“My website looks very nice — but I don’t get any enquiries or sales from it”.

How many times have you heard that?

My first website — a property site — cost me far more than it should have, because I didn’t really know anything about selling on the web. I put the site before the customer.

I hunted around until I found someone who seemed to offer the kind of site I was looking for. She produced a nice-looking website (she was a graphic designer!) — but one that was subsequently described to me by a copywriter as being ‘typically corporate in approach’ — all about ‘us’, with no great appeal to a visitor, no single focus and no convincing call to action.

A bit of a put-down, heh?

And — more importantly — no great traffic as a result! Even though the site eventually reached a Google page ranking of 3 (by reason of the large amount of information I put up on it), it didn’t bring in the punters.

Was this the web designer’s fault or mine?

The answer is — both! It was a case of ‘the blind leading the blind’. I hadn’t really worked out who my targets were and how to win them over, and she didn’t understand enough about commercial marketing to make me do this before even starting out on formulating the website. She ‘did’ corporate brochures!

All About Us – Not You!

The typical website out there is ‘all about us’ and little or nothing about the visitor or what they actually want. Never forget that someone only visits your website because they are looking for information or to solve a problem or need. Think about it — what are you looking for when you browse the Web?

This is why the standard ‘corporate style brochure’ on a web page really doesn’t work. Your website needs to capture your visitor, entice him/her to stay and browse further — no matter what business you’re in!

You can actually do this very easily: create a site which is full of information — full of ‘nuggets’ the visitor gets an immediate benefit from — and where they’ll want to return.

Mouthwatering Detail

Develop a site that describes, in mouthwatering detail, how your product or service

creates the exact results they’re looking for.

It doesn’t matter what business you’re in — whether you are directly selling a product, building a list of prospects or a public service website — you still need to fulfill your visitors’ needs and involve them, if you want them to return to your site and find it valuable.

The Big Myth

And here’s a BIG MYTH. Most businesses’ websites will not make a sale on a prospect’s first visit — unless you make them an ‘irresistible offer’ so compelling that your visitor just can’t go without buying (which many single-page sites can do, with good copywriting).

Typical ‘conversion rates’ that the experts achieve are only in the range 1 to 5% of visitors — so 95 to 99 of every 100 visitors to your site are likely to leave without buying.

So your website should focus on starting a relationship with your prospect, so that you can convert perhaps another 20 – 30% of your visitors over time. You need to engage with your visitor and make it worthwhile for them to do two things:

· Opt in to your ‘free offer’ and

· Return to your site later to buy.

If you succeed in getting your visitor to opt in, you can build your relationship — and this is primarily about building his/her trust in you — and encourage him/her to return to your website, for instance using a series of emails sent out by autoresponder. Tests typically show that it may take anything from 5 to 10 contacts with a prospect before they trust you enough to buy.

Clear Site

One of the most successful commercial website styles is one that looks like a letter. It can be a single site or multiple-page site (each ‘page’ can be hundreds or thousands of words long).

Each page should look like a letter and each should aim to promote a single product or service — gently but inexorably leading your visitor through to a specific action, whether it be to opt-in, download a free report that contains more information or to purchase.

Unless your site is purely for information, it should not have numerous links and buttons at the top or down the side of the page, which can distract the reader and lead them away from your site.

The exception to this (for example, see the diabetes site mentioned above), is where the whole of a multi-page site acts as a carefully crafted sales machine, focused on getting the visitor to opt-in and return again.

Lead Your Prospect

Interwoven into the text (‘copy’) on your site, you should have links to request your free report or whatever is being offered. These links, scattered throughout the letter, lead to a form for the visitor to complete, so you capture (as a minimum) their first name and email address, with permission to stay in touch.

Getting this permission (hence ‘permission marketing’) is absolutely necessary if your visitor is located in a country that has ‘data protection’ or privacy policies, such as the UK.

And don’t worry about what to give as a ’free report’. This can be distilled sections of a few chapters of your information product (if that’s what you’re offering) — some marketers simply adapt sections of the sales letter on their web page!

You can use this direct response website approach to identify your target audience — visitors literally ‘hold up their hand’ by requesting your free report (although there are quite a few ‘freebie seekers’ out there, too).

Once you have your visitor’s contact details, you can nurture a relationship with informative emails until he/she is ready to purchase from you.

John Thornely
© John Thornely www.johnthornely.com 2008

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com

WARNING: YOU HAVE 3 SECONDS!

That’s right! Research indicates that you have between 3 to 8 seconds to get a searcher to click on your listing or to make your visitor decide to stay on your website, rather than ‘click on’ and go elsewhere.

In a recent Conference Call, we discussed how you need to ensure the key elements of your website ‘grab’ your visitor and make them decide to stay, as well as eye-tracking studies that reveal the way that searchers view Search Engine Results Pages (‘SERP’s). So here’s a bit more about how to grab your visitor and make him/her stay…

Eyeball It!

We are becoming ever more internet-savvy and impatient for results… Recent ‘heat map’ eye-tracking studies of search behaviour described by thinkeyetracking.com indicate that – in the last 3 years – we have gone from reading every line of the search results (the old ‘F Pattern’) to reading mostly just the results in the top left corner of the screen.

A study by eyetools.net similarly shows up the ‘Golden Triangle’, in the top left corner of the SERPs, dominantly viewed by searchers, with a brief glance at the top sponsored results at the top right.

And you should watch the video below, and view Google Blog page Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye, to understand just how fast the average person searches a web page to check whether it has relevant information!

And this applies to Landing and Sales pages too! As the eyetools study comments… “People don’t always realize that they can optimize their landing pages using eyetracking results to better convert their traffic into sales. If you’re paying for traffic, you can make a huge improvement in ROI by optimizing landing pages (30% boost in sales!)”.

Google Page 1

In the thinkeyetracking study, “87% respondents replied that they would modify the search terms or refine the search by category” if they couldn’t find their desired search result on the first page of Google, rather than go on to further pages.

So being in the top 5 to 10 listings on the fist page of Google results really does matter – whether for Organic or Search results!

Grab Your Visitor by the (Eye)balls!

Within 3 seconds of your visitor arriving on your website, the page needs to have convinced him/her clearly that they’ve (at last!) come to the right place!

Some of the key elements that will help convince your visitors stay on your website – and hence reduce your ‘Bounce Rate’ (people leaving from the page they arrived on) – include:

• Easy viewing of key information ‘above the fold’ in the ‘golden triangle’  – ie visible in top left corner of the first screen.
• A strong headline that includes the Keyword they used to reach your site
• A graphic that mirrors the Keyword
• Few distractions
• A clear reason to go on reading…

You can read more about background and strategies for this at the following websites

• Five Tips for Writing Effective Web Headlines
• 3 Match Types With The Same Quality Score

Don’t worry about the ‘Adwords’ angle etc – focus on what these tell us about how we need to grab visitors’ attention and lead them through our web pages by KEEPING THEIR INTEREST!

So the moral of the story is ‘think like your prospects’ – as they say, “walk a mile in your customer’s shoes!”

Grab your visitor by the eyeballs, take him/her by the hand and lead them briskly through your page sequence, feeding their excitement as you go, till you make them a ‘no-brainer’ offer they can’t refuse – what Mark Joyner calls the ‘Irresistible Offer’.

Happy copywriting!
John Thornely

Great sales copy – and an ‘irresistible offer’ – are essentials for success in any marketing campaign.

And your copy just has to engage people if you are to have any chance of getting that sale… or whatever action you want them to take.

Avoiding The Bin

You have around 3 or 4 seconds to grab your prospect’s attention and avoid the bin… So just how do people view a Website or Mailing Piece? Well, there are two key elements here…

Firstly, their perception will be coloured by their own circumstances and experience – they will be pre-conditioned before they arrive at your page. So you’ll need to think about your target prospects and how they may perceive the look and content of your page – it’s a case of reality vs. our perceived reality.

And the timing of when your prospect receives your contact may be important to their perception – or even their availability or willingness to look at it.

First Things First

What is the first thing they see….? The headline on your email or web page; or the Envelope? What impact does it have? What frame of mind does it put your prospect in? Does it make them want to open it or read on? You don’t want their first action to be to bin it or click away, do you?

But there are no ready answers to what works and what doesn’t – so you need to find a happy compromise between using formats that you know have been successful (or, failing that, ones you think are good) and being different enough to stand out and shout “open me” or “read me”! And test, test, test!

Great Copy

So what makes great copy? What makes people read on and take the ‘most desired action’?

Well, here’s the little-understood secret of great copywriting… Are you ready?

· The purpose of the Headline is to make the prospect want to read the next paragraph…

· The purpose of each paragraph is to make the prospect want to read the next…

· The purpose of every sub-header is… You guessed it!

· And the purpose of the whole piece is to make your prospect want to take the ‘most desired action’

Cunning, heh? Well no, not really! Just think how you read a sales letter and what makes you want to take the ‘most desired action’. So it’s simple, really, isn’t it?

Priorities

Now, think how you scan a sales letter. Most people read the headline, then flip to the close or order form to see how much it costs, often reading the ‘PS’s next, then the guarantee, and so on. So focus your efforts in that priority.

Headliner

What’s the most memorable headline you’ve ever seen? Did it make you buy? Or was it just memorable? Now here’s another little secret: Memorable Headlines and Headlines which work cannot co-exist 99% of the time! This contradicts conventional wisdom but is a reality of marketing. But if you can achieve both – you’ve just struck gold!

80% of success of the sales page depends on the Headline, so it needs to be catchy and intrigue the reader enough to make them read on. It also needs to capture the flavour of the benefit your product will give them.

Time tested results indicate that enclosing the headline in quotation marks produces a 28% greater response, the use of specific figures has much greater impact and Title Case is most successful format. Best font colours are black, mid-red and blue.

Other ‘checklist’ items for your headline: it must command attention, draw in your target audience, communicate your offer and promise a desired benefit. Effective ‘keywords’ include You, Now, Free, How to, etc. Testimonials make great headlines.

In a nutshell, the headline is the offer in a raw, attention-getting form, so it should contain all 4 ingredients to an extent!

Story Board

We communicate by telling stories – think of your last casual conversation in the pub or at home – it was probably relating a story in some form or other, even if it was just relating what happened to you today.

So use stories. Your body copy needs to build a story to engage your reader and present the truth in a fascinating manner. Provide as much ‘social proof’, endorsements and testimonials as you can to show your product or service works. Avoid entertaining or dullness and don’t use ‘fact-less drivel’. Keep every element relevant – build to the ‘most desired action’ and remove anything unnecessary.

Sub-Headers

As well as making your prospect want to read on, these should allow the ‘skimmers’ to understand the whole of your sales page if they just read the subheaders and also ‘punctuate’ your body copy.

Think of possible objections or second-guessing of headline and neutralize them. The Headline is mainly an attention-getter, so you need to explain a little more.

Bullets

Bullet points should be ‘blind’ – teasing and hinting at the benefits but not should never reveal the content or the secret. In the form of little-known nuggets or unique or privileged information they can give credibility but should be specific and convey urgency in providing a benefit.

Call To Action

This should clearly spell out exactly what you want the reader to do – the ‘most desired action’ – or they’ll do what they always do – nothing! Create a strong, unapologetic close and use scarcity tactics such as ‘time-limited offer’, ‘only 100 available’ (and explain why), etc, to get your reader to take action NOW.

P.S.

The P.S. is the third most read element and can MASSIVELY affect response. So DON’T write it last! It should be a ‘mini-summary’ of the whole offer, re-stating the ‘USP’ and benefits, together with the ‘no-risk guarantee’. But you can also add extra surprises or hidden benefits and emphasize the urgency or ‘limited offer’.

When Is An Order Not and Order?

Never call an order form an order form! Sounds silly, but it has a big psychological effect! Your order device (‘Reservation Certificate’, ‘Priority Booking’ or whatever) should re-state the offer, No-Risk Guarantee and bonuses. It should preferably be on a separate web page (or one-sided sheet if printed) and should CLEARLY state the action you require your prospect to take, including mailing address or whatever.

Including your contact details and a REAL address and phone number increases confidence in you and your offer.

The Lift Letter

A very effective device is to include a ‘lift letter’ from someone the prospect already knows and, preferably, trusts. This should present a dramatic summary of offer and can take the form of a testimonial or actual letter, in a slightly different ‘voice’, and is preferably signed by someone else.

I know of one recent offer that did well when accompanied by a lift letter but bombed when sent to a ‘cold list’. So think of the Lift Letter as a ‘talk-show host’ giving a guest (the main copy) a good build-up. Touch on the offer without giving too much away.

Action Bonus

Bonuses can be used to incentivise speed of response or increase perceived offer value, or ‘Thud Factor’! Attach a specific value to each bonus, so that they carry real weight – some people will buy the product just for the bonuses!

You can also allow purchasers to sell the bonuses too – so each should have a mini-offer all of its own. However, there may be good reasons NOT to dilute your offer with a bunch of bonuses, so think through your prospect’s reactions.

It’s Guaranteed

When framing your Guarantee, think ‘risk reversal’ – take all the risk away and even incentivise them by offering eg “4 times your money back if you don’t get the result” etc. Think like your prospect… They’re looking for the catch in your offer, so defuse it.

The reality is that there are ALWAYS refunds – 10-20% is quite common – but even 40% refunds can be profitable! I’d happily accept 80% return rate if I was getting a 10% response rate! So concentrate on the offer and try to overcome the ‘Fear of regret’ that many purchasers experience once they’ve cooled off a bit.

Go With A Bang!

So, to recap, your sales letter or email needs to include the following elements:

1 – Headline with Unique Positioning Statement

2 – Benefit-Oriented Copy

3 – Testimonials

4 – The Offer, with bonuses

5 – Guarantee

6 – Call to Action

7 – Postscript (PS)

Remember, you need to focus on (and think like) your prospect. So ‘walk a mile in your prospect’s shoes’ – get inside them – where do they live, what do they eat and wear, what do they do in their leisure time and what do they worry about? What makes them tick?

Put 50% or more of your effort into the headline – write 10 or 20 alternatives until you find one that has all the right elements.

Make sure your body copy builds steadily, with suitable sub-headlines, to a resounding ‘call to action’ and that your ‘no-brainer’ offer is supported by an ‘unbeatable’ guarantee and a pile of mouth-watering bonuses!

John Thornely
© John Thornely www.johnthornely.com 2008

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com

1. Search engines ‘like’ your website if it has good content. If it looks like spam, the search engines are smart enough to treat it like spam.

2. Don’t use duplicate content – all good search engines are smart enough to recognize this – but you can successfully use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and other automatic feeds to build your website content – and yes, Armand Morin does this to build his 9,000 blogs!

3. Get quality websites to link to you. The search engines like this and take notice. Don’t bother using link exchanges or just sign other blogs with your links. While this won’t penalize you, it doesn’t help you at all.

4. Use the keywords you are targeting strategically on your pages in the headlines, sub-headers and body text. The search engines give weighting accordingly.

5. Use the keywords you are targeting within the < TITLE > tags, as the search engines give this a lot of weight.

6. On both external links to your website and any internal links, use ‘anchor text’ with keywords you are targeting in the links.

7. Similarly, if you have images that click to pages, include your targeted keywords in the ALT parameter within the < IMG > tag.

8. Generally, use common sense and stay away from trying to trick search engines (cloaking tricks for example). It can get your site penalized or even banned from the search engines.

9. If you don’t know how, or don’t want to spend your time doing search engine optimization, just search Google for SEO – there are many excellent resources out there.

John Thornely
© John Thornely www.johnthornely.com 2008

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com

Here’s a quick fact: It’s easier to distinguish your business from a benefit and service point of view than from a product or feature angle.

For example, if you sell telephone headsets, perhaps you can distinguish your product by saying it has a mute button, comes in 5 colors, and is lightweight.

So what? What benefit is that to me as a customer?

But from a service/benefit aspect, you can offer these benefits, which are MUCH more interesting to me:

· In stock or it’s FREE

· We never close

· 4-hour guaranteed repair

· Trade up when you outgrow your system

· Order 24 hours a day

· Choose from 100 different systems

· Same-day shipping — only $15

· Order by midnight and get same-day shipping

· Prepayment discounts

· FREE technical support

· Toll-free ordering hotline

· Priority-member ordering hotline

· Order over the Web from your own computer

· Money-back guarantee

· Saves you at least $10,000.00 a year in productivity or your money back

· FREE report with any purchase

· No minimums

· Guaranteed everyday low prices

· Business leasing — $0 down payment

· Expert sales consultants

· And much, much more

So tell your customers about the Benefits, not the Features of your service or product – and don’t be shy!

John Thornely
© John Thornely www.johnthornely.com 2008

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com

Tell people clearly the purpose of your web site.

And make it rapidly and absolutely clear to them why they need to stay on the site – what benefits will they receive?

When people visit a web site and have to figure out what it’s about, they quickly get frustrated and leave.

So you should tell them right in the title, “Welcome To Ted Dixon’s Horse Training Center”.

Then immediately let them know the key benefits that they’ll get from your website. So, for example, you could publish a sub-title or description right below it like, “Learn the Horse Whisperer’s Inner Secrets!”

John Thornely
© John Thornely www.johnthornely.com 2008

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com

Single Page Sites are designed to sell one product or service — and to keep the visitor focused on this. They are usually ‘name squeeze’ pages or sales letters and their success is based on either selling a product or service to visitors or capturing their email addresses.

They may be designed to capture the name and email address of visitors (‘Name Squeeze’ pages) using a variety of offers, such as a free report or eBook, newsletter, eZine, CD, etc that entices the visitor to trade her/his details for the information provided by the site.

This is “permission-based” marketing where a relationship is established between you (the owner of the site) and the visitor on a voluntary basis. You then have permission to contact the visitor and develop a relationship that allows him/her to market to the ‘opt-in’ — this is most likely to succeed if the website owner provides good information and value.

In most cases, the visitor is unlikely to return if they didn’t find anything of interest for them the first time or the site owner simply bombards the ‘opt-in’ prospect with offers by email.

Multiple Page Sites will normally seek to do everything that single page sites do — sell products and services as well as harvest email addresses — but they also offer something Internet visitors crave and Search Engines love — information to solve their problems.

The Internet is now the #1 source of information and the quality and quantity of the CONTENT on your site is vital. A site which contains relevant content for your visitors and is regularly updated entices visitors to browse and return to your site for information.

Add an eZine and/or a Blog and maintain regular contact with your visitor to eventually convert them into customers and clients. If your site is interesting and valuable, visitors will come back again and again. Put a navigation bar on a multiple page site to make navigating around your site as easy as possible.

Both types of site work — so choose to suit!

John Thornely
© John Thornely www.johnthornely.com 2008

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com