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Build your business online with persuasive incentive copy

Written by Merrill in Online Copywriting, Online Marketing

It’s a proven fact you can build a successful business online by building up a list of prospect’s contact information.

But there are 2 important details you need to get right first.

Number one:

On your web site, you need to offer something of value to your prospects for free (called an incentive or bonus) before they’ll part with their name and e-mail address. Most people understand that hey – nothin’s free. If they want whatever you’re offering bad enough, then they will give you their contact information to get it.

That’s the trade-off, they give you their personal contact details – and you give them something they want (usually important information) for free.

Now for the second part of the equation:

After you find the right incentive your prospects will climb all over each other to get, there has to be copy written that sells the benefit of your free incentive. You must describe the incentive and how it will benefit them or solve their biggest problem, or whatever.

And you need to “sell” them on signing up to get this information in a pretty small area, and remember the previous tip about headlines? Your incentive copy is basically a headline to sell your free report.

The nuts and bolts behind the scenes is called an autoresponder and it will track your prospects information and send them the reports so you don’t have to do it yourself. It’s also considered an e-mail management service. The one I use on my sites is www.aweber.com/?208362.

So if you have a) a great incentive that your prospects really want, and b) the incentive copy on your website or pop-up is compelling, then your list will start growing like wildfire.

And after they opt-in to your list, you can market to them and not have to worry about breaking any spam laws.

So whatcha waiting for? Start building a list today!

If you want me to write powerful subject lines for your email campaigns, to get more information about SEO, the benefits of powerful copy, about this post, web/online advice, or about my direct response web copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

And if you need offline direct response marketing copy and advice, go to www.crestviewmarketing.com

To your website’s success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Direct Response Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services LLC

Why using online profiles and bios can promote you and grow your business… often for free

Written by Merrill in Online Marketing

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I’m sure you’re aware of all the online directories you can sign up for – or maybe you’re not!

You can sign your business up on tons of online business directories; most of them for free. You’ve got Google Local Business Center, Local.com, Yellowpages.com, Yahoo.com, local business group sites such as BNI.com, and lots more.

Then, there’s the social media craze. Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, and a bunch of others.

One common and important thread among all these resources is what’s called your profile, or your bio (short for biography).

Your profile or bio is a section in your account for each of these services giving you a chance to describe you, your business, your achievements, and sometimes your person interests.

Creating a profile anywhere you can provides you with one more chance to talk about what you do and it gets stored on each provider’s website for others all over the Internet to see.

People, hopefully prospects, look at your profile to see if you’re someone who they might want to interact with or do business with, so it’s important to create one that describes you and your services accurately.

It’s one of the places you can promote yourself for free, so why not take advantage of it. Some even allow you to post a picture, which helps with personal branding, a secondary marketing technique.

Many of these sites allow you to search profiles to find others in the same profession or professions that might be complimentary to yours.

Each has their own limitations on the amount of characters you can use to create your personal profile, usually between 140 and 350 total characters. Also, you can usually include one URL to put in your website, too.

So be clear and concise about your services.

Personally, I am on Twitter, and when people follow me, I’ll look at their profile before I follow them. Generally, if they aren’t serious enough to create a profile, I won’t follow them, but if I think they fit in with the types and personality of people I want to talk with and find their tweets interesting, I will.

So go for it. Take the plunge and set up some online profiles. It will get you some good exposure – plus you can’t beat the price! The only cost is a bit of your time.

I’d love to hear your comments about this, good, bad, or ugly.

And if you need offline direct response marketing copy and advice, go to www.crestviewmarketing.com

To your website’s success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Direct Response Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services LLC

How to write Subject Lines that practically force your prospects and customers to open your e-mails

Written by Merrill in Online Copywriting

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Get more of your e-mails opened with compelling subject lines.

Haven’t you heard that e-mail is becoming more and more important as a lead generation and sales tool?

Then maybe you can tell me why more businesses aren’t taking full advantage of it?

After all, there are no postage and printing costs to worry about, so the total cost of sending a promotional e-mail is next to nothing. All you need is a list of names and e-mail addresses plus some e-mail copy.

I believe one big problem is this – you can send out e-mails all day long, but the first step, and one of the keys to a successful e-mail campaign is getting the recipient to open the darned thing.

It’s called the open rate, and the percentage can be pretty dang low.

The best way to increase the open rates of your e-mails is to use a powerful subject line - one that makes them want to open it and see what’s inside.

Unfortunately, that’s where many e-mailers stumble.

You see, most e-mail subject lines are boring, uninformative, or full of words that shoot it right on down to the junk or spam folder, where you’ll probably never even see it.

And guess what? If your email isn’t seen, it sure as heck will never be read.

Here are some different tips anyone can use to create a subject line that will get your e-mails opened more often:

Inform them of something valuable or important
Use intrigue
Personalize it by using the recipient’s name
Include your “brand”
Ask a provocative question
Introduce a special offer

Your subject line has the same purpose as a headline – you need to get your reader’s attention and interest so they will open your email.

And another important thought is this: You need to test, test, test. Then you will know what headlines work the best in any given situation.

I’d love to hear your comments about this, good, bad, or ugly.

And if you need offline direct response marketing copy and advice, go to www.crestviewmarketing.com

To your website’s success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Direct Response Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services LLC

Web page headlines that grab your prospect by the eyeballs and force them to keep reading

Written by Merrill in Online Copywriting

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Compelling headlines in your web copy will increase response by 20%, 30%, 40% – or maybe even more.

It’s been proven time and time again by testing.

So why are there are so many web pages (especially Home pages) where the only headline in sight is “Welcome to XYZ Company”?

Didn’t they get the latest memo?

What’s up with a headline, anyway?

An effective headline accomplishes three important tasks:

First, it must command your attention, letting you know you’re in the right place, and I mean immediately.

Next, it needs to quickly convey that the site can provide the solution or product you are looking for.

And its third job is to give you a compelling reason to read the first sentence or paragraph on that page.

That’s it! No more and no less. If it accomplishes those three things – you have a successful headline…and every page on your web site needs a headline, no matter what the purpose of the page is, even a contact form.

And guess what? If it doesn’t do the first job right by getting your attention, common sense dictates you probably won’t stick around to read any more of the page.

The other aspect of this is SEO. Google gives a bit of weight to headlines, as long as they are relevant to your page content. There are actual heading tags such as H1 and H2 that you include in the html code. Google also checks those tags.

Tips for writing money-making, lead generating headlines

Trigger a strong emotional response to a subject your reader already has about your subject
Ask a question to get them nodding their head in agreement
Provide a benefit the reader just can’t pass up if they read further
Provoke the reader’s curiosity
Offer a reward or incentive to read more
How to…
Use your primary keyword phrase
Keep it simple – only offer one main idea

You see, there’s many, many “formulas” or ideas that will help you write a powerful headline, and I haven’t even scratched the surface. There are complete books on just how to write great headlines.

The bottom line is all web sites, and all pages in them should have a unique headline designed to get the reader to take the next action step, which is to read the next line.

With a great headline, the chance of your prospect reading your web page increases significantly.

And that’s the purpose of your web site, isn’t it? To get people to take whatever action you want them to so you can make more money.

Oh… and the other thing you need to do is test different headlines. That’s the only way you’ll know which one gets the best results. Try 5 or 6 different ones – the results may surprise you.

I’d love to hear your comments about this. If you want me to write some powerful headlines for your online materials, to get more information about SEO, the benefits of powerful copy, about this post, web/online advice, or about my direct response web copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

And if you need offline direct response marketing copy and advice, go to www.crestviewmarketing.com

To your website’s success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services LLC

Increase conversions from the search results with compelling and relevant page descriptions

Written by Merrill in Online Copywriting

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Another important on-page factor for maximum conversions is the description meta-tag, and like the page title tag, it also is quite simple and fast to create.

The primary benefit you’ll get from having a powerful description tag is that you’ll start getting more people clicking on your site link when you are listed in the search engine results page.

The description is usually (but not always, depending on the search engine) what is displayed immediately below each search result.

Its primary purpose is to display a short summary of the web page that’s being referenced.

Plus, each page on your site should have a unique description of 1 to 3 keyword rich sentences (generally less than 150 characters) that compel the searcher to click on your link because it is more relevant than the others.

It won’t get your site ranked higher on the search results page…but it will certainly help get more clicks to your site after your site is displayed – if you can show them what content they’re going to get.

Basically, it’s a short ad or brief description for your website, so by all means, include keywords and benefits, but don’t be spammy about it.

Like I said, make sure each page has a unique description conveying the purpose of that particular page.

There’s different ways to create the title tag, depending on your web site programming, the template, or even if you have a blog site, but it’s generally very easy to do, and if you don’t take the extra few minutes to create a compelling description for your pages, then your conversion rate will be lousy.

Next week, headlines in your web pages will be the topic. (Each page on your web site DOES have a powerful headline – doesn’t it?)

I’d love to hear your comments about this. To get more information about SEO, the benefits of powerful copy, about this post, web/online advice, or about my direct response web copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

And if you need offline direct response marketing copy and advice, go to www.crestviewmarketing.com

To your website’s success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services LLC

Get higher search engine results with a relevant page title meta-tag

Written by Merrill in Online Copywriting

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Search engines like Google display search results based on many factors. One of the most important on-page factors Google looks at is the page title meta-tag.

Now, this sounds kind of complicated – but it’s actually quite simple.

What surprises me is how many web sites don’t use them properly – or at all.

Let me explain:

Whenever you open up Internet Explorer or Firefox, or whatever browser you might use – at the very top of the open window, there is a dark blue bar with some text extending all the way across the top.

That’s the title bar – and there’s one on every open browser window or tab. And when you minimize a window to the bottom, the text in the title bar is what you see.

Now…the important thing to know about them is the words used in them are looked at by Google when someone does a search. It’s probably the most important copy on the page, even though it’s not really on the actual web page.

It’s a meta-tag that can be easily edited for each page on your site.

The best use of it is to include your most important keyword phrase, making sure it’s completely relevant to the content of that page, and that clearly communicates the contents of the page to your visitors.

In fact, when you do a Google search, you’ll see that the clickable link for each result is the page title for each result.

Try to keep it less than 70 total characters. Different search engines and different browsers only display a certain number of characters.

Also make sure each page has a unique title conveying the purpose of that particular page.

There’s different ways to create the title tag, depending on your web site programming, the template, or even if you have a blog site, but it’s generally very easy to do, and if you don’t take the extra few minutes to create a compelling title to your pages to get higher search placement, then you’ll have squandered a free way to help yourself rank higher in organic search.

Next week, I’m going to talk about another very important on-page SEO factor many people don’t take full advantage of.

And if you need offline direct response marketing copy and advice, go to www.crestviewmarketing.com

To your website’s success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services LLC

Easy way to stay in touch with your customers – automatically!

Written by Merrill in Online Marketing

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One of the keys to online success is building a list of prospects an clients, and the most efficient way to do this is using an autoresponder service.

Before you start to collect a prospect’s contact information and build your list, you need to have a system that allows you to keep track of it in an organized fashion. Then the autoresponder service will automatically send each prospect a predefined message or groups of messages to them at preset intervals of time.

Basically, these services keep track of all your e-mail contact information and marketing campaigns in their special databases.

There are many internet services that do this, but two that I know of that do it particularly well and are pretty inexpensive are www.aweber.com and www.constantcontact.com.

I personally use aweber.com because it is easy to setup and use. (I can even set it up myself and I am certainly not a programmer.) However, you may want your web designer to do it for you.

Then you need to give the prospect a reason to sign up to your newsletter or mini-course or whatever, by also giving them something of value to them, for free.

After they sign up, you can then market to them online and not worry about breaking any spam laws. You can set it up to send out a pre-defined sequence of newsletters or anything else, plus you can send out a blast email to your list any time you want.

And the best part, after you upload the newsletters and define the timing– it all happens automatically! No more sending out emails from your computer by hand.

You can sign up for a FREE test drive of Aweber’s service at http://www.aweber.com/?208362.

To get more information about the benefits of autoresponders, about this post, web/online advice, or about my direct response web copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

And if you need offline direct response marketing copy and advice, go to www.crestviewmarketing.com

To your website’s success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services LLC

Tracking web statistics like traffic and keywords are vital to your site's success

Written by Merrill in Online Marketing

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If you don’t know where you are now – how will you get to where you’re going?

Fortunately, tools such as Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools come to the rescue.

In my previous post, I talked about constantly changing and testing variables on your website for maximum results.

The question then becomes: You’ve got your site online, but what do you do next?

First, install a traffic statistics program from your hosting company or install the free Google Analytics code on each web page. All you need to do is set up a free Google account, and once you go into the Analytics control panel, tell it the domain name, and it will display a short snippet of code that you just copy and paste onto each page.

Next, it’s time to start collecting various traffic and keyword statistics (Google Analytics does this automatically behind the scenes). Don’t make any changes to the site for a period of time, maybe a month or so depending on traffic. This will give you a baseline average. Now you’ll know where you are…

Then, any time you make any changes (make sure to change only one variable at a time), wait for the same time period and watch your numbers.

This will give you an idea if the change improved things, or if it made it worse.

Google Analytics is pretty cool and gives you a ton of great information. Information such as all sorts of different traffic stats, visitor techie details, maps, and keywords used. Plus, it’s pretty easy to use.

Google Webmaster Tools is another free resource you can use to check out other useful statistics and information about your site.

Now go get started and find out what your baseline numbers are, so you can start making all the positive changes and testing on your way to get the spectacular results you really want.

To get more information about writing compelling web copy, about this post, web/online advice, or about my direct response web copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

To your website’s success!

And if you need offline direct response marketing copy and advice, go to www.crestviewmarketing.com

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services LLC

Keep testing different website variables for maximum results

Written by Merrill in Online Marketing

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Nick Usborne, well-known web strategist, recently said:

“Your website should never be done“.

You see, the online world, technology, people, everything really is now changing at warp speed – way faster than in times past.

What that means to you and your website is that it needs to be constantly changed and tested, too.

The headlines, the copy, the offer, the images, layout, colors… and a million other variables.

For maximum results, you need to constantly be testing alternate versions and comparing the analytics and results.

The headline that’s been working fine for 3 months may stop working as good, and many times for no apparent reason.
Plus, the search engines also give a little more attention to sites that are changed and added to more frequently. More so than the ones that are created and just sit there.

So keep testing, because an effective website needs to change with the times, too.

To get more information about writing compelling web copy, about this post, web/online advice, or about my direct response web copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

To your website’s success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services LLC

And if you need offline direct response marketing copy and advice, go to www.crestviewmarketing.com

A strong "call to action" on your web pages is vital to response rates

Written by Merrill in Online Copywriting

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A critical component of your website’s sales message is a powerful “call to action” or offer.

This is where you clearly tell your prospect exactly what you want them to do next and how to do it.

Sadly, many web pages I see either have one that’s really wimpy, one that’s difficult to see or too confusing. Heck, some don’t have one at all.

Here’s an example of a good call to action you could see at the end of a web page:

Call 111-123-4567 before April 28 to get a free copy of our report revealing the 7 biggest mistakes most advertisers make!

Now…here’s a wimpy one:

If you have a chance, please call us.

See the difference…

Usually you include them at the end of the sales page, but not always. And there should be one in ANY sales materials you use such as:

Sales letters
Postcards
Web pages
Space ads
Business cards
Any other written materials you use

By including a strong call to action that’s simple in your marketing and advertising, you could increase response rates by 20-30%, maybe more.

Prospects need to know what to do next, but if it’s not obvious, or too complicated – they’re not gonna do anything and you just wasted an opportunity.

To get more information about writing a strong call to action, about this post, web/online advice, or about my direct response web copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

To your website’s success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services
www.webcontentNH.com

And if you need offline direct response marketing copy and advice, go to www.crestviewmarketing.com