CW critique request

[pegasuspress]

Hi All,

It seems like there are some pretty knowledgable people here on the CW forum and if you all are willing to review sites and offer CW suggestions then I'd be open to suggestions on my site, which just went live a few days ago. (See sig file for link.)

I'd be especially interested in your thoughts on the font I'm using. I know it's a bit different than the fonts you see on a lot of sales pages. It just appeals to me and is easy on my eyes. Maybe some of you feel differently. Please let me know what you think.

BTW, I'm new to the Warrior's Forum (just registered today) and have spent the last several hours here reading some of the threads. I really am impressed by the quality and quantity of information here. Wish I'd have joined a long time ago. Thanks in advance for taking the time and effort to help a new member!

Rich

[Loren Woirhaye]

I often use Courier. It's good for older readers. make sure you
use 12 pt and larger though. Your fonts are fine but you should
narrow it down to 800-900 pixels wide, max. Many use as narrow
as 600 px.

[Christie Love]

Hi Rich,

Welcome!

Here are just a few things I noticed while scanning your copy.

1. You may want to use a sales letter script for your sales letter. (see the top link in my sig as an example) Notice the header and space on the sides, which makes reading the copy easy on the eyes.

2. Your header should be bold and centered. (not inline with the book)

3. You letter starts with problem, promise. You might want to start the copy with the promise statement followed by the problem.

4. Keep paragraphs no longer than 4 lines.

5. You're confusing the reader by talking about the author and the publisher. State the story by focusing on only one character, then direct your focus back to the reader.

6. Use more bullets, where needed such as area where you as a number of questions.

7. Your benefits are not highlighted and is not easily noticed.

8. Use direct words such as "important" instead of "vitally important."

9. I only see one tiny little buy now button at the bottom of the copy. You'll want to make the payment button visible in a few place throughout the copy and in a large font or graphics.

10. Sales letter should include your close, signature, and P.S. I don't see those elements in your copy.

I hope this helps. I commend you on your efforts.

Best!

7.

[webtoday]

I had a look at your site and well done on your efforts. Just wanted to add to the other great points already provided.

One recommendation for you. You may want to make the width of your website smaller as it fills up the whole page. Examples could be found if you go to sites like Clickbank for example you can see how other sales pages are like by other people selling products and services.

By having a smaller width(than what you currently have) and also perhaps have border of the page using graphics you can draw the reader's attention to your sales page which I assume that is your goal!

Great work otherwise.

[Bald Brit]

Christie has nailed oh so much and I agree with every point
she's made. Although Courier is a fine font, your line length
is a tad long.

On first reading your headline my reaction is "How does this
help me?" Consider running with a headline that contains at
least one benefit, and run it as a centered element.

Alas, not everyone is going to want to trawl through
your letter, so, I'm with Christie on this: consider breaking
things up with subheads for readers that want to skim the
basic points of your presentation, and also consider including
additional images related to your core benefits and the places
you want to take people in their imagination.

Add extra links to your BUY NOW button throughout your copy.

One other tip: print it out and read your letter out loud.
This technique helps reveal awkward gaps, odd sounding
clause changes, and assorted howlers.

[Darrel Hawes]

Christie has given you some solid suggestions, and the others have too.

One more I would add: see where you can vary your paragraph sizes. It's ok to make paragraphs that are one sentence or even one word, where appropriate. It makes your copy much more readable.

[pegasuspress]

Thanks to everyone for the constructive criticism. I'll definitely take all of your suggestions into consideration. Hopefully I'll get my site changes done sometime here within the next week or two, before I start my PPC ad campaign. Thanks again for all your input!

[David Raybould]

Hi Rich,

I've got some pointers for you:

You definitely need to reduce the width
of the copy. That's a conversion killer
as it is. Usually you'll be needing a table
no wider than about 700 px for your
main body copy.

Next, I'd consider scrapping that headline.
A quote like that can fit nicely into your
body copy somewhere, but as a headline
it doesn't really cut it. You need to show
your reader what you can do for him, and
why he should read further down. As it is,
neither of those things are being done.

With your body copy, you'll probably be
better of with some subheadings in there.
As it is, there's a lot of text to read, and
that will seem tiresome. If you use some
subheads to break it up, you'll be able to
pull more of the readers further into your
letter.

Lastly, to echo Christie's sentiments, your
paragraphs are way too long in places. In
your reader's mind, it's a lot easier to click
the back button on the browser than it is
to actually read long paragraphs.

See how that last paragraph is more of an
effort to read than this one?

That's what I'm getting at.

Hope that's useful to you.

Good luck.

-David Raybould

[TimCastleman]

I looked at the page and it was really hard to read. As suggested above you need to change the layout to be more readable for everyone.

Also $79 for an ebook? Why not ad some addition materials to the ebook and make it a program.

Audio, video, resource guide, checklist, etc.

Some things that would take you a few extra hours to do but make the price much less of an issue.

If you want more help let me know.

Tim

[pegasuspress]

Originally Posted by TimCastleman

I looked at the page and it was really hard to read. As suggested above you need to change the layout to be more readable for everyone.

Also $79 for an ebook? Why not ad some addition materials to the ebook and make it a program.

Audio, video, resource guide, checklist, etc.

Some things that would take you a few extra hours to do but make the price much less of an issue.

Tim, thanks for the input. Actually, there is a resource guide and 2 checklists (worksheets actually) that come with the ebook. They're both mentioned in the bullets. There are also 3 bonus reports and a newsletter subscription that includes several more special reports, which are mentioned by titles.

As for audios/videos, I know what you're saying as far as adding value. Maybe it's just my personal bias but I don't know if the subject matter lends itself to that. It seems to me that the kind of information being conveyed is best suited to the written word. Maybe I'm wrong though. I'll have to think on it. Thanks for the suggestion!

Rich

[pegasuspress]

Originally Posted by David Raybould

I'd consider scrapping that headline. A quote like that can fit nicely into your body copy somewhere, but as a headline it doesn't really cut it. You need to show your reader what you can do for him, and why he should read further down. As it is, neither of those things are being done.

-David Raybould

David, I understand what you're saying about the headline. Fortunately, I do have several other headlines written. I plan to do split-tests on them at some point to see which are the best.

I started with this one because I think that most handicapping enthusiasts will know exactly what the point of the quote is and probably be able to identify with it to a great extent.

Also, I was hoping to play on their curiosity a bit, which I've found to be effective in some cases. Although you very well could be right in that a more direct "what's in it for me" headline would be more effective.

It'll be interesting to see which headlines pull the best results. In the end you'll probably be proven right!

Rich

[pegasuspress]

Originally Posted by Christie Love

Here are just a few things I noticed while scanning your copy.

1. You may want to use a sales letter script for your sales letter. (see the top link in my sig as an example) Notice the header and space on the sides, which makes reading the copy easy on the eyes.

Christie,

I was just re-reading your post, above, and I clicked on the top link in your sig as you suggested. What I saw surprised me a bit.

I'm not trying to be argumentative or critical but when I compared my sales letter to yours it actually looked like yours had less white space on the margins than mine. At least that's how it looks in my browser anyway. Maybe it's my browser settings or something else that makes it appear that way? Not saying you're wrong about my sales letter though. Everybody else seems to agree about that. Just thought I'd mention it. Do you see what I mean?

Rich

[TimCastleman]

Rich -

I'm a busy man interested in getting into what you're selling. I don't have time to read and if I did I might search out a low cost "real book" on Amazon, Ebay, etc.

But then I find your product and I see that it has MP3 files of NOTHING MORE THAN YOU READING THE BOOK TO ME. Guess what, now you have an edge over every "real book" out there.

Why - because I can throw it in my MP3 player and listen to it during my workout, on my way to work, etc.

Not only that but instead of buying an ebook - some of which I might already own and cost me pennies - now I have an entire course complete with audio and written materials.

Perceived value goes way up, eliminates the competition, and makes your price look like a bargain over other people who just offer a book.

What is there to think about? Bet you could have this one simple change done by this weekend.

Food for thought.

Tim

[pegasuspress]

Originally Posted by TimCastleman

I'm a busy man interested in getting into what you're selling. I don't have time to read and if I did I might search out a low cost "real book" on Amazon, Ebay, etc.

But then I find your product and I see that it has MP3 files of NOTHING MORE THAN YOU READING THE BOOK TO ME. Guess what, now you have an edge over every "real book" out there.

Why - because I can throw it in my MP3 player and listen to it during my workout, on my way to work, etc.

Not only that but instead of buying an ebook - some of which I might already own and cost me pennies - now I have an entire course complete with audio and written materials.

Perceived value goes way up, eliminates the competition, and makes your price look like a bargain over other people who just offer a book.

What is there to think about? Bet you could have this one simple change done by this weekend.

Food for thought.

Tim

Tim,

Now that you put it that way I can see the added value in it. Maybe I'm just old fashioned. I like to read information and never got into audio books, so I never really took that into consideration at all. Excellent points!

Rich

[TimCastleman]

Rich -

I totally understand where you are coming from. I love books but the problem with them from the selling side is that a book is a commodity meaning that I go for the cheapest price.

Not to mention that some people learn better from audio ways than reading and others from visual.

But the big thing is to make your product not just another ebook but an entire course with everything we discussed.

You can always offer it as an upsell you know.

Have 3 types of programs good, better, best.

Good is what you have now
Better is what you have now + audio
Best is better + video + something else

Make each $10 more and enjoy the extra profit from just a little bit more work.

Tim

[pegasuspress]

Tim,

Funny, now you've got me thinking about the audio and I've already thought of a potential problem with it. Maybe it's no problem at all though. I have no idea. You tell me.

The problem I see is that I have a lot of links to web sites in the ebook. And, some of them are affiliate links. How would you handle this w/an audio? It obviously wouldn't be practical to spell out the URL in a lot of those links.

The only thing I can think of would be to say something like "refer to the ebook for all web links" or something to that effect. What would you do?

Rich

[BrianMcLeod]

Originally Posted by pegasuspress

The problem I see is that I have a lot of links to web sites in the ebook. And, some of them are affiliate links. How would you handle this w/an audio? It obviously wouldn't be practical to spell out the URL in a lot of those links.

The only thing I can think of would be to say something like "refer to the ebook for all web links" or something to that effect. What would you do?

Rich

"Visit www. Your Domain . com / resources "

Then put all your links on that page.

Best,

Brian

[pegasuspress]

Originally Posted by BrianMcLeod

"Visit www. Your Domain . com / resources "

Then put all your links on that page.

Makes sense Brian. Sounds like a qick easy solution, especially since I already have a recommended resources section with all links indexed at the end of the ebook anyhow. Thanks!