Please critique my fitness product sales copy

You are missing testimonials

I didn't get a chance to read your entire sales letter. After struggling through an ALL CAPS HEADLINE, you convinced me the size of my butt is only going to get worse. So I gave up. Consider the somewhat delicate emotional state of your prospects when writing your copy.

Now ... What if you had a headline that offered me some positive benefits? Well, that would certainly be a step in the right direction. But I'd probably miss that. In fact I'd miss almost everything above the fold. Here's why ...

There is a hierarchy in graphic design - a cardinal rule - that should not be broken. It goes something like this ...

A photograph has more eye appeal than an illustration. Both have more eye appeal than text. Color attracts more than black & white. Big attracts more than small.

People read left to right, top to bottom. Now let's put it all together.

I hit your site. I struggle to read an all caps headline and my eye is pulled to the right to a large, color photograph of the kind of butt I could only dream of. Now my eye is pulled to another photograph, smaller than the first, yet in color and stronger than any other element in the vicinity. By the time my eye breaks away from that image I'm at the "4 Facts You Must Understand" subhead.

If you had anything important to say before that (and you certainly should have) it's lost forever. Maybe your prospect too.

How to fix it ...

Put a benefit (or two or three) in the headline. This is not the place for disparaging remarks. Get rid of the all caps and add a little weight to the font (make it fatter!) so it grabs my attention immediately.

Most images should be on the left side or centered with the body copy if they're in he wider side. This allows the eye to flow naturally left to right and top to bottom. Right now you've got a giant magnet and a lesser one pulling the eye to the right.

Can you ever get away with an image on the right side of a page? Of course. Just make sure it's not so prominent and that it's placed in a well defined sidebar. Once the eye can see where the copy section ends and where the sidebar section begins, the brain will tell the eye to lower the importance of the sidebar and give priority to the content of the body section. But don't make the sidebar so prominent that it, like your photo, pulls the eye to the right and keeps it fixed there.

Do this and the reader can then choose when to look at the sidebar as opposed to being sucked into it, never to escape. Just look at some of the magazines sitting on your coffee table and you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Warm regards,
Roger