Need your help improving my conversion rate!

One thing I forgot to mention is the timing of the orders. The website has been online for about a month and the 5 conversion happened in only two days, about 3 weeks apart. Maybe it's just a coincidence but it seems weird that on two days 5 people decide to buy while on all the other ones nobody does.

I found there was too much at the top - and the lines were too wide.

I wasn't reading it. Firstly I looked around at the navigation area, then the big orange area with the shiny pen

Then my eyes couldn't settle on the text because the lines seemed too long.

I'd up the fonts, keep it punchier.

I also think you didn't make enough of the problem you're solving. The problem wasn't obvious.

[Disclaimer: NOT a copywriter, never done any, randomly landed here, just stuck my 2 cents in without any knowledge of what I am talking about]

Good luck!

No one is reading it. Nothing stands out. People come to your site. See the orange header, immediately scan left at the text, immediately ignore it, take one look at your opt-in box on the right. Read "Get Started Now" and notice the gray box. They are not clear on what you want them to do. They leave your site. This all happened in about 2-3 seconds.

For starters:
1.) Where's the Killer Headline? The headline should be in LARGE font.
2.) You need more color in your font - use blue and red, or anything that matches the style
3.) Bold Font: Expertise, Quality results, Clarity, Efficiency

Great, thanks guys I'll start integrating your advice!

Is the text itself acceptable?

I visited the website:

1. I like the site design, looks clean/professional/reputable. I think that's important if I'm going to do business.
2. This might help you with respect to how a "user" looks at your website. I initially read the headline, then read the first 1-2 sentences, then quickly looked at the right side and came to my own conclusions as to what you do. I initially thought that you wrote essays for people. So after reading the first 1-2 sentences, decided I didn't need what you were offering and left. After "re-reviewing" your site, I realize you don't write essays for people -- you tell them where to find the info they need to write it themselves! (Wow! Probably a lot of other people make the same mistake I did). After 're-reviewing' your site, my thoughts were, "Why would I pay someone to tell me how to use google"? And so it actually seemed like a bit of a rip-off. Re-reviewing it again, actually, again I thought, why would I pay someone to do what would probably only take me 5 minutes to do? And, how do I know you are good quality? Sure, you have a slick website, but who are you, probably some Joe off the street... So again, chances are even if I did pay you, you'd send me some crap, so not really worth my time.

Those were my thought processes, so quite possibly the thought processes of a lot of your visitors...

And, as a matter of fact, even though you are a new member here, still not sure why I should use your services

1. Okay great, that was what I was going for!
2. Thanks for that, it's great info! I will have to adjust some text to make it easier for people to figure out more what I do.

If you hired one of those Internet research services, they'd probably give you lots of great specific info... that you could put into a forum post about how to improve a sales letter. :p

Regards,
Allen

Lol, thanks.

I think the problem is that you're not offering value for money rather than the copy itself.

Bearing in mind other sites offer complete project writing services which include research and writing and they charge less than you are charging just for research.

Article writers also charge fee's as low as $1 per 100 words and that includes research.

I myself write articles for $16 and this includes research.

You are only offering research, how can you justify your fee's?

Your target audience is likely to be hard up students, they can't justify that expense.

I am Google queen, and I've offered this service before but it was considerably cheaper.

Maybe you should charge less or offer more services for the money.

Meanwhile I checked your samples.
I added the first sample criteria into google and found the info in as long as it took the page to load and I found your researched reply on wikipedia and cbs news 2 seconds after that.

Any customer can check the samples the way I did which makes it harder to justify your 'hour'.

I think you did great to get 5 customers and would do some follow up to find out what their needs were that made them come to you and see if you can find a common thread that will help you target your business more effectively.

good luck

Hey dude,

Maybe this is just my preference, but I think a standard "long copy" sales letter would work better.

It has worked brilliantly in a whole variety of genres for over a hundred years now... why should we screw with it?

Get some copywriting books and try emulate that formula. Or, if you've got the cash, hire a copywriter.

Copywriting aside, make sure there is a hungry market for this product and your offer and price are in line with what they want/are willing to pay.

You've gotta define your target market, speak to their core desires, build credibility, all that stuff.

There's a reason copywriters charge a lot. It takes a lot of time and effort to learn all this stuff.

Just my two cents.

-Dan

1 There is no indicator of pricing.
2 Some students want the essay written in addition to the research. You need a tie-up and you may get extra business. Your product will become a whole one.
3. Students from India especially in the UK download research projects to research scholars in India. The scholars research the Internet and libraries, then return a rough essay along with input documents. This is disorganised work, but you are up against this sort of competition.
4. Basically get your business model into position it appears very weak to me. After that you can think of how large the headlines need be or whatever else about your copy.

You're advertising this site on PPC? Then do this: Keep this page, but make a separate landing page with a sales letter or squeeze page to capture the lead. Then get them back to your order page through your autoresponder.

There's too much going on here and too many places for the prospect to exit and get distracted. You need a call to action and a much better opt-in form. Forget the digg forget the "sharethis" forget all the nav, just make a separate landing page to advertise on PPC.

Also, hire a copywriter or learn to write copy.

Do all these things and I guarantee you will get better results x10

Thanks for this post, it's very helpful to understand your goals. Tim Ferriss is quite an inspiration, isn't he?

I believe it would be worthwhile for you to rethink your business model.

You are offering to do a service that's not worth much money...
for people who don't have much money...
and you'll do all the work yourself.

That is about as far as you can get from what Tim's book is all about.

If you want to market to students, you have one advantage. You are one now and you are surrounded by students. So it should be easy to write in a way that connects with how students think.

However, is this your ideal market just because you're in it yourself?

Is there some other group of people you can serve - for example, small business owners - that will have more money available to buy something?

Once you have found a market you'd like to serve, how can you implement the 4HWW principle of selling something that other people deliver? The book gives examples of products for sale, like the guy who found shirts from France that some Americans like to buy. The guy did not have to go into the shirt making business. He just had to offer someone else's product to his market.

I seem to remember that you're in India. If this is right, there are so many Indian products you could offer for sale. Clothes and textile art are lightweight. Shipping costs would not be an issue, and Indian quality is world famous.

For example, you could offer a unique assortment of handcrafted, colorful batik prints for decoration. Since you would get them from a variety of local artists, each shipment would have its own one of a kind range of colors. If you get them locally for $2, and sell at 5 for $50 for 10 for $100, your profit per hour is far more than an hour on Google. What if each shipment includes a nice one page certificate with the artist's picture and signature and a little bit about that person? Now you have something that cannot be done better from anywhere else in the world.

You could advertise to American dentists that you have a colorful, inexpensive way to decorate their offices.
Or you could advertise to European luxury flat residents that here is a unique way to improve the look of their home.
Buyers like this are not scared to spend $100 if they like what they see.

Your sales letter could explain that since you are a student in India, you are paying your way through school by helping people in other countries enjoy the wonderful art from your homeland. Now your personal story is a benefit, not an obstacle to sales.

You could then outsource the fulfillment by paying another student (or several) to go get the cloths, get the artist's picture and signature, print the artist info card on parchment paper, wrap it all up and ship the packages. You then become a business owner of a business that works without requiring more of your time. Your new job is then to do market research and copywriting, until you make enough money to even outsource that.

With this model, you would have a blog about Indian art. Each post has photos and a few words about this history of different types of art in different places. Once people are on your list, you can send them a newsletter with articles and offers about all different kinds of Indian art. It could be wood carvings one issue and tabla the next. You would never run out of material for articles that direct people to your site.

A list of 1,500 people might have 100 fans who buy pretty much anything you offer in the way of Indian art for $100... it's a lifestyle hobby for them to add to their collection. In a year, someone might order the package of batiks, a tabla set, a wood carving of mother and baby elephants, and a few other items. Now they have a nice Indian art theme that is unlike anyone else in their neighborhood, and they got it for cheap while helping an Indian student through school. Maybe they give some of these items as gifts to family members. Maybe a dentist orders 100 of some item to give all his patients at the holidays - perhaps he likes the elephant carving because he can put a toothbrush in the trunk and tell people, "Don't forget to brush!" Of course you could mention in each newsletter that people should contact you if they want a quantity discount on orders of 50 or more.

Do you see how all this would help your buyers feel happy?

Reading this makes me want to start an Indian art blog myself, and find some Indian student who can get high quality art I can import inexpensively to owners of luxury homes, to high end professionals, to golf courses and country clubs, and to commercial real estate operators.

This might not be the perfect example. But it's sure a lot better than doing an hour of silly Google research that anyone could do for themselves, or pay entry level
minimum wage to have someone do for them.

I recommend you give up on the research paper thing and do some real research and thinking about how to make a business that can make you rich.

It doesn't have to be Indian art. But if should be something that doesn't require too much of your time. Get it under 4 hours and then you can invite Tim to visit you in India. If he takes pictures with you and tells his readers all about you, what could that do for your sales?

By the way, if you're not in India, I'm sure there's still some way you could use these ideas.

Regards,
Allen

Hi Allen

Thanks for that great post. I'm not a student in India though (I live in New York) and I took quite a bit more from Tim Ferrisses book then how to find a niche. I also took all his advice on outsourcing and that's exactly what I did. I do not do the research myself. I have several scholars in India (and please don't send them your post, otherwise I will have to find new one's that do the research for me.

I created this service based on Tim Ferrisses advice on finding a niche you are in and know a lot about and as I am a student and write essays all the time, I decided to try to find my niche there.

Thanks!

Stephan

Thank you all very much again, but I am really looking for advice on my copy more then on advice about the product. I am currently writing a survey for my customers so that they can tell me what they think as they are the people that count. If they think it needs to be changed, then so be it. Otherwise it will stay as is and I will keep working to improve the conversion rate.

Please, I am ONLY looking for advice on the copy from here on.

Thank you very much.

Stephan

Hi Stephan,

Your site isn't selling for one reason:

People aren't reading the copy.

It looks bland. There's no excitement,
no hook, nothing to drag their eyes
into the copy and push them down the
slippery slide.

It's a nice looking site, but until you
jazz that copy up, you're always
going to be struggling to make sales.

First of all get snappy headline.
Something that stops them scanning
and makes them feel like their life
just isn't complete until they read the
rest of what you have to say.

Then get an enticing subhead...something
that relates to them and only them, and
makes them feel like you're speaking
to them personally.

Lastly, break the copy up. Make it punchy.
Short sentences. Like this. And don't be
afraid to emphasis some of them to make
it more interesting on the eye.

Visit clickbank.com, and check out the
marketplace. Look at the salespages
there. Pay particular attention to the
shorter, lead capture style ones. They're
what you want here.

Good luck

-David Raybould

Yeah, that's much better.

Broken up is the way to go.

Okay, thank you very much.

Was it just the layout or the content too? I reworked it quite a lot after I read the "it's not about features but about the benefits" advice.

I find it hard to believe you've read "a heap of copy books" (or at least applied the advice), because your copy is still pretty much the same.

Where's the guarantee? The risk reversal? The bullet points? The story? The headline?

In addition to that your copy kind of smashes people over the head with what you want them to think about, and I think a more subtle approach usually works a bit better - you want people to imagine these things, not just tell them. To quote the great Ray Edwards "show, not tell".

As an aside, I think you could offer services like this to marketers and ebook writers to get a bit more of a "spending" crowd.

To be blunt, your copy is a LONG way off. Re-read those copy books, and compare what they tell you to have to what you do have. Fill in the gaps.

-Dan

Hi Dan!

Actually I read a bunch of "Stuff" (which in this case means several blogs online) and not a bunch of books (which book is the best copy for beginners book?) and decided instead of wasting time reading days and days worth of stuff and forget half of the read things in the process, I'd go ahead to the bold action part and integrated the two main things I read about.

1. The Title

Not sure if it is good but I think it describes fairly well the main selling point.

And

2. Talking about benefits instead of features.

The first copy was completely focused on the features of my product, instead of telling the customer what the benefits of that are. I think I was able to fairly well change it so it talks about the value instead.

What are bullet points and how could I incorporate a story?

I'll try to keep it more subtle next time. I will also try to work in a feedback from a customer.

Please keep all the advice coming! I'll keep reworking and rereworking the copy as long as more advice and criticism is coming in!

Thanks!

Stephan,

There's a sticky in the main forum that discuss a heap of copywriting books. Read it, and then read some of them.

It's admirable you've "done something" instead of what most people do (nothing); however, copywriting is a skill that takes years to learn, comparable with most Bachelor degrees IMHO (and that's just to get the basics). You need to do a LOT of work before you can even put together a page that will pass for "average".

We can all give you critiques to the cows come home, but it will take you about 10% of the time to get better if you read some of the books mentioned in that thread.

-Dan

Great, I'll order one tomorrow, thanks!

OK, sorry I misunderstood.

If you make sure you don't tell me who they are, I'll make sure I don't send them my post. Deal?

I think the offer is unfixable, no matter how good the copy. Even if stunning brilliant copy gets a few people to buy, there is no reason for them to become repeat customers rather than jumping to the competition.

You're offering to do work that is only worth minimum wage, for twice minimum wage. You're offering to sell that work to people who are broke. There's absolutely nothing in the way of a competitive advantage, let alone any kind of sustainable advantage.

It is smart to use outsourcers, but everything else about this strikes me as a business failure waiting to happen.

My copywriting opinion is that copywriting can't save your current offer from fizzling out.

Fair enough, I'll watch from the sidelines. At least one of us will be proved wrong. If it's me, then I'll get to learn something about copywriting. Good luck!

Regards,
Allen

This week was great and I got 5 sales! Still working on that copy and will post another refined version in a few hours.

Thanks

I just sent out the survey to the 11 customers I've had so far, offering 30 min of FREE research added to the next order they place just to fill it out. Hopefully I will get some responses within the next couple days AND some recurring customers too!

Well here's a short update:

The last two weeks have been good. I'm up to over 20 conversions, and all the feedback so far has been really good (except for the people complaining about not getting the whole essay but I think the changed copy should take care of that).

Thanks guys!

I personally was not sure what exactly will you do for me. Being a lazy surfer I want the page to tell me what it can do for me as opposed me having to hunt how I can benfit from your site. I would defintely highlight and use more headings so I know how I can benefit.
Good Luck and very nice site!

Post moved