I've been involved in advertising and copywriting for more years than I care to remember! And this bit of software has impressed me more than anything else that I have seen before!

This tool can give you the help you need with writing ad copy, and especially with the most important part (the part that pro copywriters spend 80% of their time on) – the headline!

Today, money is “created” by the words you say, how effectively you say them and how quickly you get them in front of your readers.

Hard Truth #1: If your sales letter doesn't hit all the right, hot buttons your reader is off to the next great thing.

There's a lot of pressure in knowing that the very first 10-20 words on your sales letter are the most important for you… and possibly your family. It's like having to earn a Perfect 10.0 in the Olympics to win Gold yet you've never done better than 3.7 all season long. Will you Win the Gold and stand atop the podium of success or stare at your competition, stuck on the bench with nothing to show for your efforts?

Hard Truth #2: Your sales copy's ultimate success or ultimate failure hinges on how persuasive your headline is.

You scramble desperately for the answers but they just won't appear. You spend every exhausting night and day dusting off every book you have in your possession just to try to find one small glimmer of hope. The most exciting headline you come across is just slightly more exciting than watching grass grow.

Hard Truth #3: If you aren't a skilled master copywriter you won't find the answers in your head, which means you must find help from someone or something.

Your next “Great Idea” is to hop online and find a copywriter Quick. You check out the latest prices. BOOM! — Like a punch right between the eyes they charge more per hour — OUCH! — than you make in a week. I don't know about you, but I don't want to mortgage my house in hopes of getting winning headlines.

A fun and interesting way to get your Facebook fans to pipe in with comments is to ask them a question in the form of a fill-in-the-blank.

Getting comments is important for two reasons besides creating engagement: Facebook's feature called EdgeRank determines whether your posts will show to all of your fans (the more shares and comments you have, the higher your post visibility will be) and discovering what is important to your fans (called data mining, it's a way to make future products based on the opinions of your fans).

Here's an example of a highly engaging post we did for a client:

I love writing books and have some new ones in the works. What books have you been working on or recently finished? “The name of my new book is called ________.”       

The fans loved this exchange and were excited to share their book titles with everyone on Facebook. They even went so far as to share a link where people could buy the book on Amazon or their website. We actually encouraged this to add an extra feature of value to the post. Needless to say, it was ‘liked' and ‘shared' more than we expected and raised the client's Facebook popularity immensely.

What can you ask your Facebook fans that will get them excted to leave comments? What could you learn about your fans that would help you make new products and services? Use Facebook and other social networking for what it does best – connecting with and caring about your fans!

How can you make the name of your navigation links stand out from other websites and why would you want to?

Since the beginning of the Internet, navigation link names have been boring and uncreative: About, Contact, Home and Store have pretty much ruled the web. You can name your navigation links anything that you want, so why aren't website designers more creative?

Not only can naming your nav links something cool make your site more memorable and stand out from the rest, they can actually hide certain stealthy calls-to-action and subliminal marketing techniques. The founder of IMTC, Tom Antion, started long ago hiding the fact that something my be for sale on his site to discourage high-pressure tactics. Using the words “Store” or “Products” can create a sales resistance. Instead, he uses the phrase “Speaker Tools” to link to his popular public speaking CD's. This gives the impression that the page has needed tools and information to help public speakers get more gigs and make more money. In fact, that's exactly what his training CD's do, without a bunch of hype. People click on that navigation tab much more than if they know ahead of time they are being pitched to.  

Another overlooked tab is “About.” Simply re-naming this tab “Meet Mary” (use your own name of course) can create a more friendly and personal feeling. The same goes with “Testimonials.” Why not use something more creative such as “Praise” or “Fans Say…”?

With just a few minutes of thinking outside of the box, you can come up with something witty, unique and fun for your site.

When will you start taking the reins of your future?

I read a lot of website content and I'm amazed by the words and topics that the website author uses to attract traffic. Often, it has little to do with who is really coming to the site, but rather what the website author assumes people want and need. Just because you are knowledgeable about a certain topic and are effective at writing about it doesn't mean that it's sitting well with your visitors.

Second-guessing your visitor is a common mistake with newbies to Internet marketing. Here are some warning signs that your content may be lacking:

• a high ‘bounce' rate – check your website stats and see how long people are staying on the site
• no one sharing your posts
• no one commenting on your posts
• using keyword phrases that are ‘insider' jargon
• using keyword phrases with very low monthly search numbers 

 How do you know who is actually visiting the site? Why are they really there?

Checking your website stats for “keyword traffic sources” will give you critical information on what people were searching for that led them to your site. It may be phrases that you didn't think anyone was searching for. You can also use a polling application on the site to ask people “Who are you?” and “What are you interested in learning?”  The visitors to your website may be there looking for information that is lacking in your content, and when they see it's not there, they leave.

• Are you selling “make money in real estate” info for consumers, but agents are coming there instead?
• Are you writing about “retail jewelry trends” for crafters, but consumer jewelry buyers are visiting instead?
• Are you writing posts about speakers (public speakers) and getting people looking for stereo speakers instead? (true story)

Before you waste any more time writing, find out who is really coming to your website. Then offer them exactly what they were looking for.

About Me pages on your website (or better known as Bio pages) shouldn't be as effective as a sleeping pill.

This is the perfect place to tell the world about who you are and what your company does. Website visitors will get a good idea from these pages about whether they will want to do business with you. It's this page that typically makes the decision over any other page on the site including the Home page (which often people think is the most important).

That being said, how does your About me page hold up? Is it full of facts, figures and hype that no one cares about? Does it include words that help connect yourself to your visitor or are you just talking about you?

The easiest way to connect with your prospect without being a professional writer is to tell a simple story. The stories you have are unique to you. They tell a tale of how you started in your business in a personal way. Stories also have a way to connect with your visitor – they may have had a similar situation happen to them. This builds sympathy and trust between the two of you that's important in making a sale. The more of a connection you make with your reader, the more powerful your website becomes for them. Your About Me page is often the low-key content place where you can make that happen.

Also remember to talk in first person to keep from disconnecting from your visitor, talk in your own voice and share the funny / sad moments that you know your visitor can relate to.

How can other your other website pages benefit from a personal connection? 

I've been involved in advertising and copywriting for more years than I care to remember! And this bit of software has impressed me more than anything else that I have seen before!

This tool can give you the help you need with writing ad copy, and especially with the most important part (the part that pro copywriters spend 80% of their time on) – the headline!

Today, money is “created” by the words you say, how effectively you say them and how quickly you get them in front of your readers.

Hard Truth #1:If your sales letter doesn't hit all the right, hot buttons your reader is off to the next great thing.

There's a lot of pressure in knowing that the very first 10-20 words on your sales letter are the most important for you… and possibly your family. It's like having to earn a Perfect 10.0 in the Olympics to win Gold yet you've never done better than 3.7 all season long. Will you Win the Gold and stand atop the podium of success or stare at your competition, stuck on the bench with nothing to show for your efforts?

Hard Truth #2:Your sales copy's ultimate success or ultimate failure hinges on how persuasive your headline is.

You scramble desperately for the answers but they just won't appear. You spend every exhausting night and day dusting off every book you have in your possession just to try to find one small glimmer of hope. The most exciting headline you come across is just slightly more exciting than watching grass grow.

Hard Truth #3:If you aren't a skilled master copywriter you won't find the answers in your head, which means you must find help from someone or something.

Your next “Great Idea” is to hop online and find a copywriter Quick. You check out the latest prices. BOOM! — Like a punch right between the eyes they charge more per hour — OUCH! — than you make in a week. I don't know about you, but I don't want to mortgage my house in hopes of getting winning headlines.

Do you know how popular the “About Me” page is?

Often, it is the second most visited page of a website, next to the Home page itself. That's because it's the heart and soul of the site — the one place where visitors judge how competent the information is over the hype of the Home page copy. More and more, site visitors need to know who is offering their advice and their services to them long before they waste time clicking on the rest of the pages. People are afraid of dealing with online business people without trying to learn as much as they can before-hand.

But if your About Me page is weak, boring, short or hides behind a persona, you can create a negative impression in the visitor before you've had time to try and sell your services. Here's a list of tips that will ensure an exciting page:

– Stop writing in ‘third person.' Unless you're a major company, writing in third person can distance you from your reader. There are plenty of solo entrepreneurs using language such as “We want to help you” & “Our expertise is heads above the rest.” If you are a single entity, use the word “I”, and speak in first person to make a more personal connection. While you may want to make yourself seem larger than you really are, most website visitors can see right through this.

– Tell a personal story. No one cares how you became the expert in your field if the visitor can't relate it to what they're going through. Make sure you connect with your reader on their level instead of looking as if you live in an ivory tower.

– Put in testimonials. This is a far more effective place to put in testimonials than a dedicated “testimonials' page that no one will click on. What's better than other people talking about how much they love you while you're talking about yourself?

– Use a video. There's no better way to introduce yourself to your prospect than with a online video. They get to see the real you and a video will show nuances and personality that's nearly impossible to write about.

– Speak in your own voice. Write like you're talking to a prospective client face-to-face, rather than like you're reading from a brochure. The web is more and more a place where you need to be yourself.

– Get an updated and professional picture of yourself. Invest in a nice portrait. Avoid low resolution images from the 1980's and never use stock photos of other people.

The About Me page may be the one place on your website that builds enough trust and ‘good vibes' to make the sale. This page is your personal handshake, like the one you would use in real life situations, that makes or breaks the website. Don't blow it or gloss it over.

Discover how the pros use website copy to change people's minds…

Having your website visitors ‘opt-in' for a freebie – an ebook, MP3 or video series – is a powerful way to build a database of email customers that you can market to over and over. Most freebies that you see on websites neglect to make the item more ‘valuable' by stating what the item would be worth if it were for sale.

Why would a freebie item have a price? Well, many items that were once for sale on a website can now be given away as a promotional item. And when you do give it away in exchange for a visitor's email address, be sure to tell them how much it used to be when it was being sold, to help increase the value in the visitor's mind. An example:

Which language sounds more exciting:

“Sign Up Below for Your Free Report”  or

“Sign Up to Claim Your Free Ebook”  (a $19.95 value)

Stating the price the ebook once sold for creates the illusion that the visitor is getting a $20 item for free. The free report is already “free” so it doesn't hold the same kind of ‘urgency' to sign up for it as the ebook does. Anytime an item has a pronounced value but suddenly becomes free (gas, milk, concert tickets, etc…) it can cause a sense of “I need that now” in the  mind of the customer. That's exactly how to build a sound database very quickly. So don't forget to add value to your freebies as an extra incentive to sign up.