What copywriters don't want you to know

There's a secret most copywriters and
marketers only whisper to one another.

Very few talk about this secret because it's
considered dangerous and can upset people.

You see almost all successful marketers are
students of hypnosis or human psychology.

They need to be so they can understand HOW & WHY
people buy.

Because without this knowledge their websites
or shops are as quiet as a graveyard.

The problem is there's very little quality
information 'out there' on this hidden subject.

That changed when world class hypnotist and
consultant to Fortune 500 companies,
Igor Ledochowski, decided to 'spill the beans' with...

*** His new Power of Conversational Hypnosis
course which has finally been released ***

It's the most ADVANCED course ANYWHERE on
conversational hypnosis.

In fact here's what hypnotic marketer, certified
hypnotherapist, online guru and star of the hit
film "The Secret" says about it...

"I didn't believe this material would be
that good, but it turns out to be a breathtaking
course on using hypnosis in everyday conversation.

"I've never seen or heard anything this
complete, powerful, or convincing.

"I love it."

Dr. Joe Vitale mrfire.com

And what's even better for you it's being
released for a limited time as a digital
course so you'll be able to access it
immediately.

* It comes with 16 Full CDs (as MP3s)

* The Full Transcripts + Manual (620+ Pages)

* The How To Master Conversational Hypnosis Cheat Sheets

* The How To Destroy Resistance With Stories Cheat Sheets

The site is live right now and the full
digital version is available for over
3 times LESS than the physical version!

And because it's been just released it's
specially discounted.

Please understand this extra discount
will likely be pulled very soon.

So do check it out now, while you can, I
promise you won't be disappointed.

http://www.scam-free-sites.com/conversational-hypnosis.html

Sell More with a User-Friendly Web Site

Easy navigation is essential to keeping prospective buyers at your site. Follow these tips to make your web site user friendly and increase sales.

Make it easy for prospective buyers to find what they are looking for.

Provide plenty of links on your home page, giving visitors an overview of your web site's content and choices. Provide links to your home page and main sections (such as your order form, contact page, products, and articles) on every page. Visitors may not visit your pages in the sequence you would like them to. Provide a site map (table of contents) if your site has more than twenty pages. Make sure all links are working.

Keep pages short.

Visitors should be able to see the important information, especially on your home page, without scrolling down. Studies show that more than half of the web surfers never scroll down past the first screen of information, so provide your benefits, site description, and USP at the top of the page.

Make your web pages easy to read.

An easy-to-read, professionally-designed web site can maximize your sales. Use color and spacing to make your web pages easy to read. Dark text on a light background is easy to read. A hint of color softens the screen. Avoid text on dark and busy backgrounds. Break up your sales copy into short, easy-to-read sections and use subheadings to highlight benefits. Split up long pages into several pages.

Make it easy to contact you.

Provide your phone number, email address, and URL (web address) on every page. This will make it easier for people to go back to your web site.

Speed up your web site.

Your web site's speed has a significant impact on user loyalty. A slow web site will cost you sales. Visitors won't wait more than10 seconds for your web pages to load. Make your home page fast loading to keep visitors at your site.

A user-friendly site will sell more. Make your web site user friendly to keep visitors at your site, read your sales materials and buy from you.

Visit http://www.fivestarwebdesign.com/ to get a web site that sells.


© Leva Duell

Writing for a blog

The Ultimate Blogger Writing Guide

by Dean Rieck

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of writing guides out there. But in my opinion, none surpass the simple, direct advice of The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B.White.

This classic serves up much good advice, especially in the last 20 pages in a section titled “An Approach to Style.” Nowhere have I seen more helpful advice in so few words and with such precision. This is why I always keep this book within reach.

If (for shame) you don’t already have this reference in your library, I will leave it to you to explore it in depth. But I would like to provide my own version of eight important writing tips as they apply to blogging.

1. Put the reader first. The purpose of writing is clear, sometimes persuasive, communication. It is not about you or your clever ideas. If you write to impress, you will distract the reader from the content. Good writing is like a store window. It should be clean and clear, providing an unobstructed view of the contents within.
2. Organize your thoughts. You don’t need a detailed outline for most writing. But you do need to know what you want to say before you say it. If you’re comfortable with the sort of outline you learned in school, use it. Otherwise, simply jot down the important points you want to make and arrange them in the order you want to make them. Eliminate any ideas that are not directly related to these points.
3. Use short paragraphs. Look at any newspaper and notice how short the paragraphs are. That’s done to make reading easier since our brains take in information better when ideas are broken into small chunks. In ordinary writing, each paragraph develops one idea and includes many sentences. But in blogging, the style is less formal and paragraphs may be as short as a single sentence or even a single word.
4. Use short sentences. You should keep sentences short for the same reason you keep paragraphs short: they’re easier to read and understand. Each sentence should have one simple thought. More than that creates complexity and invites confusion.
5. Use simple words. Since your purpose is to communicate and not impress, simple words work better than big ones. Write “get” instead of “procure.” Write “use” rather than “utilize.” Use the longer words only if your meaning is so precise there is no simpler word to use.
6. Be specific. Don’t write “Many doctors recommend Brand X.” Write “97% of doctors recommend Brand X.” Don’t write “The Big Widget is offered in many colors.” Write “The Big Widget comes in red, green, blue, and white.” Get to the point. Say what you mean. Use specific nouns.
7. Write in a conversational style. There is a road sign often posted near construction sites that always irritates me. It reads, “Maintain present lane.” Why so formal? A more conversational style would be better: “Stay in your lane” or “Do not change lanes.” If you write as if you’re wearing a top hat and spats, you distance yourself from the reader and muddle the message.
8. Be clear. This may be the most important rule of all. Without clarity, your writing fails on every level. You achieve clarity when you accurately communicate the meaning in your head to the head of your reader. That’s difficult. Look at your writing with an objective eye. Consider what might be misunderstood and rewrite it. Find what is irrelevant and delete it. Notice what is missing and insert it.

When writing fails, it’s probably because you don’t have something to say, are too concerned with affecting a style, or both. Follow the suggestions here, and you will avoid these problems and many others. Plus you will find that your copy is more lively, more meaningful, and more profitable.

Dean Rieck is a leading direct marketing copywriter. For more copywriting and selling tips, sign up for Dean’s FREE direct response newsletter or subscribe to the Direct Creative Blog.

Find out what most copywriters don't want you to know - Visit http://www.scam-free-sites.com/conversational-hypnosis.html

Internet Writing - Top Tips

Online readers love information, but be sure your information is crisp, clear and concise.

Target your Web content to your preferred audience. A good way to do that is to include your audience in the title or introduction. When you focus your information on your audience, you write more compelling, focused copy that your readers will love.

Keep your paragraphs short, even a line or two. Online readers will ignore long batches of words in long paragraphs, whether in an ezine or at a Web site. You will lose sales. Respect readers who want short material.

Make your headlines compelling. Test them on associates, edit them at least five times. If your headlines are not compelling, visitors will go to the next Web site.

Get to the point quickly in the title and the first line. Keep your introduction and conclusion to a sentence or two.

Make your copy strong, clear, and direct.

Tell your readers what you want them to do. They are waiting for your magic formula to make them richer, healthier, and happier.

Eliminate superfluous words, adverbs (like "ly"), and passive verbs. Replace linking verbs such as "is" and "was" with bold verbs. Use powerful words that sell!

Keep these tips in mind so that your Web site will bring potential buyers to your Web site, keep them at your Web site longer, and convert them to buyers.

Writing Articles for the Internet

Write tips in this format. Use this three-sentence formula to bring the curious to you.

First, use a verb as a command.

Then mention the cost of not following your advise.

End with a positive comment.

Keep these tips in mind, so that your articles will bring folks to your Web site.

Judy Cullins: author, publisher, book coach, Author of Ten Non-techie Ways to Market Your Book Online and Write your eBook or Other Short Book-Fast! http://www.bookcoaching.com. Subscribe to FREE ezine "The Book Coach Says..." Email: Judy@bookcoaching.com

Hypnotic Writing - 7 steps to Success

I am not sure about the ethics involved here but I do know one thing: It is a must need on the Internet. Without powerful writing, you will not succeed even if you are giving out free gold. A popular example being the experiment conducted by some marketing gurus. They advertised to give out $100 bills free. There was no response because the writing was not compelling/ convincing enough.

With the information explosion on the Internet, the competition is more deadly. Hence the use of power writing is at its peak. You have to stand out, to grab, to dominate, to intoxicate, capture and be noticed. The more you differ from the norms, the greater are your chances of success.

You need to make your power writing more forceful and spellbinding. How do you fascinate and mesmerize your readers? Here is a seven-step technique for achieving hypnosis through writing:

Use suggestion to subtly introduce an impression, inspiration, idea or thought. Let's consider a simple work example using the concept of 'sleep'. Our suggestion will be: 'You are sleepy'.

Give instruction/ command. Tell the person to take action as desired by you. Give a direct command. For our example, this will be: 'Go to sleep'.

Back up with a conviction/ determination statement &endash; A conviction statement conveys a sense of assurance, certainty, confidence, sincerity and passion. Conviction is very easily generated by using the word 'will' instead of 'can'. For our example, the conviction statement is: 'You will sleep'.

Follow up with endorsement/re-affirmation. Back up your conviction statement by using the word 'Yes'. For our example, this is: 'Yes, you will sleep'.

Give a vivid description to appeal to emotions - Describe in great detail giving all the advantages, disadvantages and properties. In short make it so vivid that your reader sees, hears, smells, tastes and feels the action and hence gets involved emotionally.

For example consider the following three descriptions: 'A strawberry'; 'A red strawberry'; 'A large ripe, red and juicy strawberry, mmm..'. With the third description you can almost feel your mouth watering.

Now back to our work example: 'You will fall in to a deep, soothing, slumbering sleep'.

Use powerful words. Some words click on the subconscious power of the mind and immediately trigger certain strong emotions. Hence these words have a strong appeal.

A small fraction of such words are outlined here: You, free, magic, hell, damn, baby, do, secret, revealed, sensational, revolutionary, pioneer, discover, will, success, yes.

Use repetitive rhythms. Repetition fascinates the mind and creates an intoxicating influence. For our example, the rhythm is: 'Go to sleep; you will sleep; yes you will sleep; you will fall into a deep, soothing, slumbering sleep'.

For successful hypnosis, the rhythm has to be repeated several times. Remember the rule of thumb of marketing experts: You need to repeat your sales message between seven to ten times to close a deal.

However since hypnotic writing is already so powerful, I will go with a cycle of three: at the start, in the middle and at the end of your message.

For ease of understanding, the work example used was very simple and straight forward. In actual business writing, you have to be subtle. You need to influence and fascinate without offending or being obvious to the reader. You will achieve this by weaving the above magic into the body of your regular business writing.

To integrate effectively, you may change the order of presentation, split up the process and make variations to the concept. Here your imagination is the limit. Copyright Shahnaz Rauf. Author 'Zero Dollar Budget' The Free Articles And Free Site Review At http://www.snzeport.com.For excellent marketing action plans, free advertising, join free newsletter-The Monster Twister. To Subscribe visit: http://www.snzeport.com/tmtarchives.htm

Increase Sales with an Easy-To-Navigate Web Site

Can your visitors find what they’re looking for on your web site with one or two clicks? Easy navigation is essential to keep visitors at your site and turn them into buyers. Follow these 13 steps to make your web pages easy to navigate and compel prospective buyers to explore your web site.

1. Provide plenty of links on your home page, giving an overview of your web site's content and providing choices for your visitors.

2. Put clear navigation options at the top or left of your pages, so visitors see them right away. Users may not scroll through lengthy pages. In addition, add a "Go Back to Top" button at the end of long pages.

3. Provide navigation links to your home page, main sections, order page, contact page, and product pages on every page. Potential buyers may not read your pages in the sequence you would like them to.

4. Make navigation simple and consistent throughout your web site. Keep the style and location of your navigation buttons and links the same on every page.

5. Use simple terms for your navigation buttons and links that visitors will recognize such as "home," "order," and "contact."

6. Use standard underlined hyperlinks for recognition. The standard color for non-visited links is blue. Use a different link color for visited links.

7. Include a sitemap (table of contents) if your site has more than 20 pages. Creating a sitemap may also improve your search engine ranking.

8. Put your URL (e.g., www.yourdomain.com) and email address on every page.

9. Turn links into benefit-oriented headlines and include action verbs to motivate potential buyers to click on your links. For example, "Top 5 ways to increase your web sales immediately. Sign up now to get this $49 report F*REE."

10. Describe your graphics and navigation buttons in ALT tags (alternative text describing your images for visitors who browse your site with the images turned off).

11. Avoid "entry" pages (home pages with animation) visitors have to click on to enter the site that don't indicate what your site is about.

12. Avoid frames, drop-down menus, and pop-up windows. They may confuse visitors.

13. Make sure all links work.

Make it easy and logical for potential buyers to get to the information they're looking for. Apply these steps now and watch your sales increase!

Visit http://www.fivestarwebdesign.com/ to get a web site that sells.


© Leva Duell

Writing Web Copy

Writing Benefit-Driven Web Copy – 4 Steps to More Sales

You've identified the benefits you offer your customers, but how do you turn a list of benefits into engaging copy?

As a copywriter, many of the projects I undertake are completely new websites. The client has some general ideas about what they’d like to convey, but they need someone who can fine-tune their message, and create copy which engages their readers. As a result, over the years I’ve developed a process for doing this effectively. There are four main steps:

• Identify benefits
  
  
• Identify how you deliver these benefits



• Prioritise your benefits



• Write the content

STEP 1 – Identify your benefits

Branding aside, most websites are about selling. Customers don’t want to know what you can do; they want to know what you can do for THEM. That means the first question you should ask is, “What benefits do I offer my customers?” This is usually the first step toward identifying the key message to be conveyed.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t describe your products and services. You just need to make sure it describes them in terms of benefits to your customer.

STEP 2 – Identify how you deliver these benefits

Of course, you can’t just claim to deliver benefits and stop at that. You need to support that claim. You’re going to need to convince your audience that you actually do deliver these benefits. Anyone can say they deliver benefits, but few can say it persuasively.

From step 1 you’ll have a list of benefits. Now you need to think about how you deliver each benefit in that list. This is where you start talking about features – price, product highlights, distribution channel, competitor weaknesses, external factors, USPs, etc. It’s helpful if you draw up a table with one column for benefits and one for the features which deliver those benefits.
You’ll probably find this process much easier than identifying benefits. In fact, you’ve probably got most of this information written down already… somewhere. If not, chances are you uncovered a good portion of it when you were brainstorming for benefits.

TIP: If you’re having trouble identifying supporting features, before filling out the table, try listing everything you can think of which relates to what you do and how you do it. Don’t worry about the order. Just braindump onto a piece of paper, a whiteboard, a Word document, anywhere… Don’t leave anything out, even if it seems unimportant. (You’d be surprised how important even the most insignificant details can become once you start assigning them to benefits.) If you start getting lost, think back to the question you’re trying to answer: How do you deliver your list of benefits to your customer? Once you’ve done your braindump, read through it and decide which specific benefit each feature delivers.

STEP 3 – Prioritise your benefits

Now that you’ve identified all the things you COULD say, it’s time to figure out what you SHOULD say and where you should say it. This is where your benefits-features table comes into play. Read through your list of benefits and prioritise them according to how compelling they will be to your reader.

The reason for this? Priority determines prominence. The most compelling benefits will need to be prominent.

TIP: Be aware that your list may include some benefits which everyone in your business category could claim. In other words, they’re not just specific to your company, but apply to the type of service you offer. For example, if you sell a Content Management System (CMS) for website creation, you may list “Greater control for marketing managers” and “Less expense updating content” as benefits. Every CMS vendor could claim these benefits, so you’ll need to question their importance. Will they differentiate you from your competitors. Generic benefits can be useful if none of your competitors are using them, or if you feel you need to educate your market a bit before launching into company-specific benefits.

STEP 4 – Write your content

So now you know what you’d like to say, it’s time to decide how to say it. This is about three things:

• Subject – What is the subject of your site; features or benefits?



• Structure – How do you structure your site such that your customers will read your most compelling benefits?



• Words – What words should you use to best engage your audience (and the search engines)?

Subject

What is the subject of your site; features or benefits? The answer to this question lies in audience identification. If your audience knows a bit about the type of product or service you’re selling, lead with features (e.g. processor speed, turnaround time, uptime, expertise, educational qualifications, wide product range, etc.). But make sure you talk about their benefits, and make sure the features offering the most important benefits are the most prominent.

Here’s a simplified example…

Cool Widgets offers:

• Standard Operating Environment – Significantly reducing the complexity of your IT infrastructure



• System upgrades which are less expensive to license – Providing excellent TCO reductions

In cases where you’re selling to an audience who knows very little about your product or service, lead with benefits (e.g. if you’re selling something technical to a non-technical audience).

Here’s the same simplified example, reversed for a novice audience…
Cool Widgets offers:

• Reduced complexity of IT infrastructure – We can implement a Standard Operating Environment for your organisation


• Reduced TCO – We can upgrade your IT to systems which are less expensive to license
  Structure
  

How do you structure your site such that your customers will be sure to read your most compelling benefits? The answer is, keep it short ‘n sweet. And make it scannable. This doesn’t mean you have to cut features or benefits. You just have to structure your site to accommodate your message.

While every site is different, as a rule of thumb it’s a good idea to introduce your main features and benefits on your home page. Summarise them – preferably using bullet points, but at the very least, clearly highlight them so that your audience can scan-read (e.g. bold, underline, colour, link).

Then link from each summarised feature or benefit to a detailed description. Try to keep each page to approximately 200-400 words. You may need several pages to detail all your features and benefits. (Click to download a 29KB Word file containing a page structure template.)
TIP: In cases where you need to introduce features and benefits which are generic to your field (rather than specific to your offering), your home page is generally the best place to do it. From there, you can lead to a second page summarising the specific features and benefits of your offering.

Conclusion

Web copy is about far more than just clever words. It’s essential that you identify the benefits you offer your customer, and that you can convince your customer you actually deliver those benefits.

I hope that the guidance and tools provided in this article will help you on your way to engaging copy which converts to sales.

Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter and heads copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at http://www.divinewrite.com/.

Visit http://www.fivestarwebdesign.com/ to get a web site that sells.

Boost Your Internet Sales By Building Your Own Opt-in Mailing List

Building a list is the most important element of any Internet business. You need an opt-in list to be successful online and turn prospects into buyers.

An opt-in list is an email list of people who have agreed to receive information from you. When they opt in, you get their permission to send them information. They have the option of unsubscribing from your list anytime.

Why do you need an opt-in list?

First, your visitors may not be ready to buy the first time they visit your web site. People don't always make decisions right away. They may want to check out other web sites before buying. They may procrastinate because they're busy and in a hurry. Therefore, you have to stay in touch with your prospects regularly so they'll remember you when they are ready to buy. Another reason they may not buy right away is because they don't know you yet. You haven't built rapport and trust yet. You have to develop relationships and show that you know what you are talking about. To build trust, you must provide your subscribers with helpful information that is related to the products and services you're selling. You have to keep contacting prospects until they buy from you. Marketers know that typically a prospect must hear a message an average of seven times before they will buy. If you give up too soon, you'll be losing many sales.
It's important to motivate potential clients to give you their email address so you can contact them on a regular basis. If they leave your web site without giving you their email address, you're losing your chance to sell them.

Building your own list provides highly targeted, responsive leads. People who sign up for your free newsletter or report are your best prospects. They are interested in your information and they will be a lot more responsive to your recommendations and offers than purchased leads.

If you have your prospects' email addresses, you can keep in touch with them and start building a relationship. You can send them discount offers and sell them other related products. A broadcast message to your own email list will get targeted traffic to your web site instantly.

Here are some of the best free ways to build a list.

- Put your subscription offer somewhere near the top of your web page. Or get their attention with a popup, popover, or popunder.

- Another way to get their email is by using a “name squeeze” page. This is a web page with a sign-up form that is designed specifically to get the name and email address of visitors. You need compelling copy on the page to encourage people to sign up.

Offer something that makes it worthwhile to subscribe. For instance, offer a free report when they sign up for your newsletter, or a free ebook, audio, or video.

Here's an example of a compelling subscription offer:

Please take a few seconds to register and you'll immediately get an email with 15 audio interviews with professional copywriters. You'll also get a free subscription to my ezine "Inside Copywriting Secrets".

Build your own list using one or several of the above opt-in methods. Then use autoresponders to stay in touch with your prospects on a regular basis and build trust by offering great content. Autoresponders make it easy to automate your follow up.

Don't make the mistake of giving a hard sales pitch in the first autoresponder message. Instead, build interest and rapport. Start with an informative message that educates the reader about a topic that is related to your product or service. Mention how your product or service can solve their problems. By the time the potential customer reads your seventh message and your sales message, they will be convinced enough to make a purchase!

Building lists is very important to your Internet success. Capturing leads and building list should be the main focus of your site.

Visit http://www.fivestarwebdesign.com/ to get a web site that sells.

How to Create a Powerful Online Presence

Web site design plays a crucial role in converting visitors to customers. Your web site is the first impression people have of you. It is often your first and only contact with your prospective customers. A professional-looking, easy-to-read-and-navigate web site is essential to building trust and making sales. Follow these tips to create a powerful online image.


· Simplicity is the key to powerful design. A web site must be pleasing to the eye, but not too flashy. Limit colors to two or three colors. Limit fonts to two or three fonts.


· Be unique. Design original graphics and layouts to attain a unique look. Stand out from the crowd.


· Target your market. Use images, colors, text, fonts and themes that are appropriate for your market. For example, you will use completely different images and colors for kids, professionals, men, and women.


· Use quality images. Just as quality images will boost credibility, bad images will hurt you.


· Use images that support your sales message. Don't fill the page with graphics that have nothing to do with the content. Your product image is important. For example, if you're selling an ebook, make your book look real with a targeted ebook cover. If you're selling a CD, show a CD image.


· Emphasize important information with attention getting underlines, hand drawn and handwritten notes and other doodles such as hand-drawn arrows.


· Design a quality header. You can instantly change the look of your web site by changing the header graphic. The header is the very first thing a visitor will see when they arrive at your site, so it is your first chance to make a good impression.


· Use logical, consistent navigation. Viewers want to find what they’re looking for without having to go through numerous pages or clicking on numerous links. Use terms for your navigation buttons and links they will recognize such as Home, Order, and Contact. Provide plenty of links on your home page, giving an overview of your web site's content and choices.


· Design a catchy order button to attract attention and motivate people to order.


· Don't overuse the latest web techniques. Avoid entry pages with animation that don't tell anything about the content and take a long time to load. Your visitors will appreciate a site that opens fast and search engines will be able to index your pages.


· Write compelling copy. A clear, well-written message is essential to converting prospects into sales. Avoid spelling and grammar errors.


Combining layout, graphics, typefaces, and color into a unique design requires graphic design skills. If you don’t feel you are quite up to the task, or are just too busy putting the content together, then it would certainly be beneficial to get help from a professional designer who specializes in creating web images.


If your web site looks professional, visitors will conclude that you are professional. If your web site looks amateurish, they will assume that the quality of your services and products is unprofessional too.

Visit http://www.fivestarwebdesign.com/ to get a web site that sells.


© Leva Duell