three of the most popular types of landing pages used to cast a large net, capture a wide range of visitors, and/or receive targeted traffic — educational content pages, squeeze pages, and sales pages.

Create topic-specific pages throughout your website and drive traffic to those subsequent pages instead of trying to bring in all your traffic through the homepage. When a visitor lands on your homepage, too many choices are usually available. The visitor doesn’t typically see what he was looking for within a few seconds and just clicks the Back button.

Creating educational content pages

Because most people search the Internet for answers to specific problems, create pages on your website to educate people on those issues. These educational content pages can develop into dozens, or even hundreds or thousands, in number for any website. Figure 5-5 shows an example of an educational content page.

Educational content pages are

• Fast and easy to create because they are short.

• Enjoyable to read because they focus on one, specific topic.

• Attractive to search engines because they are heavily optimized for specific keywords related to the problems people are searching to solve.

• An opportunity to tell visitors that more is involved with the solution and that you have just the product or service to suggest.

• One of the least-expensive ways to cast a large net to attract a wide variety of visitors in a short amount of time.

The following steps outline key tasks for a successful educational content page. When you create your pages, make sure to follow all the steps:

1. Research where the traffic is.

Before you write an educational content page, or plan to revise an existing one, find out what exact phrases people are searching for related to the topic you want to write about. Google includes a keyword search tool as part of its AdWords software (see Figure 5-6).

Your time is much better used by writing content pages for what people are searching for already rather than coming up with your own topics and hoping people somehow find them. See Book III for more details on keyword research.

Be sure to include the search phrases you find, as follows:

• Create a headline that begins with the keywords people are searching for.

• Use the exact keyword phrase people are searching for when you give your content page a title and filename for basic search engine optimization standards.

In Book II, you can find more detailed help with search engine optimization.

2. Introduce the problem.

A paragraph that’s three to ten sentences long usually works well.

3. Suggest what the reader can do right now on his own to work toward a solution.

Add three to five bullet points or numbered steps. Never use only one suggestion, or two or four suggestions (people respond better to odd numbers).

4. Add a summary paragraph after you have completed the bullet point section of your content page.

Use no more than four or five sentences.

5. Explain how you can help with the problem.

This goes beyond what the reader can do and involves either a product you offer or a service you provide.

6. Introduce yourself.

Write a three- to five-sentence signature line that introduces you to the reader more formally.

7. Link to your content pages on other pages of your website.

You want visitors and search engine spiders to find the page. When you’re creating these links, be sure to include a link to the content page on both your traditional site map and Google Sitemap areas. (See the following sidebar for details on site maps versus Google Sitemaps.)

Don’t confuse educational content pages with article pages. An article is something you usually write to be displayed on someone else’s website. Article pages are typically longer than 400–600 words and often reference other websites or sources. Content pages are very raw and to the point, and are designed to be showcased only on your website.

Search engines have been working on reducing the amount of duplicate content on the Internet. Resist the temptation to duplicate your content pages and change only a few words on each page in the hopes of getting more search engine visitors just because you have more pages online.

Building your opt-in e-mail list with squeeze pages

Squeeze pages are short and simple pages that introduce additional content available to readers — but only if they’re willing to register by providing an e-mail address. Figure 5-7 displays a squeeze page.

A squeeze page is a great way to accept targeted traffic for a very specific topic of interest and inspire visitors to register to be on your mailing list. Commonly, more than 20 percent of your first-time visitors to a squeeze page will complete and submit the opt-in form. Some points to keep in mind while creating a squeeze page include the following:

• Great headlines are critical. Going without a headline on a squeeze page or having one displayed that’s not relevant to the topic is a traffic killer. See the section “Writing headlines with a hook,” earlier in this chapter.

• Show a good photo of yourself. Conversion rates for a squeeze page always increase when you have a good photo of yourself (or whoever is writing to the visitor). See the section “Proving that you’re a real human being,” earlier in this chapter, for tips on including a photo.

• Write as if you’re talking to someone one on one. Squeeze pages are very personal. Take away all the corporate flair, and just talk to your visitors as if they’re right in front of you.

• List the benefits of why your visitors should opt in to your list. What will they get exactly, and why is it worth giving up their e-mail address to receive?

• Promise to give away something after they do sign up. This could be a free report, e-course, or consult; sound files; or a coupon. Be creative. When you provide something of true value for free, an impressed subscriber will consider more strongly that your for-pay offer must have exceptional value as well.

• Keep your subscription form to two fields — Name and E-mail Address: Every additional field beyond those two will reduce your number of opt-ins substantially.

The term opt in is a rather one-sided agreement. The website visitor agrees to give you an e-mail address so that he can get exactly what you were offering for free. It does not give you the permission to mercilessly barrage the subscriber with e-mails day and night until the end of time. In fact, think of every e-mail you send to your list to be like a fresh batch of chocolate cookies. If it doesn’t taste great every time, the subscriber can unsubscribe anytime.

Book V, Chapter 3 offers more tips for building your e-mail list.

Providing all the facts through sales pages

A sales page serves three purposes:

• To educate the visitor with the facts about a specific product, service, or event

• To give the reader enough facts to make an informed buying decision

• To provide the mechanism to actually take the next step in the buying process

Whereas educational content pages teach and squeeze pages build your list, sales pages are designed to convert readers into paying customers. Figure 5-8 shows a popular online training workshop sales page.

Sales pages come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and no general rule exists for how long or short a page should be for your particular product. The most important rule is to give just enough information to allow someone to make an educated decision. One word more is too much, and one word less is not enough.

Provide more information about your product as the price rises. Don’t expect to sell a $100,000 diamond with three bullet points of text and a price. Conversely, you probably don’t need a 20,000-word sales page to sell a $17 e-book. Also consider adding more details when you expect more time from your customer. If you expect a customer to be away from his family for a few days for a conference, that requires more information than a one-hour online seminar.

Whether long or short, all good Internet sales pages have the following components:

• A main headline

• A description of the problem and why it’s important to have the problem solved or alleviated

• Accurate and descriptive content to describe exactly how your product or service will solve the problem

• Proof that the item does what you claim or is what it appears to be

• A way to take immediate action, whether by buying online or by picking up the phone to call

The trickiest thing about a sales page is the order in which to display those five elements. To make things easier, you can follow the C.O.N.V.E.R.T. M.E. formula, the topic of the next section.

Writing Copy That Sells, Using the C.O.N.V.E.R.T. M.E. Formula

When someone buys something online, it’s known as a conversion because the purchaser converted from a visitor to a paying customer. Only after you have proven yourself to your visitors can you focus on converting visitors to paying customers.

The following sections outline a step-by-step process that you can work through to create website copy that converts visitors to customers. The first letter of each step (and subsequent section) works as a mnemonic device to spell c-o-n-v-e-r-t m-e to help you remember the steps in the process. The following steps summarize the nine steps in the C.O.N.V.E.R.T. M.E. formula:

1. Captivate visitors.

Write a headline with a hook.

2. Offer just one testimonial.

Place one testimonial under the headline.

3. Now address your visitors.

Use typical, letter-style formatting.

4. Validate some facts.

Show industry percentages to reinforce the problem.

5. Expose your solution.

Clearly define your problem solver and describe how it works.

6. Recapture attention.

Don’t let visitors leave just because you unveiled the secret.

7. Test for action.

Determine whether they’re ready to buy right now.

8. Motivate with value and urgency.

“But wait!” It’s for real!

9. Energize visitors to buy.

Give assurance that your offer really is a good deal.

Captivate visitors with a headline that hooks

Whoever wrote the suggestion that headlines should be short is probably broke. The secret to a good or bad headline is testing, not the number of words. You must test headlines for every page of your website where a product is sold or where someone is encouraged to take action of some kind, be it by phone, e-mail, chat, or completing a contact form. Even test headlines for educational content pages!

To test headlines, you need to watch your bounce rates. A bounce rate is the percentage of overall visitors who visit the page on your website and immediately leave. You can tell what your bounce rate is by looking at your visitation statistics logs within Google Analytics, which display the overall percentage of visitors who have left your site immediately, or under just a few seconds, on any particular page of your website. When you make a single change to your headline and then see your bounce rate percentage drop after a few days, you know you’ve made a better headline. Google Analytics is further described in Book III.

See the section “Writing headlines with a hook,” earlier in this chapter, for tips on writing headlines.

Offer reinforcement of your headline

Not too many things will generate interest and hope that a solution is possible better than a well-planned testimonial. Pick one of your best and add the testimonial right under the headline that you added to your site in the preceding section. You can also use a subheadline or an interesting statistic to reinforce your headline.

Even better than just choosing what you feel is your best testimonial would be an endorsement from a celebrity or a recognized authority in your field. You can begin the process of getting a celebrity endorsement by contacting his or her agent or management company and offering to send your product for free evaluation.

Now address your visitors personally

A personalized letter allows you to have a conversation with a reader as if you’re on the phone with each other. For example, Figure 5-9 shows how you can quickly engage a reader by addressing her personally with a letter on your website. Notice how right after the Dear Fellow Mom salutation, you see a bullet point list of issues that moms face daily. This list builds rapport with the reader and gets her to the next stage, where you are to validate some facts.

Validate some facts

Before you go deeper into the components of the actual solution, attempt to make a bond with a wide variety of people who might be experiencing the issue you can resolve for them. This is accomplished by adding some factual statistics that address those groups. Whenever possible, those facts and figures should be based on what people want most:

• More money

• More time

• Something fast

• Something easy

Another way to accomplish the same task is to ask questions (see Figure 5-10). The three questions should keep the reader reading for a solution to his problem.

Expose your solution

Now it’s time to rope in the visitors after they read the facts and figures by exposing exactly what your solution is. What kind of product or service are you offering? Use solution phrases to suggest an answer that is going to be unveiled shortly. Then, let your visitors know precisely what it is you’re going to provide to them and what problems you will help them solve. For example, you can start your sentences with these:

• That’s Exactly Why I Decided to Create . . .

• And, Just When You Thought There Was No Solution . . .

• This New Opportunity Will . . .

These are just a few examples of how solution sentences begin.

Be prepared to spend just as much time (if not more) creating and testing the wording of these solution statements as you will spend creating a captivating headline. The extra effort is worth it!

List your benefits clearly with bullet points and highlighting to make them easy to scan because most people won’t read them word for word. Start each benefit statement with action verbs that at have energy and enthusiasm and that encourage people to keep reading. For a list of more than 360 action verbs, visit http://www.websitewaves.com/362-verbs-that-sell-when-writing-copy-for-your-website.html

Recapture visitors’ attention

Solution sentences and benefits lists can get pretty long sometimes. The fact that some people scan through sales pages differently than others comes into play here. Maybe your reader skipped over the facts and figures area but started to read some of the benefits. Or, maybe the bullet points were skipped all together.

After you expose your solutions, it’s time to recapture the attention of your visitors, as shown in Figure 5-11. This can be done in several ways, but a good strategy is to build more rapport with your visitor.

The phrase Hard Money Is Being Offered to Businesses Large and Small brings the reader back. The next few sentences start to recapture the attention of the reader. By showing part of the table of contents for the book and turning them into benefit statements, you build additional interest.

Test for action

At this point, you will have some readers who are convinced they should give your product or service a try. They just need one last nudge.

One of the best ways to get people over the hump of making a decision to take action with you, whether by calling you on the phone, submitting a contact form, or making an online purchase, is to offer more testimonials. Hopefully, one of the testimonials will resonate with the reader as someone else having been in a similar situation where his problem was solved, and a purchase may result from that single testimonial. Then, use a subheadline format to give a strong suggestion to buy right now.

• If you want a visitor to click a link to buy, suggest it like this:

Buy Now or Order Now

• If you want the visitor to visit another page to learn more about dog food, tell her to click a link as follows:

Learn more about dog food.

• If you want the visitor to call you right now, tell her specifically to

Pick up the phone right now and call 800-555-1212 for your special . . .

Motivate by adding value and urgency

Although a few potential customers might be willing to buy at that point of testing for action, most will not. You may have the best copywriting in the world, but if you don’t inspire your buyers to buy right this minute, you won’t get most of the sales you should’ve closed. Add some urgency to your copy to close the deal.

• You MUST order by midnight tonight because this item will no longer be available.

• You MUST order by Saturday because by then the event will surely be sold out.

• I’m pulling this product from the website tomorrow, and it will not be available for sale as a stand-alone product after that. I’ll be adding it as a part of a bigger package, which will be available at a higher price next month.

• I can only provide technical support for this software for the next 25 people who order right away.

• Only 14 of these are left in stock. You must order now or risk never seeing an offer like this again!

• Rest assured there is a 90-day money-back guarantee.

Energize visitors to buy

At this point, you have tested for action and provided all the motivation possible by adding value to the sale. Wrap things up and encourage your visitors to buy.

• Suggest a specific action again, such as Click Here to Buy Online Now or Call This Number Now.

• Sign your name or use your initials.

For your own security, use a different signature than you would on a personal check.

• Add three postscript (P.S.) statements.

People respond better when things are presented in threes.

Some visitors will completely bypass everything you write in a sales letter only to look at the P.S. statements at the end. Use this format to capitalize on this fact:

• P.S.: Your statement No. 1

• P.P.S.: Your statement No. 2

Make this one a powerful reminder of the most important benefits.

• P.P.P.S.: Your statement No. 3

Then provide one final action statement or the order link.

If you sell a product online, your merchant account provider will probably require that you have a Terms of Use page and also a privacy statement. Go the extra step and provide a Disclaimer page, especially if your product or service has the potential of improving one’s financial or health status.

Fear of being too wordy is very common. Not every sales page needs to have every component. Your conversion rates may increase if you do not have your signature or P.S. statements. Maybe you need two lists of benefit statements to make more sales. Continuous monitoring and testing are required to maximize your sales potential on the Internet.