Be Known – your website’s About page is a great opportunity to tell who you are and the passion behind what you do. Customers and prospects want to know about the people in your company. Adding bios and photos makes a personal connection and builds trust.

Be Found – website optimization is the gift that keeps on giving. When you have SEO working on your behalf, you attract traffic to your site and become a contender for purchases you would otherwise miss.

Be Recognized – providing helpful information on a company blog positions you as an expert in your field and gives visitors a reason to come back to your website. A recent study shows companies that blog attract 55% more website visitors than non-blogging companies.

Be Clear – for the new year, out with the insider-speak and in with customer-friendly language. Keep your message concise, easy to read and focused on benefits for the buyer.

Be Remembered – people remember stories. You can tell your persuasive stories using case studies. In them, your company is the hero, solving customers’ problems and saving the day.

Free Report

Shoot me an email (lanny at copywhiz dot com) and I’ll be happy to send you my how-to guide for generating leads with success stories. Or request it at

I recently listened to a teleclass on this subject given by experts Michel Neray, an online pioneer and brand strategist, and Steve Slaunwhite, a copywriter and coach.

They shared some valuable tips for writing landing pages (aka sales pages) that  convert lookers into buyers.

• Keep it focused. Don’t load up the page with a lot of distractions.
• Give visitors all the information they need to make a buying decision — on the spot. Otherwise you may lose them.
• Write for both scanners and readers using subheads, short paragraphs and bullet points.
• Keep your headlines descriptive and loaded with benefits.
• Write in a conversational tone, don’t make the copy sound too salesy.

Once you’ve accomplished all of the above, be sure to tell them what to do next,
i.e., “Buy Now” or “Sign Up Now” if it’s a class or a course.

Do it right and those prospects are now your customers.

Need help writing a landing page that nets you more sales? Then land here: www.copywhiz.com.

In her recent column in the San Francisco Examiner, graphic designer Stephanie Orma talks about the importance of working with a professional designer when creating or re-doing your website.  She writes:

“When startups and established businesses alike are looking to cut corners and save money, graphic design is usually at the top of their chopping block. But what these companies fail to realize is that good website design can literally mean the difference between being in the red or being in the black –- it’s that crucial. A website is often the first point of contact consumers have with a company. And just like in life, the first impression really does matter.”

She’s absolutely right. And the same can be said for good copywriting. As another cost-cutting measure, many companies write their own copy, even if this is not their area of expertise. And often the results are disastrous.  I’ve heard designers complain that they wait for months for the client to give them the copy. Think about all the revenue the company could have been earning during that time. Enough to have paid a professional freelance copywriter to get the job done right?

Copy and design work synergistically to create a positive online experience for your customers. Remember, you’ve got about two seconds to capture their attention.  They’ve come to your site with a mission…whether it’s to find information about your company or to purchase your product online. So that first impression is all-important.

Read Stephanie’s entire article here

Now don’t get me wrong. I love alliteration when it’s used skillfully and judiciously.  But when it's overdone, it can be downright annoying.  Today I happened upon a website that overused alliteration in an attempt to be cute and catchy with phrases like, “Promote your company with postcards that pop.” Page after page of that made me cringe. (Or do I lack a sense of humor?)

In his gem of a book On Writing Well, William Zinsser reminds us that people may read with their eyes, but they actually hear your words in their mind’s ear. So, yes, you want your copy to sing, but not off-key. Zinsser quotes E.B. White, whose Elements of Style should be on everyone’s bookshelf. White tried to rearrange the words in Thomas Paine’s famous statement, “These are the times that try men’s souls”:

Times like these try men’s souls.
These are trying times for men’s souls.
How trying it is to live in these times!
Soulwise, these are trying times.

Clearly, Paine got it right.

Ok, here it is. January 2009. If you're anything like me, you know you've got to do something to get the phone to ring. We've all heard more than enough recession talk, now we've got to get busy and prevent our own recessions. So where to start?

You know you should write a marketing plan, but the notion can be daunting. A little like your resolution to lose weight--you may start out with good intentions but they soon fall by the wayside. So today in my inbox comes an email from Ilse Benun, the Marketing Mentor. She's touting her newly updated package: 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar. She even has a version for startups and one for us veterans that makes it painless to create your plan and stay with it. And, get this--every day for the next two weeks she'll send you a 3-minute audio clip with a tip to help you keep your marketing on track.

Whew, I feel better already. Check it out at marketing-mentor-store.com.

You never know where a valuable marketing tip may come from. While I was perusing the November issue of The Costco Connection this sidebar story caught my eye and I wanted to share it with you: “Outdated mailing lists will cost you.”

According to the article, the USPS wants to reduce the amount of undeliverable addressed mail which costs them about $2 billion every year. The main cause? People on the move. (And in this year of rampant foreclosures, you can imagine). So, on November 23, 2008, the postal service is instituting new Move Update requirements to include all standard mail in addition to first-class mail, and also to shorten the minimum frequency of change-of-address processing from 185 days to 95 days prior to the date of mailing to be eligible for automation and presort discount rates.

Update or pay the price

If you rely on mass mailings to market your product or services, make sure your list is clean and current.  If it is filled with bad addresses, you could miss potential customers and lose touch with customers who have moved. But that’s not all. If the USPS finds mail pieces that are noncompliant, like the rotten apple in the proverbial barrel, the entire mailing is considered noncompliant and you could be fined 7-cents for every piece in the mailing.

Simple. This real-life example explains it best. A copywriting client, who happens to be in the building trades, had a misspelled word on his truck. Instead of installation, it read instalation. A driver of another vehicle pulled up alongside him and said, “I hope your work is better than your spelling.” Yikes!

It’s all about how you present yourself to the world. Sloppy writing and spelling makes you look unprofessional, and you can’t always count on spell check for accuracy. So do yourself a favor. Ask someone to proofread your work. A second set of eyes can spot errors before you publish and save you the embarrassment.