SuperTips Ezine: Issue 20
IN THIS ISSUE 1. Greetings!
2. "7 Tips For Creating More Effective,
Attention-Grabbing Headlines!" 3. Readers Forum
4. "Location, Location, Location"
5. More "Super" Tips
6. Next Issue
1. Greetings! Hello Folks, Today I am going to tell you about * The Keyword that got me to number one in the AltaVista search engine - and why I got rid of it ! * How I won a $200 prize, with the help of a $17 book * The fluke Url which is bringing me 100 visitors a month There's also a useful article about a most important subject - writing good headlines. And lots more ...
Harvey
2. "7 Tips For Creating More Effective,
Attention-Grabbing Headlines!"
Few things are more important to the success of your marketing efforts than the headlines you lead off with in your sales letters, display ads, and web pages. An attention-getting, arresting headline has the power to pull in many more prospects and customers. A headline is nothing more than a collection of words designed to get qualified prospects to sit up and take notice. As such, its task is a huge and vital one. To create a winning headline, distill your most unique benefits down to one powerful sentence that packs a punch. Following are 7 easy-to-follow tips to help you create more successful headlines.
1) Do your homework. Start by gathering important information. Decide
on the venue for your headline,then, identify the 6 key elements of successful
marketing materials. These include: 2) Isolate your most impressive and unique competitive advantage. Look at your product or service the way your customers and prospects do. Put yourself in their shoes. What would get these people to pay attention? What is the strongest benefit you can offer? If your product was the"dream solution", the answer to your customers deepest desires, what would it do for them? Now your job is to create a headline that clearly contrasts from other competing headlines, all vying to attract the same audience. 3) Get started and write as many headlines as you can. Your first headline probably won’t be your best work. But as you continue writing, you’ll find better ways to express your thoughts in a more compelling, provocative or arresting way. Try several different formats from questions to combination-style headlines. Don’t worry about perfect spelling or presentation --simply let your ideas flow and jot them down. This strategy is shared by some of the best copywriters in the world. After you’ve created a lengthy list of possibilities, choose your top 3 to 5 headlines and tweak them for maximum impact. Testing will reveal your most responsive headline. 4) Brainstorm words and phrases that colorfully express your product’s unique benefits. In a short space of time, you can generate a plethora of vibrant, expressive words and original phrases that can help make your headline stand out from all others. With brainstorming, best results are obtained with a pre-set time frame of 5 minutes or so. Simply allow your creative juices to flow and record every word, without judgment. Ignore the temptation to evaluate the merit of any particular suggestion. After a few short minutes, you’ll have plenty of power-packed, benefit-oriented headline words to choose from. 5) Deliver a clear, concise, and complete message. Edit your headline for clarity. Make sure your words are easily understood and do not evoke mixed messages. Be direct rather than subtle... benefit-oriented rather than amusing or "catchy". Readers generally digest a headline as one item, simultaneously taking in all the words as a complete unit and processing it as a single image. You want to be sure that the image your headline delivers is crystal-clear and not open to misinterpretation. 6) Capture attention, pique the interest of your prospects and arouse their curiosity. Do these three things and you’re sure to have a winning headline. First and foremost, you’ve got to attract the attention of readers. Think of your headline as a visual siren. Call out to your best prospects with something that’s vitally important to these folks only. Secondly, communicate in terms of benefits or helpful advantages and make your benefits more enticing and appealing than what the competition offers. Benefits address the self-interest of prospects. Benefits are all about prospects and what they’ll get as a result of buying your product. Thirdly, add a little mystique to the picture and you’ll arouse your prospect’s curiosity. Reveal just enough in your headline to literally drive your prospects to find out more.
7) Think of your headline as the message on a billboard. With most headlines you probably only have a few fleeting seconds to get your main selling point across. Rewrite and refine your message down to its most powerful, concise statement. Make it deliver your most payable punch, promptly. Give the skimming reader the opportunity to receive your essential message in one quick take. Hit hard and hit fast. If you don’t, you’ll never win at this increasingly competitive game.
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3. Readers Forum
I guess I'm as guilty as everyone else. So it was a pleasure to receive this short note soon after my last issue was published, from Bill Prackup "Another GOOD one!!!"
Just three simple words - and three exclamation marks - but they made
my day. Then I received a mail with the subject "HARVEY: When you get time " By using my name at the start the author immediately caught my attention - good idea: if he had omitted it I could well have assumed it was spam mail.
He went on But the strange thing is that with all this enthusiasm he never responded to my reply.
And what did he mean by offering to buy my site ? Regarding the issue of building a site, here's part of the reply I sent: There are certain agreed rules about site design but after that it is a matter of individual taste. You can go on forever making continual improvements. You obviously look at other sites and pull out the best features and use them.
I have a number of basic principles which I adhere to, for example
Also in the early days I was opposed to using graphics because of the effect on the page downloading speed. And if surfers turned the images off the page would appear with empty holes. But with the increase in modem speed this is less of a problem.
This got me thinking. Any more thoughts from our readers ?
4. "Location, Location, Location" The first thing you should consider in advertising is the first thing you should consider when buying real estate: Location, Location, Location. You want to focus all of your efforts on your intended audience. Once you know who they are, determine which publications they are most likely to read. While large sources have apparently attractive numbers of readers, their advertising rates are usually high. Focus instead on smaller publications, such as targeted newsletters or Internet magazines (ezines). There are publications for sports, hobbies, pets, business, occupations and many other areas of interest. The advertising rates of these smaller publications are usually lower than the big guys and, if you select carefully, the readers are almost guaranteed to be in your target market.
To give an example from my personal experience:
I posted an identical ad for an affiliate program in two different publications. The ad ran for the same period in both publications and both were published with the same frequency. The first was a large ezine with over 300,000 subscribers, the second was a publication for online business people with a subscriber base of only 7,000. Below are the results I observed:
Ezine 1:
Ezine 2: So what made the difference? The answer is quite simple. The first ezine's readership was broad based. While many people were curious enough to respond to the ad, very few were serious enough to actually signup for the program. The second ezine's audience was primarily made up of people interested in owning business on the Internet. This prior interest in products similar to the one I offered resulted in better results. Not to mention the fact that the ad in ezine #2 was significantly less expensive. This experience is a great illustration of why it is vitally important to reach your target audience. The number of Internet ezines is growing every month. It should not be difficult to locate several publications that cater to your target market. If you advertise in just five targeted ezines and receive only thirty responses per week per publication, well below the averages I have experienced, you will receive 600 qualified responses per month!! If only ten percent of these responses result in sales, it still means an additional sixty sales per month!!! These calculation don't even include the potential for ad-on and repeat sales. As you can see, targeting your advertising can result in very nice profits for you business. Even with a targeted audience, the results that you experience will vary significantly, depending upon the particular opportunity or product being offered. The other big factor that influences how much response you will receive is the advertisement itself. In another article in this series, I will detail methods of writing effective advertising.
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5. More "Super" Tips 5.1 Number one at AltaVista In the last issue I explained how I changed all my web pages to make them more suitable for the search engines, and the first results of the submission process - more about that further on. Before I changed them I had looked at the referrer log file at my website - which made for fascinating reading.
For those not familiar with log files:
The log shows you the search terms that surfers have actually fed in to
get to your site.
Here are some real example from my log
how+to+make+money+on+the+net
But what amazed me was to see a number of search terms such as these My site doesn't have any connection with these topics.
After some investigation I realised the common link. So I went to AltaVista and searched for just that one word 'TIPS' in upper case.
And there I was - at the top of the charts.
and there was my entry in first place I can tell you it was an awesome moment to think that I was looking at one of the top search engines, and that for a popular word such as 'tips' my site was the number one in the world ahead of over half a million others. But then the truth dawned as I searched for the word 'tips' in lower case and my site was nowhere to be found. It was only when people were searching and using upper case that my site was being found.
Now how many people use upper case ?
Do you remember the early days on the Net when you may have seen an Email
typed out completely in upper case which we would refer to as 'shouting'.
The mistake I had been making, I believe, was to use a title on my web page in upper case.
My main page now has a different title and in mixed case viz
I reduced the number of keywords so that each one would have more impact.
I made them upper case and plural, where possible, as it is advised viz Also for all my other pages I have used keywords which are relevant to the page. I think that a keyword which does not appear on a page is probably ignored and is a wasted resource. As a result I am now beginning to see a surge in the hits to my site from the search engines.
5.2 Don't remove your web pages - yet again ! Do you recall my tip in the issue of September 1 ? I gave examples of how links to your web site can float around on the Net sometimes for years. So rather than remove an out-of-date web page - you could always change the content to link to a current one. Well, I'm glad I took my own advice - it's providing me with 100 visitors a month thanks to a complete fluke.
Back in January I posted a note in Gary Christensen's There was a flurry of hits on that page for a week or so and then, obviously as that edition of the newsletter became less current, the hits finally stopped. But last month they started taking off again ? How could this be ? I ran a search through all my files to see if I had inadvertently used that Url in another promotion. To my amazement I found the Url embedded in an Ebook that I had downloaded about publishing an Ezine. Now I did not recall seeing the name of my Ezine mentioned in that book when I first briefly read through it. So this time I read it thoroughly - there were a number of Ezines listed but still not my one. And then the mystery was solved. One of the Ezines listed was the Writers and Publishers Connection Newsletter. They also included a sample issue. And that was the very issue that contained my posting and that Url !
5.3 My $200 prize One of the affiliate programs I belong to is FutureWorld who provide a fascinating collection of information and how-to products on topics ranging from Personal Development, Business Success, through to Internet Marketing. Do take a look at their impressive, but easy to navigate, site here. You can also become an agent for them if you visit here. The company recently ran a competition among all their agents asking for their best ideas in 500 words or less for marketing the company's products or affiliate program, whether via the Internet, direct mail, classified advertising, or whatever. The first prize was a $2000 PC, but I was fortunate to be one of the 5 second prizes winners and won $200 worth of promotional material. If you would like to see the article I wrote please send an Email .
When I was putting the finishing touches to the article I was trying to think of a good opening paragraph. Then inspiration struck and I wrote
Whatever business you promote on the Internet there are just THREE basic
principles for success Many of you will recognize this. It's the constant theme again and again in a book which I, along with many fellow marketeers, have been raving about. An astonishing work from Ken Evoy called "Make Your Site Sell". Visit here where you can download two chapters for free and see what all the fuss is about. I like to think that the opening paragraph had a big influence in winning a $200 prize, thanks to a book costing just $17.
5.4 Submitting to Search Engines ... continued In the last edition I explained how I submitted to the main search engines (apart from Yahoo). These were AltaVista , Excite, HotBot, InfoSeek , Lycos , Northern Light, WebCrawler I then also came across AOL Search http://search.aol.com/add.adp This is a directory (like Yahoo) and you need to submit your Url in the appropriate category. My site was registered in just a few days and along with Altavista and Infoseek I am beginning to see hits as a result. I am also receiving hits from these other sites
http://www.askjeeves.com/
I don't know how these have suddenly emerged, I have a feeling that the first 3 are related to Infoseek.
Do we have any experts out there who can provide the answer ?
6. Next Issue SuperTips Ezine will be with you again on October 13th. If you have any suggestions to improve this newsletter so that we can make it a great resource for all our readers please drop me a line.
Thanks,
To SUBSCRIBE to the SuperTips Ezine:Click here ARCHIVES: Click here Copyright (C) 1999 by Harvey Segal, SuperTips
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