Is this sales copy ready to go live? (I'm scared!)

[bertuseng]

At long last I am finished with my first proper info product. I have had a WSO as a pre launch and updated my sales page and am ready to put it up at Clickbank.

I know there are loads of things I can change on the sales page to make it better, but I have run out of ideas on what specific things to change to make it better.

I decided I would give you all a go at ripping apart my sales page, before I put it up.

Constructive and specific comments will be much appreciated, and who knows, maybe you can get a review copy for free...

Here is the link: (button not working yet)

http://www.freetrafficvolcano.com/index.php?p=1_1

[David Raybould]

Bertus, a word to the wise...

Instead of getting a ton of conflicting
opinions here from people who may or
may not know what they're talking
about, why not hire a pro for a critique?

I'd bet a good critique will more than
double your profits.

If you want to make real money, at
some point you'll need to pony up and
hire a pro...

... or spend years learning how to write
high level copy yourself.

Good luck with it.

-David Raybould

[Loren Woirhaye]

"results you crave for?" - is bad grammar. You can say
"results you crave", "results you lust for", or something
like that. I'm not grammar-police, but this is weird English.

"Attention Internet Marketer: Are you tired of struggling to get quality website traffic and not seeing the results you crave for?"

This is clunky.

The rest of your headline and deck suffer from cliche IM-hype
language. If you're prospect has never seen a letter offering
the secrets of easy traffic, ok, but if he has seen a few of
these letters he'll be onto you and probably just think you're
another hype-merchant.

Use 12 point type. Some people don't read small type easily
online.

I think the second half of your letter is ok and the offer
is attractive. The price isn't too high, which is good - because
you want the offer to convert at first. Some folks launch
at too high a price and then they don't sell much, but more
importantly, they don't get as much feedback from buyers
because the volume is smaller. You can always raise your
price once the offer has been tested and tweaked.

Even though they're manipulative, I like blind bullets with
the fill-in the blanks approach. Good use of those here.

Where I would definitely like to see improvement is the
above-the-fold writing. Often copywriters throw away the
first 1 or 2 pages they've written because it takes awhile
to get the juices flowing. Even the world's top copywriters
ruthlessly clip the tops of their letters because of this
tendency to write bad copy at the top of the letter.

[Paul Hooper-Kelly]

Hi Bertus,

Your pre-headline is good, because it calls out directly to your target market.

But your headline needs a "hook". And you have one buried in your letter...

So what about ...

"Paid Advertising Cleared My Bank Account Faster Than A Hacker FORCING Me To Generate Free Traffic Or QUIT!"

Read on to discover how going broke proved to be the trigger to big profits and happiness, because now I get all the traffic I want for free - and I'll show you exactly how I do it...

There are tons of other things, but that will start the ball rolling ...

Warmest regards,

Paul

[bertuseng]

I can use all the help I can get, thanks guys.

Loren, I agree with the grammer aspect, I changed it, thanks.

Paul, really like your heading, I think I am going to take your
advice and test your heading, if I am allowed.

Don't really know what I can do to spice up the first part of my letter. Should I change my story, use more stat pictures, video? Another angle for my copy?

[Paul Hooper-Kelly]

Hi Bertus,

Glad you liked my headline. Yes, feel free to test that. That's just off the top of my head. I usually write about 30 - if I'm doing it for real.

Sales letters are a series of mini sales, leading up to the BIG ONE.

So, having "sold" the casual visitor the idea of reading your letter (that's the job of the headline), then you should move on to sale #2: yourself.

And Loren is absolutely right, because this opening part of the letter is crucial and you need to write and rewrite this over several days to really draw the reader in to the letter. And one of the best ways is with a story.

Now people like people who are like them. So you need to show the reader you understand and sympathize with their problem. Also people buy with their emotions, So first you need to paint a picture they can recognize, in an emotional way.

So, for example:

Dear fellow entrepreneur, [immediately that gets you alongside the reader, but doesn't talk down to them - after all there will be plenty of people not struggling who want to know if your product can help take them to the next level. Also it would be good to put your pic above the salutation, then it will face into the letter].

It's really tough, getting quality traffic, isn't it?

I know, because a while back I was where you probably are, right now. Only in my case it was probably a lot worse.

Because I'd paid a king's ransom for advertising, which did little more than leave me maxed out and broke. And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse.

The love of my life gave me an ultimatum: make this silly internet idea work in one month or I'm leaving.

So I was really facing disaster.

Because I knew if I didn't manage to make this work - and fast - all my golden dreams of financial freedom would crumble away and I'd be back on the hated job treadmill.

They say "necessity is the mother of invention", and so it proved to be because ...

I made an amazing discovery

... a simple way of getting traffic that actually converted up to three times better than before - what's more it's virtually free!

[Ross Bowring]

Couple quick things,

I'd move your photo to the left. Because then your face is pointing readers in the direction of your copy, not away from it.

And hook wise, at least as a micro-hook, I'd turn this volcano of yours into more of a *secret* volcano that you *stumbled* on in your quest to discover a red-hot source of high quality free traffic. Nothing over the top, but I'd draw on that metaphor more.

Next, your header graphic looks too homemade. Graphics can really add to perceived value. And I think yours, unfortunately, lowers the perceived value. I'd invest in a graphics package.

Lastly, I know what you're getting at with the headline. Kind of a Travolta/Jackman Swordfish scenario? But it doesn't make sense to me why a hacker would want you dead. Maybe I'm missing something.

Hope this helps.

[bertuseng]

I took your advice thanks a lot, everyone has been a great help. Any specific changes to my graphic header?

[The Copy Nazi]

Bertus, you have way too much stuff at the top of the page. The copy in the banner, the pre-head, the headline and the "deck" are competing with each other. Make one the "hero".

And for my money both the pre-head and the headline are Ordinary. Doesn't turn my crank at all. Looks and reads like yet another I.M. sales letter trying too hard to sell. "Forcing Me To Generate Free Traffic or Die". Yeah right.

Why not just make it simple? Get rid of the cheesy banner for starters. And the equally gag-inducing "Attention Internet Marketer". Just tell us what you have, what it does, why our lives will be so much better if we have one too, how much, and where to get it. There's not even a need for the crappy "bonuses" - that just cheapens the offer. If your product is so good let it stand on its own merits.

So what have you got? A way of showing people how to get free traffic. Lots of it. A "Volcano" in your words. But the important part is "Does this Volcano of traffic convert?" and can you prove it? Go from there. You might toy with some of the headline templates I suggested in another (jokey) thread -

1. "Who Else Wants a Bunch of Free Traffic That Converts Like Gangbusters?"

2. "The Secret to Getting Heaps of Free Traffic"

- traffic that converts into sales


3. "Here's a Method That's Helping Website Owners Get Heaps of Free Qualified Traffic"

4. "Little Known Ways to Get Heaps of Free Traffic"

5. "Here’s a Quick Way to a Sh*tload of Free Traffic - I Kid You Not"

6. "Dude - Now You Can Have Truckloads of Free Traffic Too"

7. "What Every Savvy Website Owner Ought to Know About Free Traffic Sources"

put a qualifying line underneath - something like "traffic that converts into sales" or "we're talking traffic that converts into sales!"



You have way too many bullet points after the line "The Main Free Traffic Volcano Course Will Give You The Power To:"

Tests have proved that -

1/ odd numbers of bullets work better

2/ no more than 7 of them in a block

You have 21. No-one is going to read all those. You need to break it up with paragraphs of copy - and not just one or two lines - a chunk of copy.

And this just reads like "Scam" -

I created this amazing course that will guide you step by step, teaching you my top 16 proven traffic generation techniques that won't cost you a cent. This revolutionary course will give you the skills needed to become an expert on free traffic marketing. This will enable you to summon unlimited visitors to your website for free and basically hand deliver you hundred dollar bills!

How about a cheeky headline? I've the very one. It's almost too good to let go for nothing.

My source said -

"I Could Tell You
Where To Get
Heaps of
QUALIFIED FREE TRAFFIC
To Your Website

- but then I'd have to kill you"

cheers,

Malcolm

p.s. don't call it a "course". That sounds like learning and work. Call it an "Insiders Guide" or "The Free Traffic Source Workshop Manual" or "Traffic Source Cheat Sheet" or something.