With some easy to understand tips and guidelines, you can improve your sales copy on your website significantly.

Tip One: Customers buy benefits not features. There is an old saying, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” It is still true today. Never assume the customer will figure out the benefits of your product or service. Tell them.
“Improve your gas milage by 18% right now.”

Tip Two: Customers buy solutions not products. The majority of the time, customers are looking to solve a problem, not actually buy a particular product, so explain the solutions your product delivers.
“Suffering from a bad golf game? Our clubs will improve your game or your money back.”
That solves a problem. What golfer doesn’t suffer from a bad golf game? Target the problem, sell the solution.

Tip Three: Always view your product, and your copy, from the customer’s point of view. Speak on their level, do not assume an education level. Be specific, be clear, and be concise.

Tip Four: You must present a unique and compelling reason for a customer to do business with you. Why you instead of your competition? This concept is most frequently referred to as your unique selling proposition (USP).

Ask the questions: What is it about your product or service that is unique? What do YOU offer that your competitors can’t?
Customers do not always make purchases based on price. There are other issues as well such as, delivery time, guarantee, service, availability, trust, etc.

Tip Five: Pay attention to layout of your site. Many ad copy writers spend more time refining their headline than they do the body copy of the ad. And, don’t be afraid to test different headlines against each other while leaving the rest of your offer the same. Tell your visitor up front what you are selling or offering. If they have to guess, your chances of converting them to a customer are slim.

Tip Six: Use graphics (images) to invoke emotion or to draw the eyes to text you want your readers to see. Do not use graphics to gratuitously fill space. Always ask yourself what you want the graphic to accomplish. (Link to Snippet that Jen did).

Do the graphics demonstrate the benefits of the product? …promote a professional image? …or draw attention to an important section of a page? All of these are good answers and validate the use of graphics.

Images can be powerful but space upon a page is precious and should not be squandered. Always strive to get the largest possible return from each of your images. Use them to invoke positive emotions. A picture of a happy family getting into a brand new car is more appealing than just a picture of the car.

If, on the other hand, an image or graphic lacks purpose, then remove the graphic.

Tip Seven: Don’t forget the importance of your first paragraph. Studies have shown that if you can attract the readers interest with the headline and then maintain interest throughout the first paragraph, then chances are far greater they will complete your entire sales presentation. The first paragraph of your sales copy should solve a problem or clearly articulate what benefits are forthcoming once a customer becomes involved with your product or service.

Tip Eight: Use credible testimonials. Encourage them from your customers and place them strategically throughout your website to help validate certain points of your sales presentation. Of course, the testimonials must be legitimate. There are laws that forbid fabricating testimonials. Use the full name of the person giving the testimonial. Seeing “S. Johnson” as a testimonial looks fabricated.

Tip Nine: Avoid using abbreviations and trade terms. Use the language that your least informed customers might use and be sure to expand acronyms. The last thing you want your prospects to feel is “stupid” – and confusing them is also bad for business. Even the most sophisticated prospect will not object to your spelling things out by explaining in terms that anyone can understand.

Tip Ten: Make the text easy to read. Studies have shown that 12pt Times New Roman is easiest to read in paper and ink format. However, the Internet is different. When reading from a computer, people prefer 12pt Arial font or, when smaller, 10pt Verdana.

Break the paragraphs into easy-to-read pieces. Use bulleted or numbered lists, mini headings, bold type, and heading tags to further facilitate the one-bite-at-a-time, easy-to-chew page appearance.

Closing: Obviously, this takes practice. Start by writing everything that you want to say and then start whittling it down, combining it, and organizing it into a lean, mean, benefit oriented sales presentation that tells the whole story without a single wasted word. Your goal is to keep your qualified prospects excited about the solution they are about to possess as a result of doing business with you.

Truth-be-known, qualified prospects will read everything as long as it isn’t boring. On the other hand, tire kickers (the unqualified prospects) will not read long copy. But, neither will they read short copy. And from a sales perspective, it does not matter, they weren’t going to buy anyway.

These layout strategies enable the reader to skim quickly through your sales page while comprehending a great deal of your presentation without having to actually read every single word. It should be understood that very few people read on the Internet, they “scan” instead.

Remember the call to action! Never assume a prospect will know what to do next. You must tell them. Spell it out clearly what you want them to do next.