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A few days back I told you how to increase traffic to your website using my blog.

The 4 point plan was to exchange links with me, comment on my posts, link from a post of yours to mine and to follow me on Twitter.

Many of you did these things and I greatly appreciate it. I’m also glad to see you’re being proactive.

But I am disappointed with 2 things.

One, no one has exchanged links with me. I know, cry me a river. But I’m really trying to make this Wordpress Link Directory work. My next post will be on how to set it up on your blog just in case you’re unsure how to do it. And then hopefully you’ll exchange links.

Two, some of the comments that have appeared since I invited you to comment for SEO reasons have been, I guess predictably, skeptical. There were a couple that forced me to make a decision on whether or not they were spam or legitimate comments by a reader.

I want people to get some link love back to their sites, but I also want comments that constructively add to the conversation.

So here’s what we’re going to do.

I’ve changed the “DoFollow” plugin I’m using. It’s now Lucia’s Linky Love and it only changes your links from “nofollow” to “dofollow” after you’ve made 5 comments. This will protect the blog from drive by commenters.

At some point, I may raise the barrier to 10 comments before you receive link love from me. But for now it’s 5.

Now I don’t want you to leave a bunch of “junk” comments in order to hit the 5 comment barrier. So if you don’t have 5 comments yet, don’t worry! You can still get some link love from me by exchanging links in the link directory It’s here: http://www.stephensblog.com/dir

And if you want to start boosting your comment count now, why not let me know what you think about this policy? Leave a comment

My brother has a great lesson for you on sales letters that DONT work.

He just got a new golden retriever puppy. Talk about cute.

Growing up our golden retriever once had 13 puppies that we got to watch grow up. Watching them walk out of the dog house one by one, single file and line up in front of the fence was an AMAZING experience.

Speaking of amazing experiences, have you ever had to potty train a puppy? Oh boy, that’s what my brother is dealing with now.

The last time I was visiting he told me he searched Google for how to potty train a dog. And he was having trouble finding an answer.

He did find one page and this is how he described it…

“I was reading it and it kept talking about all this stuff I didn’t care about. Then they were trying to sell me a bunch of different products and all I wanted was some tips to potty train my dog.”

I knew right away that he had found a sales letter. And one that did NOT work.

I decided to trace his steps so I could learn from the process.

* He searched Google for “how to potty train my dog.”

* He clicked on a sponsored link that is ABOVE the search listings, without knowing it was an ad.

* He read or skimmed most of the copy… even though that meant clicking through 3 different pages… and even though he didn’t understand why they were telling him all this unnecessary information. (It lacked a clear logical argument that mattered to him.)

* He saw a ton of bonuses (which were unnecessary) and thought they were trying to sell several products, when all he wanted were some tips to potty train his dog.

* The order link was finally on the third page, but with no call to action.

* He didn’t buy.

I have no clue why the site owner made the prospect click through 3 pages. Sometimes I’ve seen this done strategically with good results, but this was done very poorly and hid the solution my brother was looking for.

Lesson #1: Keep your sales copy on one page unless you have a good reason.

Lesson #2: Make sure to craft a strong logical argument in the copy that FLOWS from the conversation going on inside the prospects head… and not a logical argument that flows from the copy formula you saw someone else use once for a product in a completely different niche.

Lesson #3: You don’t need to have 10,000 bonuses ever. And you don’t need to have a half-dozen bonuses when your prospect is trying to solve one specific problem. You’re just confusing the prospect.

Lesson #4: Your copy can’t just give a couple compelling arguments for why they should buy, then drop them off at an order link. Finish the job. Build up the value of the product. Explain why they’re getting a good deal IF they act now. Then tell them how to act (usually clicking an order button).

This is my first article of the Robert Plank Challenge. Not all articles will be on copywriting or copywriters, but this one is. Take a look…

Title: Message To New Copywriters
By: Stephen Dean

If you’re a new copywriter, this is my message to you.

Hi. I used to be where you were at. I started writing copy for others 5 years ago. At the time, I had just enough copywriting know-how to pass myself off as a copywriter.

Because my copy skills were very young, I barely charged anything. Only $97 for my first few sales letters. Then $197. Then $297.

(That pattern is important, but I’ll get back to that.)

At that rate, my clients were essentially hiring me for manual labor. This was good because I knew I wasn’t ripping anyone off. I didn’t want to claim to be the best copywriter in the world and charge thousands…

…when I was still learning the trade.

At the time, I was pretty much the only copywriter working for so cheap.

HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED.

Now everyone seems to be starting a copywriting career.

While people were shocked to see me offering copy services for so cheap, it’s now commonplace to see people writing sales copy for $197.

And actually, now that the economy is worse… these same copywriters are DROPPING their prices. I’ve seen offers for writing copy for $50!

Listen. As a copywriter you should know better than to compete on price. “Cheap” is not a benefit of strong sales copy. More sales is the benefit!

Instead of positioning yourself as a “cheap copywriter,” use your copywriting brain to come up with a unique angle that doesn’t COST YOU MONEY. An angle you can CHARGE FOR!

If you pick a niche, you can charge more than the guy who brands himself “the cheap copywriter.”

If you offer more bells and whistles than just the sales copy (emails? graphic design?), you can charge more than the guy who brands himself “the cheap copywriter.”

If you come up with a strong guarantee, you can charge more than the guy who brands himself “the cheap copywriter.”

DO pick a unique angle, but don’t try to sell your services based on price. It’s bad from a sales perspective and it’s bad business in the long run.

On the other hand, if you want to start at $50, go ahead. Maybe you’re working at manual labor prices… but you need to consistently raise your rates!

When I first started, I often DOUBLED my prices from one month to the next.

In fact, I once double my rate from $1,000.00 to $2,000.00 without any drop off in work!

Sure, start small and charge less. But treat your clientelle well, stay in touch with them after you finish, and keep raising your rates.

Continue to IMPROVE your skills by reading classic copywriting books like “Tested Advertising Methods” and “How To Write A Good Advertisement.”

Read my blog (http://www.stephensblog.com)

Read Michel Fortin’s blog (http://www.michelfortin.com)

Read Clayton Makepeace’s blog (http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com)

Whatever you do, don’t keep the same price from one year to the next. It’s like running on a hampster’s wheel. And you’re better than that.

Remember when I had Click2Mail send me a test postcard for ad campaign? I wrote about it here: Sending Postcards To Advertise Your Product Or Services.

Well it finally showed up yesterday. It took a LONG time…

…because of user error. My fault. I accidentally picked “standard mail” instead of “first class.” Instead of 4-5 days it took 9-15. (And I saved a whopping 11 cents!)

So that’s one mistake I noticed. The other is the graphics program I used to create the postcard.

Microsoft Paint just isn’t going to work! I saved the image I made in paint as a .jpg file, which looked fine until it showed up on a printed postcard. There’s too much noise surrounding the words… as a result of Paint not saving the .jpg at a high enough quality.

It’s possible that Paint might be able to work if I save it with another image format. But whatever…

Instead I’m going with Gimp. This is a free software program that acts a lot like Adobe Photoshop (a great program, but very expensive).

Gimp will be able to make a high quality screenshot and fix my postcard.

One more note. I took the advice to keep all of my content an inch up from the bottom in case the post office put a sticker on the bottom. The postcard did not get a sticker. In fact, I think the “sticker” was printed on the card.

However, I don’t want to risk it unless I need the extra space. So I’ll continue to heed that advice for a while.

Ok, so we got a few questions. Thanks Tony and Ron!

I’ll be sending both of you guys “The 2 Hour Sales Letter,” “7 Copy Sins,” “Digital Scarcity,” “Tapping Michel Fortin’s Brain,” “Tapping Michel Fortin’s Brain 2,” and a series of videos on increasing email sign-ups from your blog.

Let’s start with the first question…

“Let’s say i want to have a video on my page instead of lots of copy- would you advise this, and would you script it any differently?”

My opinion is to have a bit of both. Because I skim copy when I read it, I’m not a big fan of video-only (because you can’t skim it).

But that’s only my opinion, because I don’t have data on video-only sales pages.

A master copywriter who is a big fan of video-only sales pages is Dr. Harlan Kilstein. Follow him on Twitter and you’ll likely learn more about it: http://twitter.com/drkilstein

“Are there any shortcuts to learning (Muvar 2009)?”

For some stupid reason I haven’t purchased Muvar 2009 yet. I have several copies of 2007 and 2008 so I’ve been using these.

So I don’t know the difference between ‘09 and ‘08. I’ve heard the training videos didn’t change from ‘08 to ‘09, which has left some people confused.

That said, I’m pretty dang good at using ‘08.

Probably the best thing you can do when learning the software is to get familiar with the files inside that “data” folder and how to modify them.

James advises against doing this for an understandable reason. But there are times when I want to have that option. For example, if the variable version is larger than a certain number of kilobytes, Muvar can’t save it via the admin section. You must upload the content via FTP.

“Glyphius is I suspect a good basis for learning copywriting but I still need to ensure that the flow between the paragraphs are natural. It tends to push me into stringing together sentences that don’t sound right when read aloud. Have you any tips for using it?”

Simple, if it sounds awkward throw it out. Don’t sacrifice readability for a higher score, it won’t work.

“OK now for the big one I have tried to raise the price for a product but found the drop in sales meant I was losing money. Obviously I am about to drop them again blaming the credit squeeze and currency variations. Is this a good idea or should I just drop them without a hint of reason to stop people thinking I was desperate for sales.”

I wouldn’t use the credit squeeze as a reason for lowering your prices. That does imply that less people are buying your product… and that’s not good social proof.

Instead give a positive reason. Come up with a reason for a special sale, special offer, anything. Is your birthday coming up? There’s your reason. Anything can work.

But, do you have a lot of repeat visitors to your sales page? Are people going to notice you drop or raise your prices? You may not have to mention it at all.

And I’d recommend testing your prices using Muvar. Put several different price points in there, make sure you give the proper credit to each sale, and see which price is the most profitable.

Michel Fortin tipped me off to this awesome headline writing formula by Perry Belcher:

Michel Fortin has answered Edward’s question! Here
it is…

Question: “How do you get inside the head of the
prospect?” And I’ll try and make it more specific
by saying, what’s a quick overview of your
methodology for discovering the conversation in
the prospect’s mind?

I just posted a blog post today, “How to Target
Your Perfect Customer,” that specifically deals
with this. (What a coincidence!) Here’s the link:

Michel Fortin’s Blog

Generally, this involves doing a lot of detective
work. Market research is key. Getting to know the
prospect as intimately as possible is even better,
and a step beyond typical market research.
Sometimes, I conduct phone interviews with
clients, record the conversation and get the call
transcribed. And often, they practically write the
copy for me!

I try to pull out their passion. Get them to
expand. Ask open-ended questions. Ask questions
(like the questions I posted in my blog post) and
let them take over the conversation. Really.

I also sometimes browse related or
industry-specific forums. Just watching some of
the conversations going on is very telling. People
are posting their desires, their fears, their
concerns, their appreciation (or disklike) of
certain products, both competing and non-competing
products, etc.

Sometimes, I join these forums under a pseudonym
and pose questions, as if I was “one of them.” I
then carefully watch what kind of answers they
give me. And blogs and social networking sites,
which have now exploded, are perfect locations to
discover what kind of conversations are going on
in specific niches or about specific topics.

For example, let’s say you’re writing copy for a
“fly fishing” infoproduct. Then you could browse
forums like:

http://www.flyfishingforum.com/
http://www.theflyfishingforum.com/
http://troutunderground.com/

Sometimes, and if the client hasn’t done so, I
also create a blog or information site, where I
post articles on the topic at hand. If I have
enough time, I tend to wait it out a bit, see what
kind of traffic it generates, what kind of
comments it gets, and what kind of keywords they
find me under.

There are tons of market research tools out there
to help you. You can use them to do keyword
research, lateral analyses — meaning, other
topics, concepts of discussions going on in the
marketplace you target, including locations they
find you under. For example, if a blog on fishing
links to you, what was the conversation? What are
the comments on that blog post in which you were
linked from? What other sites are they linking to,
and what do THEY say?

(There are many new tools to help you, like
www.hittail.com that lists some of the
less-than-targeted keywords they find you under,
but are popular enough on the Internet to warrant
more research. Hittail is specifically designed to
help you know what to post. You can post articles
with more of those keywords in them to attract
more traffic. But I like to use it to find out the
frame-of-mind of the visitor.)

David Garfinkel said it best: don’t just learn who
your market is and what their problem is. Find out
“how they talk about it.” That’s important. How
they talk about their problem is not just a
language thing (meaning, what the problem means to
them).

It’s also very insightful into the mindset of the
market, the behaviors of your market, buying
patterns, lifestyle choices, etc. For example, if
your product is about how to cure insomnia, people
don’t talk about insomnia. They talk about
lethargy, lack of productivity, loss of job or
relationships, feeling sluggish, absenteeism, lack
of clarity and focus, low self-esteem, etc.

So the copy shouldn’t talk about how to cure
insomnia. It should talk about all the “problems”
and “end-results” people suffer and talk about as
a result of insomnia. See the difference?

Michel Fortin, CEO
The Success Doctor, Inc.
http://SuccessDoctor.com

Just about any money-makin’ plan you might pick online requires that you start a web site. And if you’re like me, you’re starting new sites all the time.

So I wanted to share with you how I, as a copywriter, find the perfect domain name.

You know that “Save The World” project me and “Madison” are working on? Without telling you too much, finding a domain name for this project is harder than finding Steve Urkel a date.

Pretty much every word in the dictionary is taken. There are plenty of two word combinations available… but the most obvious ones are usually taken. A lot of what’s left over doesn’t necessarily make a lot of sense without good marketing.

MySpace.com and YouTube.com might seem like self explanatory domains to you now… but if you didn’t know what the sites were. They’d be a mystery.

Those two domains are a good example of what’s left.

BUT… those domain names aren’t bad at all. I just helped a client find the perfect domain name for his new product. It’s two words. Easy to remember. Easy to spell…

Well, why don’t I just go ahead and tell you my rules for selecting domain names.

1. They must be extremely easy to spell. Short words like… cat, hat, free are great. Stuff like “genius” isn’t good. You may think it’s easy to spell, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to mess up.

2. I like to avoid double vowels between words, and sometimes double constonants. For example, giveeasy.com is a domain name that could have been an option for me and “Madison.” But that double “e” in the middle. It’s a little confusing. This can happen with constonants when double l’s or t’s get involved.

3. Less than 3 words. You can get away with breaking this rule every now and then. But in general, keep working ’til you find something that doesn’t take an hour to type in.

4. Benefit-laden. IF POSSIBLE, it’s great to have a domain name that states the benefit of your product or service. Why? Because the domain name can act like an ad for your site. It’s almost like a headline!

I bought a domain name a while back called snackawaypounds.com. Check out that benefit. Putting a benefit in the domain ALSO helps people remember the name.

Those are the 4 biggies I use. I believe I told you earlier that I use Dotster.com to search for domains. Because they let you type in up to 50 at a time when performing a search. So I just sit there and type in domains off the top of my head and hit “go.” Makes it real simple compared to searching for one domain at a time.

Ok, those are my 4 biggest tips for selecting domain names. I could have said, always go for a .com. But you should know that.

I’m sure there are a few more, so I might add a part II to this article as time goes on.

Lately I’ve been focusing on increasing the sign up rate for my announcement list. And I’ve been less interested in getting people to subscribe to my RSS feed.

James Brausch gave me the idea when he had to switch domains for his blog. He moved from “.com” to a “.org.”

With RSS subscribers, you wouldn’t be able to continue updating your subscribers of new posts at your new domain. But if you have their email address, it doesn’t matter which domain you’re on.

So one thing I’ve done is added a pop-up to the blog. I’ve heard numerous people report that this has a large effect on increasing the sign up rate.

Another thing I did was to change the “What Would Seth Godin Do?” plugin to promote my announcement list instead of the RSS feed. I’ve even included a picture of the free software you get when you sign up.

These two things together have probably doubled or tripled my sign ups.

If you want to see either of these two elements, delete your cookies and hit refresh. Both elements should appear.