Copy critique, please?

kgilbert · **Copy critique, please? -** 02-10-2007, 06:54 PM

OK,

I've got a sales letter that's converting very poorly. (We're talking worse than 0.25% or something...) I might be targetting too broad of keywords, but I'd like for you guys to critique my copy before I mess with that as I'm sure it has tons and tons of things that could be improved greatly.

Link to copy

Thanks so much!

Keith

thegreatwarrior · 02:35 AM

A New Direct-Response Copywriter Asks:

"How Can Conversion On This Sales Page Be Increased?"

If A Salesletter Looks Like It Has Everything,
What Can Be Wrong With It?

Keith,

First of all, great-looking job on the sales page. In my opinion, it's the best-looking, most complete one I've critiqued yet on this board.

But therein lies the problem.

I may be overlooking something (I'm a new copywriter, so maybe I haven't developed the sight to see what's wrong with a salespage that most other people don't), but other than the fact that your market (or, more specifically, traffic) may not be fully targeted for this sales page (I'll speak a little bit about this below), I'm not sure why it's not converting higher.

Here Are 2 Suggestions That May Increase Your
Conversion...

1. You have those 3 live, outgoing links that you may be loosing traffic to. It's been said that a web page, and especially a sales page, should have a singular goal of keeping the visitor on the sales page as long as possible.

Can you see how having outgoing links prevents you from keeping your visitor on the page as long as possible?

It's bad enough that these are outgoing links (and therefore, possible sources of distraction), but in my opinion, what makes them worse is that they're live links, which make it so much easier for your visitor to leave your webpage (only a click away, and in 2 of 3 cases, your web page is gone).

Now, what do I mean by 2 of 3 cases?

If You Chose To Have Outgoing Links,
This Piece of Code Is Your Friend

Keith, I clicked on each of the 3 outgoing links on your sales page, and 2 of the new websites opened in the same window that your original sales page was in, effectively wiping out your sales page.

This means that, if someone wanted to come back to your sales page, they would have to click on the Back button in their browser for each page they surfed away from your sales page (so, if they surfed 4 pages on the new website, they'd have to Back button 4 or 5 times to get back to your site).

Another thing that's bad about the new web site opening in a different window is that if your former visitor closes that window, your sales
page is also gone.

Alternatively, only 1 of the 3 opened in a new window. This, in my opinion, is the more preferable occurence, since your original sales page will always be a visable option along the Start row menu.

And also, if your visitor closes the window of the new web site, their computer will display the last window that was open, which will likely be that of your sales page.

In order to make an outgoing link open in a new window, ask your webmaster to put the folowing code into your <a> tag:

target="_blank"

That piece of code is your friend.

In terms of testing, you can use an ad tracking service to see how much of your traffic leaks off to those 3 outgoing web sites. What you discover throgh testing may be interesting.

How To Build Up Value Without Losing Traffic

Keith, you already partially do this. I understand your underlying logic for putting those outgoing links into your sales page: you want your visitors to see for themselves that the other alternatives do indeed cost much more than the cost of your e-book.

However, you state those costs right on your sales page already, which is good.

So, if you got rid of the links, and only mentioned the names of the other alternatives, you would avoid traffic leakage to those other sites.

Okay, Here's The Second Suggestion That May (Eventually) Increase Conversion

2. Well, this one's simple: build a list by collecting names and e-mail addresses.

I was a bit hesitant about suggesting this one to you, because I figured that anyone who wants to find out their past family history would immediately see the value in your offer.

But it's dangerous for us to make those assumptions.

We, the publishers, "experts," and webmasters, shouldn't think people on the other side of the fence see things the way we do. When we make this mistake, we become blind and fail to see things from the customer's perspective.

Anyway, enough ranting.

If you consider that there's a statistic on the Internet that something like 80% of online sales are made after the 7th contact, it's a viable consideration to have a 7+ step autoresponder series in place.

But even beside that point, it's a good principle to provide value to people before asking for their money.

Never Lose Sight of
The Big Picture

Here's the story of another website that was in a similar position as you're in, Keith:

I remember listening to Michel in an interview done by Daniel Levis. Michel told us about a time he critiqued a sales page that sold an e-book on insomnia.

Just like your sales page (unless I've really overlooked something), the sales page for that e-book was good.

In relation to this, Michel said that the only thing more important than the copy was the market (and, if I may dare add, the path that your market takes to reach your sales page).

Let me boil this down a bit: in order to increase your conversion, you would have to target your keywords (let's say you're doing PPC campaigns) more specifially.

In the case of the insomnia e-book, the PPC keywords were too broad. You see, most people who look fro insomnia information via the search engines are not looking to buy an e-book, they are only looking for categorical information about insomnia.

They may be a nursing studet looking for the medial definition of insomnia.

They may have to write a report on insomnia.

Michel advised the e-book author to tightly target her keywords to better reflect someone who might be looking to purchase an insomnia remedy, and the sales conversion of her site increased.

This falls under the "message to market" marketing concept.

You want to know what else Michel said?

This will help you to see the big picture by thinking outside the box.

A person who's suffering from insomnia may not even know that they have insomnia, but:

They have lack of sleep, and they have low energy, among other things.

So, a person who suffers from insomnia, and who may be a prime candidate for this e-book, may not even type "insomnia" into a search engine.

Can you see any parallels between this story and your situation?

You can use the keyword search tool to begin your keyword search.

I would recommend bidding on the search term, genealogy book.genealogy book

Remember, as I always tell people, the only way to tell the difference between what produces results and what doesn't is to test.

I hope this helps.

Chris Haddad · **Re: Copy critique, please? -** 02-11-2007, 02:12 AM

Hi Keith,

So I've scanned through your page a bit.
Here's a few thoughts:

1. Your opening line says "Have you ever had an interest in the past?" I'd bet a large number of folks who land on your site just say "Err. Well, not really." an move on with their lives. In copy, you never want to put up a question that so easily has a "yes/no" answer to it (Unless you've got a niche product that you really want to keep un-qualified folks away from.)

2. Your headline: "How To Successfully Trace Your Family History"

It just sort of lays flat for me. It gets better in the subhead (without forking over. . . etc.) but the headline itself doesn't have any real sort of benefit to it.

Here's my big question: Are you trying to sell to people who are already hell bent on tracing their family tree (a small percentage, it would seem to me)? Or are you trying to convince folks that A. Tracing your family tree has big benefits and is fun to do and B. You have the best way of doing it?

Your site now is aimed at the A. Category (and is sort of weak even for them.)

3. All the questions in your opening--Answer them for me. Tell me why I SHOULD wonder who my ancestors were. Offer up a story about how you discovered that your great, great grandfather was a scottish war chief or that your great aunt on your uncle's side (err?) discovered the secret of Time travel but then lost the blueprints in the great molasses flood that happened in boston way back when.

ANd then tell me how finding out this information BENEFITED YOU and affected your life. Convince me that there's something great in my past and then, maybe, just maybe, I'll dive further in and consider buying your product.

4. Your testimonials are very, very weak. In fact I would get rid of the "Great book. Very informative" one entirely. And the rest aren't much better.

What you want are Before and After Testimonials. These are where someone says "For years I wondered about who my ancestors were and where my family really came from. Your book made finding out easy and affordable. The things I've discovered about my family have absolutely delighted me. I'm putting together a scrapbook to bring to Christmas and I just know my siblings and parents are going to be as interested as I am."

You can ever get deeper than that. There are people out there who are passionate about this sort of thing. Find them. Show them your book. And help them to write kick ass testimonials that make your ebook seem like moses parting the red sea.

5. Bullets - Your bullets are just riddled with cliches.
Number 2, for instance: "The best resources to use in your geneology research . . . these are amazing!"

What makes them amazing? Tell me the reason why theyre amazing, why some of them are free and why this is information that I'm just not going to find anywhere else.

I could go through just about every bullet with the same sort of complaint. You're giving features, but you aren't giving benefits. Why do I want to find out if I have slave ancestory?

6. The offer. You do an alright job of positioning the price of your ebook against professional services and the like. But you lose me the moment you say "This is an amazing offer." That's utter hype with no meat around it. Why is it an amazing offer? Let me make that decision for myself.

I don't mean to be too harsh here. I can really sum up the main problems in three main points:

1. There's no rapport. I learn nothing about you on this site or why I should trust you.

2. There are no real benefits to the product on the site. The only benefit I'm seeing is "It's cheaper than paying 2k for a professional researcher." Since most folks aren't going to shell that out anyway, it does nothing for me.

3. There's no real credibility here. The testimonials are very weak.

Hope this helps.

Best,
c

jleister · **Re: Copy critique, please? -** 02-11-2007, 09:01 AM

Hi Keith,

As I read through your letter, I was thinking about your offer, but I wasn't feeling it...

For example, you say:

"...but they don't know where to start or they get stuck in their research."

Make it real for me so I can feel what you're talking about. How does "getting stuck" make me feel? What pain does it create for me?

And then...

How will your product dissolve that pain and what will my life look like then? How will I feel different?

Paint the picture for me about what it all means to me...

I agree about the opening questions in your lead. Try to craft your lead to pull your readers in right away. Right now, each yes or no question gives you a 50% chance of losing your reader.

For your headline, just try to translate it into a big benefit.

"How To Successfully Trace Your Family History"

What does achieving that actually mean to your reader?

And is that meaning really important to your target market?

How would my life be changed if I did successfully trace my family history (using your product)?

Good luck!

kgilbert · **Re: Copy critique, please? -** 02-12-2007, 03:36 PM

WOW!

Thanks guys! thegreatwarrior, Chris, and Jason. I can't believe how much help you've given me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Haddad

There are people out there who are passionate about this sort of thing. Find them. Show them your book. And help them to write kick ass testimonials that make your ebook seem like moses parting the red sea.

Hmm, that's exactly what I did

How should I be "helping" them write good testimonials? I told them it didn't need to be long, but to include specific things they liked about the book or results they got. And you can see what they came up with.

Chris Haddad · **Re: Copy critique, please? -** 02-12-2007, 03:42 PM

In that case, I'd say go back to them and say "Can you be more specific? Can you give me any sort of before and after about what you thought about the book and how it might make it easier for you to trace your geneology?"

There's nothing that says you have to accept the first testimonial someone sends you. They can be a work in progress.

Now, if the book isn't that good and they aren't willing to say much . . .then you've got a different problem.

skywriteing · **Re: Copy critique, please? -** 02-25-2007, 02:20 PM

What you can do is take thier testimonial and re-wite it with zing!
Then you send it to them and say:
...This is more like what I need for a tentimonial....please DO CHANGE ANYTHING so that it reads accurate for you. Please CHANGE this copy so it is exactly inagreement with YOUR Thoughts!. ( My experience is they pretty much leave it like it is )

Other wise my thoughts are purchase
Glyphius2007.com
and
Muvar.com
Those two will give your copywriting more value and income for a lifetime to come. They are tools that will help.