Stop Assuming So Much

Posted By Stephen Dean on March 8th, 2009

I’m changing my domain name for this blog. You can find new posts here: http://www.copywritingdean.com

I decided Stephensblog.com wasn’t the best domain for my business. My name (Stephen) is kind of hard to spell. Many people spell it wrong. And it’s spelled differently than it sounds.

Ideally I’d move to StephenDean.com, but that domain is not available and likely not for sale. Apparently there’s a French artist with the same name as me who got it first. (I have emailed about it, but never got a response.)

So what to do…

CopywritingDean.com makes a lot of sense to me.

* It does have my last name in it “Dean.”
* It contains the keyword I’m targeting most.
* It kind of has a double meaning. Copywriting Dean, or Dean of Copywriting. You know?!
* And it better explains my site.

This site currently gets a lot of search engine traffic, and I don’t want to leave it all behind. So I’m going to keep it up for a while and see what I can do with the traffic.

Hopefully I’ll be able to build up links to http://www.copywritingdean.com quickly. If you already have me in your blogroll, I’d really appreciate it if you changed the URL to copywritingdean.com.

If you don’t have me in your blogroll, I’d really appreciate it if you added me

Again, thanks for reading everyone.

Posted By Stephen Dean on November 19th, 2008

In copywriting, assumptions can end up costing you a lot of money. That’s not good.

In my latest report with Michel Fortin, Tapping Michel Fortin’s Brain: Volume 2, he discusses an interesting test result he couldn’t figure out. An unprofessional picture of the product creator was generating more sales than a professional picture. This shocked Michel.

If he wasn’t such an avid tester, he never would have discovered that his assumption was unprofitable.

I’m pretty sure all copywriters will relate to this: when I deliver copy to a client, they often make changes to the copy before publishing it to the web. When I challenge them on it, the response is usually “I just changed a few things to make it more (something), but it shouldn’t effect conversion.”

Why would anyone assume that?

Of course, testing is the best assumption killer. Are you testing?

It’s not just copywriting where assumptions can have negative consequences. I suggest dropping as many assumptions as you can, from all aspects of life.

Many people assume minimum wage laws mean the poor will receive a “fair” wage. Most economists (nearly 80% in one study I know of) believe minimum wage laws keep low skilled workers from finding a job… because they’re not worth a “fair” wage to the employer. In fact, it was this issue that helped turn my favorite economist, Thomas Sowell, in to a capitalist (from a Marxist).

We’re Moving To CopywritingDean.com