Website Copywriting

Writing copy for websites is an art and science that is taken from direct mail techniques and long sales letters are written in this style.

Many people look at some of these letters and think they look like spam but the hard facts are that they nearly always convert more prospects into sales.

Why Long Sales Letters Work

Most people don't realise why the long sales letter format works so well and the actual writing is a skill that can be learned but is tough if you don't understand the dynamics at work. This technique works for a couple of reasons:

• It focuses your visitor on your page and like most websites does not require the visitor to click onto another page as it's all there in front of them and all they need do is continue to scroll down the page. Most websites might have an average page view per visitor of only 3 pages and bounce rates of 40%-60% so you know you are losing visitors every time you ask them to "click here" to continue
• The long copy guides your visitor through the sales process on the screen going through the important areas such as credibility and benefits of your products.

Long Copy Format Overview

Here's the overall structure that a long copy sales letter follows. More guidance on each section is shown below

• Headline - Packed full of benefits and answers the question "what's in it for me"
• Sub headline - Continues from the above with more benefits
• Introduction - Lays out the problem your reader is facing and that your product is going to solve
• Credibility - Establishes who you are and why your reader should learn from you
• Problem/ Solution - Relate the problem to the reader and that there is an easy solution
• Introduce product - with benefits and features
• Provide an example - of how your product works
• Testimonials - of how your product has helped others (social proof)
• Price - state the price and why you have chosen this price point
• Add bonuses - Add value to the offer with related products
• Guarantee - Add in an unconditional guarantee
• Ask for the order - Clearly state the call to action
• Sign off personally
• PS - add in a "P:S:" that summarises the product and offer

Headline and Sub Headline

Headlines are the most important part of your sales letter and they are there to stop your visitor in their tracks and read on.

Headlines should be quite specific so rather than "How to launch a new business" how about "How to Start Your Business in 7 Days or Less" or rather than "Learn Affiliate Marketing Today" how about "How To Earn £100 per Day From Affiliate Marketing in 7 Days or Less"

The headline must have benefits within it rather than just product features or vague promises.

Introduction

The first line of your sales letter should continue to build upon the problem you've outlined in your heading to get the reader to read on and continue down the rest of your letter.

In this you are demonstrating and relating with the reader on a personal level that you understand their current problems. You should not be trying to pitch the product at this stage but merely slowly unraveling what the reader already knows and how you are going to solve the problem for them.

Credibility

You need to establish just why you are an expert in the product solution you are offering so you need to write some key facts of why people should trust you. Keep this section short as you need to concentrate on your reader but they must have trust in what you are saying. You could introduce a testimonial in this area to show what you are saying is really true.

Main Body - Stories and Indentifying with Your Reader

The main body of the sales letter is where you are delving more into the problem they are trying to solve and coming up with a solution.

People love to read about others and that create curiosity for them to read on and that's where stories come into play. Write about why you have developed the product in the first place - did someone ask you to develop it? Did you develop it for yourself and found it so great you thought of selling it online? Whatever the case, develop the story that is compelling. It's a great method as it makes the salesletter less of a selling piece and more conversational.

In you body you'll need to completely relate to the reader's problems and show them that YOU completely understand their frustrations in the sense of "I know exactly how you feel because I've been there myself" or "I had this bad experience once and there was no solution so I developed one myself that solved everything and that's why I set up this website to help others" etc..

Introduce Your Product

Now you have established credibility so your readers trust you and you have related to their problem it's time to introduce a solution (that's your product). This is just an overview of the product in question and you should use bullet points to summarise the benefits of your product.

Don't list the features you are offering but the benefits your reader will receive when they use the product in question. Have bullet points of "how to" and "simple, easy techniques" etc

Examples and More Benefits

Once you have introduced the product it's time to provide examples of how it works (with testimonials) and more benefits of using the product in question. Because the internet is really only 2-dimensional you'll need pictures and video showing what it is because people can't touch and feel the product.

A bullet list again is an excellent style to use as it's easy to read and as the sentences are short the reader will actually read more and want to read on to see what else they will be receiving.

Closing and Buying

As you have built up interest in your product by solving a problem your reader has it's now time to begin to close your sales letter and ask for the order. But, you still need to be patient in your build up and not simply have a big "buy now" button on the page.

You should first off re-state the problem you are solving and how it affects them, then add in some of the strongest benefits of your product and only at this stage should you introduce the price.

Price comes late on because you want to build value. If you had the price in the opening paragraph your readers wouldn't know what they would be getting and probably click away because they think it's too expensive. But once they see what benefits they would be getting and their problem would be solved immediately then it's an investment in their daily lives and not a cost as such.

You'll need to create some form of urgency to get people to take action NOW - rather than thinking, "OK, that sounds good, I'll come back later on" - of course they will rarely return so you've got to get them right now.

You could offer a discount for today - or more bonuses for today - just something for them to take action (bear in mind it's illegal in the UK to offer false offers)

At this point most people are in 2 minds on what to do and in tough economic times they may not want to hand over cash to you so you need to add more value so it's time to add in...

Bonus Products

Bonuses are there to add more value to the main product you are offering and create far more value than what your initial price point is for.

Add in only related products and state what the bonus product normally sells for and that your reader is getting it for free with today's offer. Again you should list them with benefits they offer. Only you know your market and what they will take but it's worth testing how many bonuses to offer (perhaps 4 to 6) and what type of bonuses people are looking for.

Strong Guarantee

The guarantee is there to make the purchase decision completely risk free. You want people to buy your product knowing that if they don't like it they can get a full money back refund so it has to be unconditional so you remove all the risk of them buying from you.

You can test the length of your guarantee but really having a 30 day money back guarantee is not as strong as 1 year or even a lifetime guarantee. Don't worry about the length - it has been proven that longer guarantees increase sales but rarely increase refund requests. You'll always get refund requests because that's the nature of internet marketing so don't worry about that too much.

Asking for the Order

Now it's time to get the order and don't be afraid to blatantly ask for it. On many websites it can be difficult to find the "buy now" or "add to cart" buttons and this reduces orders considerably and your job now is to tell the reader what to do and guide them through the purchasing cycle (which should be as short as possible.

Offer as many ways to order as possible from online secure ordering, telephone and printing off order forms. This way you will increase the number of orders you receive.

P:S:

The "P:S:" at the bottom of sales letters has been proven to increase orders because many people scan the page looking for the price and end up at the bottom. When they are there they will read the last paragraph or so and it's here you need to restate the major benefits and create urgency as to why people should order right now.

You can talk about what would happen if they don't take action now, the time they will waste and the fact their problem won't be solved.

So that's it. That's the proven method of writing long sales letters. Relate a problem to the reader, show your solution and the benefits they will receive and create urgency so they will take action. (And did you see that this paragraph is like the PS that's at the end of each sales letter !)

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