Headlines
[private].[/private]One of THE most important aspects of your sales page will be the headline. The headline is the first thing people see and read when they visit your offer and it’s important to accomplish a few of your motives right away, just as soon as your visitors read the headline.
The headline should intrigue your visitors, capture their attention, and lead them into your intro paragraph thirsty for more.
There are a lot of different styles that can be used for writing headlines and the best headline of all can only be found through lots of testing such as A-B split-testing, multivariate testing, etc… This means that you will have to try different headlines to see which one will potentially bring you the most conversions.
Sometimes a good headline will increase conversions over a bad headline, but if you have a good headline and an intro paragraph that doesn’t tie in with it well you could be waisting your time. For this reason, I suggest multivariate split testing and the best tool of all for this purpose is Google’s Website Optimizer. (more on this to come).
I’m going to show you a few examples of headlines and explain a few of the concepts that are being used.
Remember, I don’t consider myself a professional copywriter, but I have written my own sales pages in the past that have converted upwards of 2% for all affiliates and 4-7% for top affiliates.
Let’s look at a few examples:
Have you seen this headline a hundred times before? I bet you have and the reason why is because it works!
Let’s break this headline down a bit and examine what makes it tick:
Who Else: By simply starting off this headline with the words “Who Else” it implies that other people are also interested in this same topic. Human nature seems to tell us that there is strength in numbers and by planting the idea into a visitor’s head that he/she is not the only one interested in this particular product, you can put them a bit more at ease.
Secrets: Secrets are no fun unless you share with everyone! This aspect of the headline is playing on the reader’s curiosity. By mentioning that the material you are going to cover reveals secrets you can pique interest and grab attention all at once. These are some of the most basic motives of any good headline!
Experts Don’t Want You To Know: I like the instant credibility that reflects onto a product when you suggest that this is information that “experts” already know. One problem I have with this part of the headline is that it has a negative word in it, “don’t.” I like to refrain from using any negatives in my headline, but this is not to say that negatives cannot ever be used successfully.
Testing is the only way to tell for sure which parts of your headline are helping you and which parts are hurting you. If you manage to get a lot of traffic and your site is up and running for a good length of time, then you can do enough testing to literally figure out the difference between single words being used versus synonyms.
Let’s have a look at another:
Discover: One of the most popular words ever for starting off a headline. You would think headlines starting with the word “Discover” are played out by now, but they are so effective you’ll be seeing them for years to come. This arouses curiosity, intrigues the reader, and lets them know that there is something to be “learned” all in one word.
Easy To Use: This implies that ANYONE can use these techniques and greatly broadens the prospective market, at least in the mind of your visitor. If someone is worried about the product being beyond their experience level this issue is addressed right off the bat!
Change: People like change. As much as some people complain about change, think about the very thing that most likely brought them to your site! They look for change and revel in the potential a new change could have on their life or their business.
Forever: Forever sounds a bit over-exaggerated, but it’s okay to push it to the limits with your headline. Remember, you want to intrigue the readers and words like “never, forever, always” and similar are actually quite encouraged in order to accomplish this task!
Now that you have watched over my shoulder as I dissected a few headlines, it’s your turn. I’m going to tell you about a little technique I love to use; you’ve probably even heard of it!
The method involves using what is known as “swipe file”. Basically, a swipe file is just a very simple text document that you leave somewhere on your computer that is easily accessible. You can create a swipe file in seconds.
Minimize everything on your computer so you are right on the desktop. Right-click and select “new.” Once the menu of choices appears select “text document.”
We’ll call this swipe file “Killer Headlines”. Name it and you’re ready to go. Start browsing sales pages and every time you come across a headline you like copy and paste it into your “Killer Headlines” swipe file.
Once you have gathered several good headlines go through your swipe file and analyze each headline. Then try to piece together sort of a “Frankenstein” headline that takes the best parts of all the Killer Headlines in your swipe file and integrates them into one headline.
Actually, create several “Frankenstein” headlines and then split test them with Google Website Optimizer so you won’t have to wonder which headline is best. You’ll know!
Now that we’ve talked about the first key ingredient to any good salespage we’re going to digress for a moment as I mention a few things you need to set in place prior to sending traffic to your sales page. This way you will be able to capture leads and build your email opt-in list before the sale ever takes place.
Also here are a few great copywriting resources (these were also mentioned in the “Outsourcing” section so they may look familiar):
