Hello members,

I have "lurked" on this board for too long! I love it!

I am an aspiring copywriter and new to posting here. Although I haven't contributed anything yet, I'm about to ask for your contributions. Kind of backwards, huh?

I WILL contribute here - my hesitation is only that I'm not sure my comments would be worthy of consideration among the many veterans and experts on this board.

So, in that vein, I ask you to give me a no-holds-barred critique of my webcopy on http://www.natural-humor-medicine.com. Of particular interest to me are your thoughts and reactions to the index page and the newsletter sign-up page (http://www.natural-humor-medicine.com/Fun_times.html)

I will use your comments as a springboard and ease into this community.

I look forward to getting to know you better. Thank you, in advance, for your time and energy!

Hello Greg:

Welcome to the forum! I visited your website and read your sales letter. That's good stuff, my friend! You've been doing yourself and this forum a disservice, by not contributing.

Your sales letter is outstanding! You're not an "aspiring" copywriter. You've arrived. You are a COPYWRITER!

I only have a couple of suggestions to make:

First of all, the name of your website is not important. It's much too prominent on your website. Put it at the bottom of your sales letter. Your headline should be the very first thing visitors see when they land on your website.

Speaking of headlines, yours is very good, except for one thing--get rid of the "Who Else?" Every Tom, Dick and Harriet on the Internet is using some version of "Who Else?" Don't run with the pack. Strive to be different. Try this headline:

"Stressed-Out Kentucky Psychiatrist Invents Natural Medicine Of Humor To Reduce Stress, Relieve Pain, Enhance Communication, And Inspire Creativity Almost Overnight…With A Unique, Proven, And Little Known Prescription!"

Anyway, that's my two pennies worth!

Thank you Dean! Awesome feedback. And thanks for your compliments...I hope I can live up to them.

For the board, I have a question; please don't read any irritation into this...it's just a simple, genuine question:

What did I do wrong in my critique request? I noticed that another "newbie" posted a critique request just after me and has received eight responses!

I received one response. (For which I am grateful, no doubt! No slight intended to Dean for his valuable time - thank you Dean!)

But what should I have done differently to elicit a greater response to my request?

You're quite welcome, my friend!

Greg,

You didn't do anything wrong with your request... just have patience - I just saw this late last night personally, and I know many of the others here are all VERY busy...

First of all, welcome out of "lurk mode"...

And all in all, brilliant copy! I even signed up... it's an honor having you here with us. Your heart felt writing is excellent... and I fully support what you and your father are doing as human beings!

Some copy comments...

I noticed you are using SiteBuildIt!, so obviously you want to use its power for the search engines - your main keyword is "natural medicine of humor"?

Dean offers a pretty good alternative headline, but don't change what you have unless it's broke... in other words, though relatively common, "Who Else..." works!

Most of us copywriters hate it! But darn it, it pulls!

What you could consider (more for search engine positioning), is to substitue "Who Else Wants" with "How"... this will bring your main keyword closer to the beginning of your opening sentence. (minor issue)

To solve the problem of giving your H1 your main keyword and make it attractive (rather than just the name of your site), I would do this:

WARNING: The Natural Medicine Of Humor May Eliminate Unhappiness From Your Life Forever!

Another point you want to make clear right away is that this is FREE, you write:

Try...

Use the natural medicine of humor, FREE OF CHARGE, to:

One last tip... put your newsletter sign-up box on your home page! In particular, at each place you say, click here to sign-up... it was confusing for me to go to another page, scroll down, and find that box!

Make it brain-dead simple for your visitor to do this.

If you are having a problem figuring out how to do this with SBI - hire a specialized SBI webmaster to do it for you - in 5 minutes they'll do it for you, and this will help!

Great job!

All the best,

Tim

Hi Greg,

Just to add to what Tim said - I wasn't really sure what you were selling, and in fact I went looking for it and couldn't find it. Call me sceptical or cynical, but I decided not to sign up for the simple reason that I couldn't work out what your site was about.

However, I may not be the typical visitor to your site.

On the point of why you didn't get loads of critiques - sometimes people just don't and there isn't necessarily a reason. Whilst this community is fairly large, the active community is not that large, so no one ever gets hundreds of critiques.

Jane

Hello Greg:

I have a better idea, regarding the alternative headline I suggested. Why not test it against the "Who Else" headline? Just because the "Who Else" headline works doesn't mean you can't test to see if another headline works as well or better. You should always strive to improve your results. Testing is the only way you can do that.

Consider your current sales letter your "control." Testing new copy against your control is nothing new. In fact, it's pretty standard practice in marketing. Sometimes your control will out perform new copy. Other times, the new copy will out perform your control.

The changes don't always need to be dramatic. Sometimes a different word or two here or there can make a world of difference. In fact, periodically, you should ALWAYS test different headlines anyway.

What's great about testing headlines is that you'll get your answer pretty quickly, because the difference can often be pretty dramatic one way or another!

I totally agree with Dean. Testing is the way to go.

But be careful...

Being an SBI user myself, I know you might run into technical problems with doing a split-test... and you have to be careful with your search engine rankings that SBI might help you to gather being this is your home page.

Changing your headline frequently might create problems for the SE's.

SBI was not designed to be a direct response marketing tool. It has a different approach (valid - just different).

And if you do want to monitor your CR%, you will obviously have to carefully track what's going on. SBI's tracking isn't quite up to snuff on this level... it can work, but it will leave holes in your info.

From my experience, it's not enough to just look at CR% - you really need to look at the traffic sources as well - those that convert, and those that don't.

You may find some sources convert like gangbusters, and other sources to the SAME page fall flat on their face... isolating the CR% winners and losers can have a tremendous effect on your overall ROI (in particular with paid traffic).

So with SBI - here's what I would do... make your modifications now, based on what resonates with you here from the various suggestions, try a headline and page for about 2000 visitors, see how it goes, watch your SE rankings, watch your results - for this free newsletter sign-up - I would say you should see at least 10% CR - if it's less than that after 2000 visitors - come back here, give us your stats...

And let's look again.

BUT - if you have an awesome ranking in Google for a good keyword(s), don't change much! Make gentle tweaks that keep your keywords more or less in the same spots with the same overall density.

It's a slower process with SBI - but I think you have a great start... so don't sweat it... you don't want to kill its traffic building powers if you are interested in the SE traffic.

I have a couple of more ideas you could do... but first, how long has your site been live, and what kind of CR% are you currently seeing?

All the best,

Tim

Greg,

I am a bit late on this biut would like to give you some very quick feedback.

Overall the copy is fabulous

But although I felt compelled to read it (sorry time wont allow it) I scanned it all and found it very, very clever in your style of writing.

You need to get into your offer earler and tell people (what you have to offer).

The close is weak and could do with beefing up for response. It needs to stand out on the page also. It is currently part of the copy but would be stronger in its own table.

Make it more specific and compelling on the offer. This is your closer ... WHY ... WHY ... WHY ... would your targets be forced to scream YES -- SIGN ME UP?

Tighten that and you'll be laughing

Awesome, awesome, awesome! I can't believe I'm getting feedback from
Allen, Tim, Dean, and Jane! I've read your comments on this board with great interest for a few months now.

I will investigate two adjustments right away: changing my H1 headline as Tim suggested and adding the newsletter sign-up form to the index page.

I may wait on the sign-up form, as I am commited to not spending any more money that isn't raised through the site. We'll see...

It's funny that both Jane and Allen mentioned talking about the offer earlier. I printed out a thread on Wednesday that talked about the standard chronology for a salesletter - and introducing the offer early was on that agenda. I have that "tweak" on my to-do list.

My most wanted response, from my home page, is to have people sign up for my newsletter. Secondarily, I'd like visitors to read my articles and interviews.

The site has been up since late September. I brought 500 newsletter subscribers with me (from my labor-intensive, old fashioned newsletter) when I set up the SBI site. I am not yet ranked very highly on any of the search engines - unless someone types in "natural humor medicine." But, yes, natural medicine is my main keyword.

I received around 1,500 visitors this month, many of them driven by my newsletter. It converts 4% to newsletter subscribers.

I consider the site an affiliate site for my Father's wonderful prescription, The Fun Factor. Dad has some incredibly unique selling propositions which make him stand out!

He is:
- a medical doctor
- a great professional speaker
- has been on the comedy caravan as a working stand-up comic (I'll withhold my critique on how funny he was)
- he has some celebrity friends and connections
- his written material, his prescription, is tested and extremely effective

If just gotta get people to the site...and then convert them into clients! I know, I know...a real unique goal for a website, huh?

I will also work on strengthening the close...do you have any other suggestions in that regard?