The Sales Page – At Least, The Second Most Important Page In A Hopefully, Profitable Website
In the same way that there are many styles of successful fiction and non-fiction writing, there are many styles of successful copywriting, which is the professional term for selling a product or service salepage through the medium of words on paper, or, in this case, words on a web page. However, just as for every successful style of fiction or non-fiction writing, there are hundreds, if not thousands of poor styles, the same can be said about copywriting.
However, only the successful styles succeed in their objective, which is, of course, the sale of the product being promoted. Sales pages must be written in a very inviting and persuasive manner to be successful and, few, if any, poorly put-together sales pages will result in any sales at all, even if there is a plentiful supply of targeted visitors.
So, in order for you to meet your dream of making a living from the internet, your sales page must be one of the successful ones. In the following paragraphs I set out one style that has been proven by several successful Internet Marketers to bring success. However, as I have stated above there are many successful styles out there, “hidden” amongst the host of poorly written sales pages that litter the internet. I am therefore not claiming that the following is the one and only key to success.
In the style of sales letter I am proposing, there are seven distinct steps, or what I will call ‘sections’, not numbered of course, that you must address. They are set out below, in the order that they should appear on your web page. When writing each of these steps one thing must be uppermost in your mind. At every step you MUST keep your visitor interested enough at the end of each section to read onto the next. Clicking an icon to leave a web page can be done in a fraction of a second, and if a prospective customer gets the slightest bit bored, or begins to lose interest, this is exactly what he or she will do. There is an old adage in many aspects of life, including Internet Marketing. It is called the ‘KISS’ syndrome. Normally ‘KISS’ is an acronym for ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’. In the case of writing internet sales pages ‘KISS’ could still mean ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’, but in addition, and possibly more importantly, it could mean ‘Keep It Stimulating Stupid’.
1) AN ATTENTION GRABBING HEADLINE OR HEADLINES
The headline is of utmost importance. It should only be about two to three short sentences full of powerful, interesting words that any reader who is remotely interested in the subject matter will find irresistible. To confuse matters further it should contain your main keyword or phrase once, but SEO ((Search Engine Optimisation) is a deep and complicated matter which is outside the scope of this article, so we will leave it alone for now.
Use a secondary heading, if necessary but your main heading should be bold, centred, and in the largest font. (‘h1’, inside less than and greater than symbols, in HTML language). Capitalise the first letter of every word, and it should also be in a colour other than black, which should be the predominate colour throughout the rest of your website. I have heard or read more than one successful Internet Marketer state that the best colour to use is red. I find this very surprising as red, to me, stands for ‘danger’ or ‘beware’ or, as an accountant, ‘losses’. However I am assured that many tests have been carried out and red has always come out on top as the best colour to use. I am in no position to argue, so red it is. I understand that the second best choice is blue, which personally I find much more appealing.
If you include a secondary heading it can be longer, still in bold, but use a smaller font, (say, ‘h3’, inside less than and greater than symbols, in HTML language). Revert to black text and it need not be centred. That’s up to you.