A big problem that people run into when they’re selling is that they’re trying to sell a product. It seems a bit odd, considering that your goal is to sell a product. You’re not going to make any money if you don’t have people taking out their credit cards and buying. But there is a difference between what people actually buy and what you’re selling.

Let’s say that you go to Walmart and buy a bed side lamp. What you bought was a bed side lamp, but that isn’t what sold you. You didn’t buy a lamp because it is a lamp. No one buys anything because that is what it is. You don’t buy televisions because their televisions. You don’t buy for that reason because it is not a benefit.

You end up buying a bed side lamp because it provides light. It allows you to read while you’re lying in bed. You buy a television, so you can be entertained with great shows or movies. You are buying for the benefit, not for what is being sold.

This may sound a little convoluted, but it’s important. You don’t sell a product. You sell benefits a customer can derive from a product.

For main regular things that we buy, we don’t really need to be told the benefits because we already know them. We already know chocolate chip cookies at the grocery store taste good. We know that benefit. But for affiliate marketers, we are less likely to be put in this situation.

It’s All About the Customer

As a marketer, you’re in a constant battle to understand your customer. The best marketers in the world are very good at knowing them. I don’t give a shit how you do it, but you have to figure out the people that are going to buy whipping out their credit card for you.

I’m an affiliate marketer (I don’t like the term internet marketer) and I can figure out customers in a pretty good way if I was selling something related to that niche. I remember starting out and what I was doing. I remember busting my balls each day doing things, without even knowing if I would make a penny at it. I went 23 days of working full time before I made my very first sale online.

But if you’re in a niche that you really don’t understand than you have to do the research if you expect to make cash online. And the reason that you really need to dig deep down into your potential customer is because you’ll never know exactly what they want to hear. You may think you know what they want, but unless you’re living it, you don’t know.

Let’s take my latest product that I’m still playing with and testing. I have some interesting asides to add to this, after I make my point. I made my sales letter and I came out with something decent. It needs work, but I am making sales and it’s not a total dud. Trust me, making sales shows that you’re on the right track. Making no sales is dud.

I haven’t tested this yet, but it appears to be the case. I came at my customer from a very logical point of view. I was appealing to their logic and providing benefits in that way. I shouldn’t be doing that, but I still have to test it. I have to appeal to them on a different level. I’m going to be working on my 5th edit and trying to hit up a much more emotional impact on the reader.

I don’t want to go into detail about the niche until I release it, but I want my customer to have their adrenalin pumping and getting excited, not logically intrigued. Logically intrigued as been getting me sales though. In November, I’m converting at a much more respectful1:75. And that’s without any changes to the sales letter from the previous month, so it’s hard to figure it out.

My Aside on my product: Things have been getting a little more exciting. I’ve been getting more sales over the last week now, which is nice. But it looks like the niche I’m in is much more hungry than I thought.

First, I had someone contact me from a newspaper/magazine in my niche. A reporter was looking to get information on my niche. Considering that I’ve done absolutely no backlink building, I’m being viewed as an authority. I don’t know how big this newspaper/magazine is, but obviously big enough to hire reporters. I haven’t got to talk to them since the original request, so I’m not sure if they’re looking for information on the niche or if I’m possibly going to get a plug for my site.

Second, I got contacted yet again. But this time it was about the other site that ended their affiliate program and took my money. This person wanted help in tracking down information about the other owner because he was going to launch a copyright suit against him. Yes, the asshole that stole my money, also stole his product from this guy. And I want to point out that this guy isn’t an internet marketer. He has a legit business that deals with this niche.

So justice could be on the horizon. My main competitor (and scam artist) could be eliminated through legal means. Sweet. This is the big news and it is pretty exciting.

Okay, back to how to make cash online copywriting.

Customers Only Want to Know What is in it for them

A potential customer that is going to come and read your copy only cares about himself (or herself). When I read a page, I don’t give a flying fuck what you think or how good you are. It means nothing to me as some guy on your website.

…but if you’re an expert, doesn’t that make it easier to sell?

Absolutely, but that comes later. I have to know what is in it for me before I give a shit whether you’re Doctor King Shit or Affiliate Marketing Millionaire.

When someone lands on your sales page, assume that they don’t know what the fuck they’re here for. Telling them you’re Dr. King Shit doesn’t matter to them at first. Let’s say that you’re flipping through the channels on TV and you come to a station and stop for a second. “Hi, I’m Dr. King Shit and I have six medical degrees from the University of ” *click* Off to the next channel.

When you have authority like being a doctor, it will really help you sell medical related stuff. But no one is ever going to buy unless they know about the benefits. Instead of telling them that you’re Dr. King Shit, tell them the benefits.

“Imagine never having to see a single blemish on your face again. In just 30 days you can be completely cured from Acne for good,” and this can go on for a bit.

You have to view it from the point of the view of the customer. When they’re first on the site, they want to know what is it in for them – not who you are. You want the person reading to say “Hmmm, this sounds really good, but how do I know that you can help me.” Bam, Dr. King Shit enters the sales letter and reassures the customer that he/she is the real deal and has the knowledge to provide the benefit.

But that is the difference I’m talking about. Everything is about the benefit, even when the reader is told about you being Dr. King Shit. So here is what you have to take out of this whole thing…

You’re selling a benefit and the product is the answer

So let’s spend a little time talking about persuasion. I want to get right into the details about the key elements of persuasion. I’ve talked about persuasive verbs, but we really need to get down to the actual psychology of the whole thing. All of these points come out of the book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. It is a great read.

• Reciprocation
• Commitment and Consistency
• Social Proof
• Liking
• Authority
• Scarcity

I’ll give you a little breakdown of all these points because they’re important. You’ve probably seen some of these on sales pages. You should try to implement these too when you’re trying to sell.

Reciprocation

I guess the best way I could sum up this particular point, is that you want to create a feeling of debt in the mind of the reader. You want them to feel in debt to you. Psychologically we are driven to always even things up. If I buy you lunch at work, you’ll feel in debt to me. You’ll want to buy my lunch to even things up. But you can be pushed easily into doing things. I could spend $5 on lunch and I could easily suck more out of you if I recognize that you feel in debt to me.

You may have seen some sales pages that offer part of their product for free. Granted they’ll ask you to opt into a mailing list, but they’re going to give you something absolutely for free. This creates a feeling of debt in their mind and can be later persuaded to buy.

Commitment and Consistency

This can be best summed up as you give an inch and they take a mile. If you can get someone to hold a small position, than you can push them further and further over time. You can change the way they feel about things. This is something that requires the book to do some studying on it. It’s a little more complicated. So if you view yourself as a charitable person, than if someone positions themselves in a way where they need charity, you’ll probably give them money.

The example in the book on this subject is very interesting. He talked about the Korean War and Chinese POW camps. Americans that were in these camps actually started hating America and still hate the country to this date. And the Chinese did it through commitment and consistency. They’d have Americans write essays just asking them to write one bad thing about America and they literally exploited the hell out of it. It’s interesting stuff.

Social Proof

This is the most common thing you see and it is just a testimonial. People are sheepish in nature. You may think you’re independent, but you’re still internally wired to want to know what other people are doing. Have you ever been watching someone on a stage and they say something that could possibly funny, but you look around to wait for someone else to laugh? That is social proof. If you identify with person A. Person A bought this product and had success. You’ll feel more likely to buy.

Let’s say that you’re a nerd that can’t get a date. If the testimonials are all of nerds. You’ll identify with them. You’ll see their success and you’ll think that you can accomplish it too.

Authority

If you’re Dr. King Shit than you can probably sell any medical related product you want. I think this is pretty self explanatory.

Liking

This has to do with your likability as a seller. We’re more likely to buy from people that we like. I thought the example listed in this book was the best. Women are known to be the ones that have Tupperware parties. So you go over to your friends house, you talk, eat food, etc and then you’re sold stuff. All the women that go over to it know that they’re going to be sold something and they still go (and buy).

You’re more likely to buy from someone that you like. Guys will buy from very beautiful women. Friends will have difficulty saying no to their friends.

Scarcity

This is a way of limiting something and the idea is to force someone to ACT NOW to buy the product. As a marketer, you need them to BUY IT RIGHT NOW!!!! You can’t afford to let them go. You don’t tell them to sit down and think about it. When you give them time, they’ll come down and the emotional pull will be gone.

You want people to feel the benefit and feel a loss if they don’t act right now. It’s like the Shamwow infomercials on television. If you buy in the next 10 minutes, you’ll get two additional Shamwow’s absolutely free. You can call in anytime you want, you’re getting the two free, but they tell you that to make you want to buy. It puts pressure on your mind. “I better act now, or I might lose out on that good deal.” Ebooks are a little different. Scarcity is applied to the actual product or price. You may only limit the book to the first 50 customers, or your price might go up after the first 50 customers.

All of these points make up what it takes to persuade people. This is how you persuade with your copy and it is how you’ll make cash online. There is one other point I got from this book, but I can’t remember exactly what section it falls under. Probably falls under the Reciprocation category.

It is the concept of contrast. By nature, we are wired to compromise with other people. It’s basically what is needed for our survival as social creatures. The idea is that you can make things sound better through contrast. If you ask a friend if you can borrow $100 she’ll probably say no. But if you ask, how about $10? It’s a lot easier to give it because they’ve made a big step in asking less. Since they’ve made an attempt to compromise, you’ll want to do it too.

You should be able to see the power in such a thing. You’ll see this on sales letters where they list the price at $197, but they slash it out and say that it is $37 for a limited time. It’s a compromise and you’ll be more likely to act on it.

Another example, which I want to implement, is pricing through different packages. Let’s say that you can buy a living room chair for $299. But I also tell you that you can get the matching sofa for $649 and that you can get the chair and sofa together for $699. Contrast hits you. You’re going to go for the sofa and chair because it is the best deal. In fact, it’s a really good deal when you compare the prices. *Hint* that doesn’t mean the prices are logical to begin with. It’s the contrast that sells it.

What is Copywriting?

Take notice that the word is writing and not righting. We’re not talking about intellectual property rights here. Copywriting is the ability to write persuasively. Fundamentally it is your ability to use words to sell things. This is very important for marketing. If you’re trying to make cash online with Adsense than you really don’t need to know how to do any of this stuff. The goal of Adsense is to let someone else click and that’s how you get your money.

You can make cash with Adsense, but I’m yet to be convinced it is the best route to go. You have to accept the fact that the page people click through too is selling something. If the business that buys the ads are continuously doing it, than they’re turning a profit. I find this quite annoying because you’re getting squeezed.

When you step away from Adsense and try to make cash from home with affiliate marketing, the game changes. You don’t have to write useful content anymore. It’s bullshit. Google can’t tell whether you’re writing quality informative content or if you’re writing persuasively to sell something. The SEO value is still there, but you’re putting yourself into the position of turning more profit.

Pull on their Emotions, not their Sensibilities

The problem with being a webmaster is that we’re really desensitized to marketing. Well, if you’re an Adsense type of guy, you might not, but I’m pretty desensitized to it. What we end up thinking is that logic will inevitably win them over. And I know I make that mistake. My current sales letter for the new product I’m testing out is sort of on the logical side. It’s converting now at about 1:150. It’s not anywhere near where I want it to be, but not a total bomb.

You’re going to get people to buy on a logical level, but emotional has a bigger impact. It just hits you differently. You feel it deep down in your stomach and it hits you differently.

Let’s say that you’re going to sell a career to someone. You can say that you’ll make $50k/year. You’ll get full medical, dental and a beefed pension. You’ll get plenty of unemployed people that would want that. But that is logical and it’s a little different. Most customers aren’t like that though. Staying in their comfort zone is a lot easier and they’re more likely to do it.

Let’s say that you were going to sell a career to someone that already had a career. They get similar benefits and pay, so how would you sell this new career now? The logical approach isn’t going to sell this person, so you have to reach and think on an emotional level. What are some of the emotionally good things that this person would be doing in this career. If it was a job with the police force than they’d be hunting down criminals, kicking in doors, shooting, etc. It would be an adrenalin pumping type experience.

You have to bring that to your niche because that is what sells. There is a very good saying in copywriting that goes along the lines of “you’ll buy for emotional reasons and rationalize it later”. What that means is that you’ll pull out your credit card for the adrenalin pumping experience, but you’ll later rationalize it in a calm state as a secure job, with good benefits, etc.

There is another aspect of copywriting that I should of went into first…

Benefits and Features

This is about the biggest breakdown for most people trying to sell. Customers buy for the benefits, not for the features. If you want to make cash online you have to sell the benefits to people.

Let’s say I’m an average car owner. I don’t know much about cars, but I know I need winter tires. Telling me that you have 15 inch studded tires, doesn’t tell me shit. That doesn’t help me.  As an average stupid car owner, I really don’t know why I need to know the inches of the tire. Most people aren’t going to know that they have 14 or 15 inch rims and need a specific sized tire.

You may think that studded tires is a benefit, but it really is a feature. The benefit of studded tires is that you can stop on a dime while driving on ice. Don’t ever assume that the person you’re selling to is going to make that connection. If your customer has to figure something out, they’re probably not going to buy. Even if they do figure out that benefit they’re not necessarily going to buy because you don’t really get the same emotional response that way.

Make sure you spell this out to your customer. Just keep it simple and say it. You don’t have to leave out the feature, but if you’re going to list the feature you should at least say the benefit too. “Studded tires will allow you to stop on a dime while driving on ice.” Bam, Done!

But you also have to know who your customer is. Depending on your customer a feature could be a benefit. If you’re selling computers to high tech computer geeks, telling them that the computer is “really really fast” isn’t going to help them. Saying a “3.5 GHz Dual Core Processor” would be a benefit to them because that’s a fuckin’ powerful computer.

There are still benefits to be sold though. I keep thinking of people that build up cars for racing. Like street racing. It’s like the amateur person, but they know a lot about cars. They know a lot, but the benefit you’re selling is speed. It doesn’t matter if they’re buying nitro or if you have a new way of keeping the engine cooler. They want speed. They want to drive around at 150mph and kill themselves. Give them what they want.

Conceptual or Tangible Selling

There was a great video of Eben Pagan that I saw. Eben Pagan is the David Deangelo guy. He got famous because of his Double Your Dating brand. He was in that whole Pick up Artist, Getting Laid, etc sort of niche, but it actually launched him into marketing and things like that. When I first heard of him (David Deangelo) I heard that he was a brilliant marketer and that’s what he is.

This is a really good video. Just take note that the guy asking the question is a fuckin’ idiot and I don’t think he’s even listening half the time. He doesn’t even answer the questions directly.

Eben makes the good copywriting point here because you have to sell something tangible. People aren’t going to buy conceptual ideas. You have to dig deep into the mind of a potential customer and figure out that exact emotional trigger and tangibly hit it. In a later post, I’m going to go into what the emotional triggers, so for now I’ll just leave them out. But let’s look at a few examples. Which one is more exciting to you.

“Financial Security” or “$100,000 in Cash”

Definitely the cash. I think we all want financial security, but it is only a concept. It’s not tangible or anything along those lines. The way it is thrown around today it is literally a cliche. What is financial security? When you boil it right down to the root of it, it’s just money. Selling money to people is a good place to start because GREED is one of the emotional triggers. I said I wouldn’t get into the triggers, but that’s one to illustrate the point.

“Be An Amazing Investor” or “Earn $1000 A Week in the Stock Market With No Risk”

It should be obvious which one is going to sell. We all want to be amazing investors, but just because you say it doesn’t mean that I’m going to feel it and want to buy it. It is the tangible that I can see. Making a $1000 a week, with no risk. Fuck, sign me up now.

“How to be a Good Hockey Player” or “Discover the Triple Deke the Scores Every Time”

This is hockey reference and since I’m Canadian, you guys might not get it. A deke is when you stick handle in such a way where you can trick the goalie score. It’s used in penalty shots and shootouts.  Being a good hockey player is abstract.  If I wanted to know how to be a good hockey player, I would be looking for specific things. I want to know how to skate faster or score more goals.

This is a very big part of copywriting. If you want to make cash online you have to understand the difference between the conceptual idea and the tangible. The reason that conceptual is such a problem is because people think they’re clever when they use it. Financial Security sounds like a good idea. Who doesn’t want to have financial security? It sounds nice, but you’re not here to sound nice. If you’re copywriting your goal is to make sales, ie: make cash. You’re not here to wow the reader. Only wow them to sale.

Financial Security doesn’t get my engine revving. Making fifty grand on autopilot every year gets me all revved up.

Grab Attention

If you haven’t already noticed, sales letters really fuckin’ long. But if you want to make cash online copywriting than you need to understand that they work. A big rule of copywriting is to make sure that you make it nice and easy. You want to make sure that the reader doesn’t have to work. It seems sort of counter intuitive to have a long sales letter because the prospect has to work hard to read.

You have to get their attention and hold it. This is sometimes difficult. Don’t expect to sit down one day and start writing persuasive copy. It’s something that you’re going work at, test out, come back to later and edit. The product I’m testing out now is currently on it’s 4th copy to convert at 1:150. It can take up to 8 rough copies before you get somewhere with it.

The headline is the most important thing to grab attention because they’re not reading if you don’t get their attention. Here’s a way of looking at it. I come to a page and there is a lot of fucking text to read. Why should I? Your headline should be able to answer the question. It has to contain the most powerful benefit you’re selling to me because that is the only way I’m going to even try and read this monster letter.

But you also need those powerful subheadings throughout the letter too because we have to face the facts. Not everyone is going to read the letter word for word. They’re going to skim through it and see what they like (or don’t like). You need those headings to suck them into the copy.

It is a big part of copywriting. You’d be surprised how many people just tweak the headline at the top of the page and their conversion rate doubles. The reason is probably because their copy isn’t that bad. It’s probably pretty persuasive, but their headline wasn’t sucking them in to read the persuasive copy. That is how a simple change in the headline can help you make cash and make a lot more it.

Persuasion is a Soft Science

I come from the realm of hard science. That is the subjects of physics and chemistry. The answers are exact and to the point. Gravity is 9.8m/s on Earth and nothing changes that. Persuasion is a branch of psychology and that is a soft science. There is no exact or necessarily a right way of doing things. Somethings work and others don’t. Sometimes going against the rules can help you make cash, while following the rules can lead to failure. It’s one of those odd things because we’re playing with psychology.

When you see the link for Christine Taylor’s tight ass, do you want to click? Are those 4 words persuasive for you? What about Casey Cartwright ass? For me, it is less persuasive than tight ass, but it’s not a science.

Even though I brought in those links, which was for more of a SEO experiment then anything, the point is that you have to test things out. You have to play with. You have to throw things out there and see what happens. You still have to hit up those emotional points, but identifying them is difficult. Think of it this way, how can you identify these emotional points if you couldn’t even identify them in yourself?  You have to understand the fears, goals, desires, wants, hates, etc in your current prospects and it can be hard to figure this out. Often people aren’t willing to share things with you.

Here is an example: making cash. Investing to make cash you would assume that the prospect would be interested in money and making it. Certainly they are, but is that the big emotional trigger?

When I think of investing in the stock market, the idea of making cash from my investments sounds awesome. It is an exciting feeling, but I can also think of another powerful feeling. One that is a lot more powerful. The feeling is losing my money. If I take 10 grand and invest into a company lose it all. Holy fuck. That scares the crap out of me. I know there is a lot of people out there that feel the same way.

The fear of loss can often be more powerful feeling then gaining something. As a copywriter you should be thinking about those things because you never really know what a person wants. They might not even be interested in gaining money, more then they want to not lose money.

SEO Copywriting

This has been a hot topic in copywriting that many people have been discussing. We all understand that SEO is very important. It is by far the most important thing (on page) that you can do to get traffic from search engines. The real debate comes from the perspective of persuasion. Does SEO copywriting diminish your ability to be persuasive? I don’t know. I don’t have an answer and I’m guessing that a lot of copywriters don’t have an answer.

SEO is important and Persuasion is important. I suppose the copywriter has to find a balance. I’m going to say that balance to should fall toward persuasion since that is the most important thing. You  have to make sure that you’re able to sell and if you can work the keyword in normal conversation then you should be fine.

But let’s make no mistake, links play the bigger role in search traffic. I have a site that ranks for niche name remedies and I don’t even have the term remedies on the page. In fact I show up in the top ten when you search “niche name remedies” in quotes. It’s like Google doesn’t even give a fuck anymore about that type of query.

So How do you learn Copywriting?

I guess this is the question that will help you make cash online. I don’t know if there is necessarily a method to explain this. I fall under the category of learn by doing. And I suspect this is the best way for all people to go. You can read and read all day, but all you’re reading is ideas on persuasion and putting them into practice is a little different. Everything needs to be changed to your potential customers and that is can be tough.

It’s something that will require your attention and it will evolve over time. If you play with it, you can learn. You see what is working and what isn’t. And it really is the best way to go, at least for me. I’m currently have a bunch of copywriting books to finish reading and I’m currently on the second book (Cash Copy). The thing is that it always takes many edits and changes to your sales letter to make it work the best. And even when it is going good you still tweak it to try and get a little more out of it.

You build a sales letter for something. Grab something off of Amazon and try to be persuasive. You don’t necessarily have to write a long letter. The length of the letter is typically designed to meet how much you’re selling it for. Selling light bulbs for $1.50 isn’t going to require a huge sales letter.

Just build that sales letter for something and drive traffic to it. Remember to focus benefits over features like I mentioned above. Start learning and reading as much as you can on the subject and apply it. Seriously hang out at copywriting forums. All the douchebags hang out in the internet marketing forums, but copywriter forums are much different. You can learn a lot just by reading the threads. Read the critique requests. This is where you get to see a sales letter and watch professionals dissect it.

This is a really good skill to learn. If you want to make cash online or even make cash anywhere, you have to know how to be persuasive to sell the product. This skill can take you a lot of places. You can do a lot with it. I know that businesses like to work with people that can write persuasively.

For the longest time I had a very simple philosophy on sales letters, landing pages and any other persuasive types of words. I would try to pick apart what I thought was a good example and learn from it. There is nothing wrong with this type of method because it has made me money for a long time. But there is a huge flaw with it too and it is viewing things from an outside position.

What I mean by that statement is that you’re like an alien watching a hockey game. After a while you’ll understand some basic things like trying to get the puck in the net, but beyond that you think people are acting like irrational fuckin’ idiots.

I’ll pick up on the obvious stuff. I’ll see the statement that says we’re only selling this to the first 100 customers and recognize that it is a concept of scarcity to create urgency in a potential customer. I can pick up on those things. With the average length of a sales letter at 2500 words (not including testimonials, guarantees, and any other boxes) I am missing out on a lot that is buried right in front of my nose.

Active Verbs

Through my research this time I started to pick up on was active verbs. This is a concept that took me some time to figure out because I wasn’t the type of kid that paid attention during English class. It is a subtle difference in the way you use verbs in your sentences. You can either write active verbs or passive verbs. I think I fall under the category of using passive, when active is the more persuasive way to write your copy.

Let me show you subtle this can be:

Mr. Smith is considering my resume. – Active

My resume is being considered by Mr. Smith. – Passive

Do you see how immaterial this is? From an English language standpoint you should be thinking who the fuck cares and that is what I was thinking too. But there is the aspect of selling and making an impact that you must consider when writing. This is one of these points.

Active verbs allow you to make a much larger impact on your reader, but it also gets the point across is less words. From the example I gave the active one has 5 words and the passive has 7. Its two words shorter and you’re thinking big whoop. Well, considering a sales letter is 2500 words you can get more information in. Plus you run the problem of your reader leaving. At least this way you’re getting as much information into their head before they leave.

Stephen King’s ‘-ly’ Adverbs

Yes, I’m taking advice from freakin’ Stephen King. He wrote a book “On Writing” where he talked about these “-ly” adverbs. What was his lesson? They are a plague to your writing. They infest your text like an invasion of ants at a picnic.

After playing around with this idea for a few days I couldn’t believe how often I was using these adverbs. They were in everything I wrote. I’m sure if you dug through all my posts on this site you could pick them out. I like to use the words obviously, probably, basically, easily, etc.

Let’s see a few examples:

Basically all you have to do to make cash online is work hard.

All you have to do to make cash online is work hard.

When you work hard you’ll probably experience more rewards.

When you work hard you’ll experience more rewards.

Do you see, yet again, how immaterial the changes can be? But they all play a huge role in what you’re doing. The points get made in a concrete manner and you do it with less text. You should pick up on those examples as being the ‘-ly’ words that are pure fillers and not needed. Now that I think of it, is basically an adverb?

Let’s see a few adverb examples and replacing them:

The old lady slowly walked down the street.

The old lady inched down the street.

I spoke softly to my girlfriend when she was sick.

I soothed my girlfriend when she was sick.

Do you see the differences here? The impact and image of this should be much more apparent. When I said the old lady slowly walked, you just internalize words and their meanings. When I say the old lady inched down the street you actually see that lady inching her way down the street.

The same is true with the second example. You’re going to internalize the meanings of the word softly, but there will no image with it. When I soothed my girlfriend you have to picture it.

I know what you’re thinking now: Holy shit! I thought this site was going to show me how to make cash online, not some fuckin’ grammar lesson. Yeah, I’m just as surprised as you are.

But there is a point to all of this…

Show Them, Don’t Tell Them

This is one of those frustrating statements you’ll see mentioned when an expert reviews a sales letter. Go to any internet marketing forum that has a copywriting section and look. Anyone looking for a review will be told that.

A lot of the points above fit into that category, in particular replacing the ‘-ly’ adverbs with a much better verb. These are all methods designed to help you show your readers, rather than tell them. Or another way of looking at it, don’t tell them what to think, make them think it (or feel it).

I guess this is enough on copywriting because I have a lot more to learn. While digging around online Wednesday night I found myself spending $80 picking up a few books on copywriting that are considered the bibles of the business.

Here is what I picked up:

• “Tested Advertising Methods” – John Caples ($17.48 CDN)
• “The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters” – Joseph Sugarman ($17.51 CDN)
• “The Copywriter’s Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Copy That Sells” – Robert W Bly ($15.20 CDN)
• “Cash Copy: How to Offer Your Products and Services So Your Prospects Buy Them” – Jeffrey Lant ($19.99 CDN used)

It’ll take me months to dissect, absorb and interpret all the information in these books, but it will give me something to talk about on this site when it comes to things you can purchase. I mentioned somewhere on my earlier blog that I refuse to review products I haven’t gone out and bought (that means I won’t talk about review copies either). Up to this point in my affiliate marketing career I have bought “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” and a membership into the War Room at the Warrior Forum. I guess I now have a list that is 4 points longer.

I feel this is a pretty good investment because selling with your words is very important. Having traffic to read the words is important, but I’ve got that down.

Okay, enough of this.

An Article Experiment

This is something that I haven’t done in a while. My philosophy for online marketing has concluded long ago that bum marketing is a death trap (a future post on this, I promise). I’m saying this with experience too with over 2700 unique articles sitting at EzineArticles and countless others at different directories.

The point of this particular experiment is to determine SEO value of a lot of directories. I think all my readers should recognize that you can only get so much link juice from a site. The first link is worth the most, but as you get more and more, the juice gets weaker and weaker. I’ll go a step further and say the juice gets toxic and hurts your site, but that’s for the future post I’ll talk about.

The objective is to submit one unique article to each of the article directories out there. I think we know that there are thousands of article directories out there aside from the few big ones. I want to see what happens if I get a link back from a few hundred of them. I want to know if article directories are enough for power in the search engines, as long as you anchor your links, use a unique article at each directory and vary the page you’re linking too.

That’s all I’m looking to test out. My breakdown of link backs is going to be split. 33% will go to the domain front page and 66% will go onto inner pages of the site. I will also be varying the anchor text at about the same percentage breakdowns. I’ll get Google slapped if I kept linking with the same anchor text.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this. This week I started into this. I’m 40 directory submissions in. I thought that the hardest part of this would be writing all the unique articles, but it isn’t. The hardest part is digging through and investigating the current directory you’re about to submit too. There’s no point in uploading a unique article to a directory that has their most recent submission listed as June 8 2006. There’s no point in submitting to a site that has popups and other shit. I even submitted to a directory where the admin removed my link from the author box. There are some shady fuckers out there.

I put everything into a spreadsheet, so I could go back and review how things are progressing. There’s nothing to report after 5 days of testing, but I did find one interesting site. I never hear anyone discuss it on forums or anywhere, but my articles get a decent amount of views. It even was pushing some top 10 positions on Google.

I guess if this experiment turns out to be a total failure, I might find some good article directories to submit my articles to.

Sniper Sites

I guess I can give you guys an update on the sniper site experiment. Things this week have been pretty interesting. I had a record setting day this week, which isn’t saying much because it was like $6. But this is the first time I invested labor into Adsense. The impressions from week to week are about the same, which is fine.

I was looking at some of the sites in the first wave and was doing an analysis on their performance. This left me with a small list of a few sites that I’m going to change from Adsense to Amazon. The reason is that the click values they’re getting are pitiful or the CTR isn’t good enough. You’d be surprised how many unrelated sites that show up in Adsense that aren’t even related. What’s annoying is getting 5-10 cent clicks for products that are selling on Amazon for $150.

The odd thing is that I have another site where you can buy the product at Walmart for $15 earning $3 clicks. It makes no fucking sense to me.

Done to the numbers:

Total Invested: $354.20 US

Total Earned: $99.80 US ( $33.69 US last week )

We have to remember that this is an 8 day period, but still above the weekly averages.