This Page Averages 200 hops per day but has only generated 11 sales ever. What am I doing wrong?

I would love to hear what the good copywriters say about this.
My opinion:
Your sales page are not that good, although you did get a 4% conversion.

Your conversion might even be much higher if you get a good copywriter!

But yeah, your sales taking a nose dive doesn't make sense!

Matt, there's quite a few things I would change - starting with your headline. There's too much about "you" and not enough about "me", for starters. OK so you've got this thing to the point where it pays your mortgage. I could care less. Will it pay mine? And whack your main benefit in the head. So it might be something like -

A few observations. Your headline is weak, vague. You're squandering valuable real estate with a lukewarm headline and a screenshot of PayPal earnings. My point is, you're wasting all that space above the fold without telling your readers what you have and why they need it. I'd bet your stats show that people are leaving after being on the page for 20 seconds or less.

Then, when you get started you still don't get to the point. You've got to grab the reader immediately and tell them how learning WP is going to make them money. Period. Forget about paying the mortgage. There are too many people out there who won't relate to that a single bit.

Then you go into your story about WP. That's fine but before you start down that road the reader needs to know why he's reading about it. As the page stands now it's more about you than them. That's a common mistake. Yes, you build credibility by illustrating what you've done, but only after showing them that there's a good and profitable reason to care what you've done.

Again, hit them in the face right up front with the major benefits of learning WP in a pre header and the headline. Then open the letter with something bold. Something like: Using WP wisely will dramatically increase your sales.

That's something they don't need to stop and think about... something they will want to know more about.

From there you can lighten up some and develop certain summary points. Once you've got the strong headline and initial copy, speak to your key benefits and relate them to how they will use them to make money. It always needs to come back to the money. That's why they're reading in the first place.

Smart and Profitable Marketers Use WP Because Google Loves It...
Smart Marketers Like You Need To Get Up To Speed With WP Because...

Then tell them why and relate it to the prize. Only then is what you've done (earnings screenshots, testimonials, etc.) relevant. Good luck.

It totally makes sense to me that you sold a bunch of these when you were doing list swaps, but saw the bottom fall out once it hit the open market.

The lists were, no doubt, targeted toward people hoping to make a profit. The name of your product...

"The Wordpress Classroom"

...and the sub-title...

"Learn Wordpress step by step"

...and the mini-pitch at the very top...

"Finally! Everything you ever need to know about Wordpress in one place!"

...every one of those is gathering traffic and making promises to a huge crowd of people, all of whom want to know HOW TO USE WORDPRESS.

Then, they get there, and as soon as they see the headline, they realize they've been bamboozled, and are instead getting...

"my easy system that pays my mortgage on autopilot!"

WHAT!!!??? I wanted instructional information, and suddenly I'm getting get-rich-quick information. Even if your sales pitch is well-done, it doesn't matter. You're selling a business proposition to a crowd hungry for technical instruction. It's like calling a tech support desk and having them try to sell you a timeshare in Costa Rica.

If you want to test something that will improve your conversion rate on the cheap, change the title and the tagline before you go screwing around with the copy in slow and expensive ways. The copy could certainly be improved, too...even for selling a money-making product. But I think your percentages will go up if instead of "Wordpress Classroom: everything you need to know about WP in one place" you call it "Bundles-O-Wordpress-Cash: How to make oodles of money with your WP blog."

Obviously, a terrible name, but at least it would attract prospects who wanted the type of product you're selling.

On a technical note, there's something wrong with your sliding pop-up. As I write this, the signup box continues to slide down my browser page, falling into the depths of blank space and stretching the scrollbar out like taffy.

Runaway javascript like that could very well be crashing some browsers.

For the record, I'm using Firefox 3.5.7.

... and it's still going!

-Ryan

Matt,
Oxbloom nailed it. PM him offer him to pay him a tip for his advice here and then pay him want he wants to fix it for you. His is one of the best critiques offered on this forum.

Stan

Thanks so much to everyone for all of the advice. I think my best route here is to just bite the bullet and hire a copy writer. I think it's a good product and I think it could sell a lot more than it has with some good copy.

I'm going to removed the lightbox today. It seems to be hurting more than helping.

Thanks again.
Matt

Hey Matt,

Saw your sales page and here are my thoughts:

- Like others said the headline should reveal the biggest benefit. off the top of my head...

"How You Can Use An Easy Wordpress System, Only Taking 1 Hour Per Week, To Put Loads of Cash In Your Pockets"

"It's So Powerful You Could Pay Your Mortage Payments On Auto-Pilot!"

- Reading the sales hook is fine. Good job building credibility. My problem is after you introduce the product you kind of fall flat conveying the benefits. Try to elaborate on the benefits so you can effectively hit those emotional triggers.

Hope that helps

Hey Matt, were you the one driving traffic when it hit 4%? It may be how the affiliates are driving traffic to the page that is hurting your conversion.

I could probably tank your conversion rate even more in the next hour by sending you 1,000 visitors I bought at a penny a click.

The traffic source is one of the biggest factors in conversion rates. Often more so than the copy.

Cheers,
Stephen Dean

Another vote for oxbloom hitting the nail on the head, your offer doesn't match the name of your site. Wordpress Classroom should be about teaching how to use different plug-ins and real geeky stuff that confuses your average wordpress user.

I've just looked at the site, and currently your headline is in small text, and you've got 2 screen shots showing money & traffic stats. Why should that make me want to read more?

Also it's actually quite a short sales letter, and on quickly scanning it was dificult to figure out the price. I think that $67 is quiet expensive given that people are now buying with cash rather than credit, so dropping the price would be worth testing.

Also when I watched a video about the belcher button I'm sure it said that you should also have the price written in words underneath it, and both linking directly to the payment page.

Lastly it may be worth finding out where your affiliates are getting the traffic from so you know if this is the problem.

Some outstanding advice here. I'm taking notes!

How is your product any different to the free wordpress vid tutorials you can get online by searching for it on google or on YouTube for example??

Maybe you should be more specific & give a bit more detail as to what you're actually teaching. All you've said in the copy is that there are 8 vids on installing, more on tweaking, more on cool features.

Also display couple of the bonuses you're offering

Hey Matt, I see new products/offers do this all the time. High conversions then drop off...you don't know the 'real' conversion rate until you get at least 20 conversions.

I'm not a professional copy writer, but I get what I would call decent returns (about $.50 - $1 in sales for every unique visitor) by running a squeeze page first, then following up with them, letting them know I'm here for them, showing them some case studies etc and maybe an ethical bribe or two. I find that very few of the people who buy actually ask the questions...they just want to know there's somebody real on the other side of things.

Oh, and you might want to change your font to verdana for the main sales portion, it just reads a lot easier for internet savvy folk.