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Selling on the web is one of the hardest things you will ever have to do unless you know the right ways to approach it. Like anything, there are right ways to sell your product or service and there are wrong ways to do it. What I’ve noticed is that thousands of affiliates are promoting their respective products the wrong way. Instead of focusing on creating websites that have meaningful content and a sense of purpose these affiliates create dull, lackluster pages that are unappealing to the visitor and the vendor they’re representing.

Truth be told, there are only two ways that you can effectively create a sale online:

• Introduce and convert a product based on no prior experience - This is demonstrated when you convert a visitor into a sale when that visitor had absolutely no knowlege of what your product or service was before they hit your landing page or website. This is the most difficult form of sales on the internet and is effectively reason that the affiliate marketing model was created (and also the reason for affiliate marketing’s subsequent explosive growth).Imagine walking up to people on the street and trying to get them to buy your widget. Notice how many people just walk on by? That’s exactly what you’re doing on the internet, and without some form of pre-sale or other way of introducing that customer to the product you can expect your conversion ratio to be quite low. So, how do you turn this approach into a positive one? Simple- you make it so blatantly obvious that the widget is the widget they’ve been searching for their entire life!

• Convert a visitor that already has prior experience with your product or service - This is what’s known as “pre-selling” or “pre-qualifying” the visitor. Essentially, rather than rely on the sales copy of the website to convert the visitor, you develop a series of landing pages or websites that are designed to introduce the visitor to the product or service and then direct that visitor to the sales-site in order to conduct the actual transaction. Then again, if you’re an affiliate, you already knew that.So I suppose you’re wondering if I’m going to introduce something that’s fresh and new. As it turns out, yes, I am. Through a process that I’ve perfected over time (that I call hand-shaking), you effectively introduce and complete a sale in such a way that the visitor doesn’t even know that they were sold nor do they know that they had any alternative. There are many ways that you can accomplish this, and once you have a copy in place that does so your conversion rate will skyrocket.

Before we get into how to use either technique I want to talk about some of the tools that you should have at your disposal at any given time. Every writer needs to have a few crucial tools handy that will make their life much easier and will ensure that their writing remains top-notch.

• A keyword analyzer - Your sales copy (or any copy, be it article or otherwise) is going to need to be keyword rich in order to help your website rank well in the search engines.

• A thesaurus - Using the same vocabulary over and over again makes your copy sound boring and poorly constructed.  Would you want to buy something from someone who sounds as if they’re 10 years old?

• An authoring suite - If you don’t have a program to write your copy in (such as Microsoft Word) you’re going to find the process that much more difficult.

• Inspirational materials - I can sit down and write something right off the top of my head most days, but sometimes I need something that acts as inspiration.  Before I write a copy I sit down and search for related articles or copies online that serve as inspiration.  Keep in mind that there is a very fine line between influence and plagiarism- make sure you don’t cross it.

Of course, if you had purchased this guide I would have told you which programs I use and what resources are my favorites.  Hurry up and purchase your copy already!
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As mentioned previously, writing effective sales copy is something that any and every affiliate marketer and online business owner should know how to do. Just as a mechanic needs to know how to do an oil change or change a vehicles brakes, anyone in online business is going to encounter situations where they will either have to write a sales copy or outsource it to someone who will do it for them. Unless you’re completely comfortable forking out $1,000+ per sales copy it’s well worth the investment to learn how to do it yourself.

That being said, you can apply your newfound sales techniques to other applications besides your online endeavors. Keep in mind that just about every sale scenario around, from garage sales to eBay, can benefit from having attractive and effective sales copy.

Let’s focus on eBay here for a moment. Millions of people generate billions of dollars in total revenue for eBay every year, and you can bet that those at the top of that income pyre are there because of hard work, determination, and creativity. Everything from the design of the auction down to the description of the product is tailored to generate the best possible response from the viewers (you).

Have you ever noticed that some auctions look as if they were written by 14 years olds and are completely devoid of any actual formatting and polish? These auctions sell surprisingly well, but they are greatly eclipsed by the auctions where the seller has taken the time to clearly lay out what is for sale and the benefits associated with that particular item.

Introducing Your Item for Sale

Let’s focus on eBay. Let’s pretend that you have an item for sale – an old ceramic statue that has been dated to the 17th century – and are placing it up for auction on eBay. That kind of item is perfect for eBay, so with the right auction sales copy your item should sell quickly and without any problems.

When you list your item for sale you will have to accomplish a few things:

• Introduce the viewer to the item - This is done via the headline and auction title. Chances are that there are going to be other auctions offering the same thing for sale, so your job is to attract visitors and potential bidders to yours.

• Convince the visitor to bid on the item - This will be done with the actual auction copy itself, so be sure to take the time to write the best auction copy you can (with a bit of guidance, of course). Writing copy that is compelling and informative will guarantee bids, so take your time.

• Properly represent the item being sold – Falsely advertising your item is grounds for serious punishment (seriously, you could get into some legal trouble here) so make sure that you represent your item accurately and honestly.

So, after reading that what are you thinking? Exactly- that sounds like what a sales copy does! Great, so now that we know the fundamentals we can focus on actually writing the auction copy so that it sells your statue.

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Buy my Widget
It’s a great deal at just
$19.99 plus shipping.
http://www.widgetfactory.com

Oh, I’m sorry, were you trying to sell me something? With that bland and predictable ad I wasn’t too sure if you were doing it because you want to or if you were doing it because your boss said to. That kind of advertisement is largely ineffective, yet that’s what over 90% of the PPC ads look like in any of the major providers (AdWords, YSM, etc.). The real question here is: why?

Why is the internet filled with boring and uninformative ads that do little to further their actual cause? Each click that the ad generates (and I imagine its precious little) is probably coming from someone who’s not going to convert despite the fact that the price and widget name is in the ad copy. Would you like to know why?

Because that person is likely shopping you. You’ve just spent $X.XX on that click for a visitor who is most likely shopping around trying to determine if they’re actually going to buy your widget.

Let’s cut to the chase here and outline what makes an effective ad since we now have a general idea what doesn’t.

• The ad should be eye catching - I’m not saying to make some outlandish claim, but the ad should be interesting enough that it will grab attention when required and hold that attention long enough to generate the next crucial element of an effective ad copy.

• The ad must generate curiosity or interest - This is absolutely critical. If you can put that reader onto the first part of the sales process (interest/curiosity) you will be leaps and bounds ahead of your competition. Why? Because that visitor is entering your website already interested or curious about what it is you’re offering for sale. This means that they are further along on the sales process and will take less convincing than someone who is relatively blind to what you’re selling.

• The ad needs to seperate itself from the competition - Your competitors will have multiple ads running, so shake them down with ads that are creative and compelling- your CTR will skyrocket while theirs plummets. Unless your competition starts copying your ads you can expect to utterly dominate them.That’s a great feeling. Trust me.

• Lastly, the ad needs to deliver on its promise - Your ad doesn’t have to say a lot to mean a lot. Choose a message you want to get across, be it price, availability, features, etc., and write an ad that delivers that message as effectively as possible. Remember to follow the three rules above.

Following those rules always produces ads that are much more interesting from a consumer’s point of view, and interest translates into sales. Spend the time needed to make your ad as effective as possible- while it’s only a few lines of text it’s the fundamental building block of your online business (if you’re running PPC, that is).

Remember - Your ad has one purpose and one purpose only: to generate interested, qualified customers for your products. If your ad is not successful at accomplishing this task you will likely lose money.

Example Scenario:

Let’s say that you’re an affiliate marketer who is looking to promote the latest make money from home eBook. Chances are good that you’re entering this market knowing a few things about the subject and are aware of the intense competition in that arena. Your ads, as a result, are going to have to be killer in order to catch the interest of the customers who have been bombarded by dozens of PPC ads and link campaigns.

Let’s say the product is called “Cameron’s Crazy Cash Cow” and you’re running a PPC campaign to a landing page that has been specifically designed for it. Remember, your ad needs to be able to do everything we talked about above while maintaining a good quality score (to keep your cost per click low).

So, knowing a few things about the product (the name, niche, price, etc.) we can begin to drum up some PPC ads for it:

Ad one:

Milk that Cow
Take old Bessie out back
and fill up those buckets!
http://www.yourlandingpages.com

Ad two:

Skim or Homo?
No matter how you like your
milk it always equals cash!
http://www.yourlandingpages.com

Ad three:

Cameron’s Nuts!
He’s lactose intolerant, but at
least he’s making money!
http://www.yourlandingpages.com

Ad four:

Drip, drip, drip.
That’s the sound of money
from the cow, baby.
http://www.yourlandingpages.com

See the difference between the plain Jane PPC ad and the ones that I had created above? Next, we’re going to talk about why ads like that convert and how you can replicate those conversions for any product.

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