There are two pillars to a successful online business.One of them is traffic and the other is sales copy - thetext on your your website. That's what this article isabout - getting more sales from your website.
(1) Format. The fastest selling websites have thefollowing format: a one-page sales letter; a singlecolumn of text occupying half the screen width; and amaximum of 2 or 3 linked pages (eg. partners.html,testimonials.html, author.html etc.)
(2) Headline. This should be in font size 4 or 5 andoffer a strong benefit. Writing a compelling headlineis a delicate balancing act - you need to grab yourreaders attention but you don't want to strain theircredulity. Here are some tips on writing effectiveheadlines:http://tutorials.findtutorials.com/read/id/28
(3) Date. A date at the top of your page adds to thefeeling that your sales page is a letter, which makesyour page more readable. It also assures visitors thatyour site is up-to-date and still relevant. Here is ajavascript code that will insert the current date:http://www.ezine-writer.com/date-script.html
(4) Paragraphs. Keep them short - no more than 1 or 2sentences per paragraph. It makes your page mucheasier to read.
(5) Bolding and highlighting. If you emphasize certainkeywords your sales page will be much more effective.It draws your readers attention to your benefits andit also breaks up the monotony of the text. To highlight text,use these tags: your texthere
(6) Book covers. An attractive book cover willincrease your sales by up to 300% - so if you don'thave one, get one! Here are some websites that designbook covers:
http://www.killercovers.com/http://www.ebookwow.com/http://www.ebook-cover-art.com/http://www.ebookcreators.com/http://www.dynamitecovers.com/
(7) Testimonials. These will also dramaticallyincrease your sales. If you don't have any, ask yourcustomers for them. Every testimonial will alwayscontain a key phrase or benefit - make that phraseleap out at the reader by using bold type. Alwaysprovide the website and/or email address of the personwho wrote the testimonial. If you make the website URLand active link, you'll get more testimonials - butyou'll also lose traffic when your visitors click onthose links.
(8) Bonus Gifts. Offering freebies with your productis an old trick in web marketing - nearly everyonedoes it. My advice is take the freebies off. Why?Firstly, chances are the freebies you offer are alsobeing offered by hundreds of other websites - yourvisitors have seen them all before and are notimpressed. Secondly, offering freebies sends themessage that your product is not really worth it onits own.
(9) Unique Selling Proposition. You must differentiateyour product from your competitors' products. One wayto do this is to have a 'Warning' near the bottom ofyour page that says "Do not buy an eBook on XYZ unlessit meets the following criteria..." And then list theunique features of your eBook (or product).
(10) A Call to Action. This is the biggest cause oflost sales. Most people procrastinate - so you mustcreate a sense of urgency. You can do this in variousways - a price rise after a certain date, a price riseafter a certain number of copies have been sold, or abonus report for the next 15 orders.
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Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3
years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this
simple technique to build a successful online business. Click
here to find out more: http://ezine-writer.com/
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