I want to know everything that is wrong (and right with this sales letter. Tear it apart. Shred it and let me know what I need to do to improve my copy skills.

BTW, I did take some tips from this board to improve it.

Conversion rates for this letter vary from 2% to 8% depending on the source of traffic. I've sold over 100 copies of the eBook since it was launched in July.

http://www.numberoneinyourniche.com

You can see a couple of other sales letters I've written here to get an overview of my style. I would love a critique of those if anyone has the time.

http://www.trafficturbocharger.com

Priya Shah

Priya,

If your results are 2% - 8% that is pretty good, so any suggestions made at this point need to be taken with caution and tested.

That said, you could try adding a little more "umph" to your headline and see if that helps...

... this could have more detail...

How To Be

The Number ONE Free Traffic King In Your Niche

or...

The Number ONE Profit "Boss" In Your Niche

...or something along those lines to give more specific firepower to your headline.

Testimonials: I know Michel says to be careful with testimonials up top (because they make it a "giveaway" that this is a sales letter), but I understand your desire to create credibility early (and this is good), so one suggestion worth trying would be take the best sentence out of 2 or 3 testimonials, and put them as simple italic quotes (no johnson box), with the name after...

i.e.

"I was shocked at the incredibly useful info..." (John Smith)

number two

number three

If you can get photos to use from your testimonials, this helps.

Drop Caps Use them like newspapers use them, as they stand now, they look unprofessional - make them a jpg or gif photo, align left, or align top, get them to really "drop", it will add a touch of class.

Bullets: are just that, "bullets", and when you shoot them, do it with sniper precision... right between the eyes... in most cases, use action verbs with hardhitting benefits...

You have...

What about:

-----

It suits them just fine to have you believe the lies that you can never -

• * Win, hands-down, top 10 roaring free traffic spots within the search engines... (They say it’s too hard to optimize for search engines)
  
  
  * Reign constantly and easily on top of the ever-changing SE ranking algorithm waves, like a champion surfer, without needing to ever fear or panic when they change... (They say search engines keep changing their ranking methods, so it doesn’t make sense optimizing anyway)
  
  * Hold your positions solidly, like an impenetrable, seige-proof fortress for months, even years... (They say free search engine traffic will never last)

Think about how you can improve your other bullets with action verbs.

Your BODY text could use some tightening up, there is a lot of redundancy, and some spots where it rambles on a little too much, but all in all your letter is good... keep up the good work...

Thanks VERY much, Tim!

Excellent suggestions. I'll start implementing them right away.

I especially love the way you rewrote the section you quoted and your tip about the testimonials.

Will keep those points in mind when I write in future.

Priya

Hi Priya,

I liked your letter and was almost persuaded to buy (because I have some issues with SEO and it's not entirely clear to me yet whether I need an SEO company for one of my clients, or whether we're better off writing a lot of content instead).

However, where it kind of fell down for me was in the "proof" department. You claim that you turned a failing business around and are now making 4 figures a month, which sounds pretty reasonable. Big pictures of bank statements and cheques don't work for me - they never have. What I would have like to have seen was a challenge to find you at the top of search engines using whatever your main keyword is. So if your niche is "ice skates for squirrels", then you might have asked me to go to google and search on those terms and find you there on page 1. If your sites aren't on page 1, then why should I believe that my site will get to the top using your information?

I think we've all been burned with SEO services and information in the past. One man I met (through a very well respected organisation I might add) claimed to be this hotshot SEO specialist. I was thinking of employing him to do some work for me, but when I went to search for his site I couldn't find it!! When challenged, he came up with some weird excuse about how he doesn't want to be in the search engines because his site gets spammed all the time. This didn't do very much to reassure me that anything he had said was true.

That's the take from this little "SEO makes me feel anxious" person

Jane

Thank you, Jane.

That is a VERY valid point and one that did come to my own mind when I wrote the letter.

I was planning to address it by showing screenshots of the top 10 positions I've captured with my methods.

Do you think that would be convincing enough or should I also invite visitors to check the keywords like you suggested?

I'm glad you brought up that point.

Priya

Hi Priya,

Personally, I would find a challenge to go to google and type in some key words that find your site would be the best proof.

I've seen screenshots before of people's no1. listings and it doesn't convince me very much because they could be doctored or very old.

But I'm not most people, so you have to make your own mind up.

HTH,
Jane

Hi Priya,

Here’s my two cents worth, but like Timothy said, if your site is already converting well, then don’t change anything until you runs some tests.

This is the first thing I saw and read when I opened your sales letter. I read it even before I read the stuff at the very top. My first impression was not very good as the headline did nothing to draw me in and make me want to read more. I think that coming up with a more powerful and compelling headline would be a good way to help you get more of your visitors to actually read your sales letter.


I like your idea to use drop capitals, however the style is to complicated, I had to sit and think about what it was for a second. Maybe trying a less flowery letter would be better. And this is just my opinion, but I think that drop capitals work better when used in short paragraphs instead of one line sentences.


I agree with Jane on the proof thing. Adding screenshots would help, but if you use screenshots in conjunction with a challenge to locate one of your sites on the first page of google for that search term, I think you have then given yourself more credibility than any testimonial. It will let your visitors know that you are the real deal.


FACTS
I really like the use of the different fonts on your FACTS to break up your letter. Something that may make them even more powerful would be to put them in a Johnson box with a collapsed border and an appropriate background color (different from your testimonials background color). For a good example of this check out Trafficsecrets.com

All in all I like your sales letter, and the information leads you effectively towards a sale, which is always good

Tanner

I've made some of the modifications that were suggested. Tried the johnson boxes for the "Facts" section, but they didn't come out right, so I'll work on it later.

I will be testiing a number of these elements on the pages below before making the changes final

http://www.numberoneinyourniche.com/index.htm
http://www.numberoneinyourniche.com/index2.htm
http://www.numberoneinyourniche.com/index3.htm
http://www.numberoneinyourniche.com/index4.htm

The suggestions I got were really excellent!! I'll post the results I get as soon as they come in

Thank you for all your help and comments. This is an amazing forum

Priya

Hi Pryia,

I like index4 the best out of the choices.

This is much better than your origional headline, however you are still making your weakest headline JUMP out at the visitor, I know that it is the title of your book, but it is not necessary to through that at them right away.

I would suggest trying something like this:


Now You Can Discover The Jealously-Guarded Secrets That SEO Experts Use To Dominate The Search Engines in Your Niche And Channel A NEVER-ENDING Flood of Long-Term Targeted Traffic To Your Website!


By reading this page you will also discover...

How To Use *Expert Content* to maintain ultra high 1st page rankings on the top search engines without having to pay for continous SEO optimization.

These still arn't great headlines, but they are an improvment

Why didn't they work?

Tanner

Thanks, Tanner,

That headline does look much better. I'll work on it.

The formatting of the johnson boxes was off and didn't have time to work on it today so I just left it as it was.

Was wondering if I should keep the background colour the same as the one in the testimonial boxes or use a different colour.

Priya