Salute Friend

No doubt, the headline is the most important part of any advertisement or sales letter. The reason is very simple. The headline is the first thing your prospect sees when he or she looks at your advertisement.

It’s an advertisement for your advertisement.

The only purpose of your headline is to get your prospect to continue reading your ad or sales letter. It must get your reader’s attention and it must pull them into your ad.

Your headline must be so irresistible that your reader has to find out more.

It doesn’t make a difference how good your product or service is or how good your advertising copy is, if your headline isn’t any good, your ad or sales letter won’t get read.

Let’s take a look at what two legendary copywriters have to say about the importance of good headlines:

“Advice to copywriters: When you are assigned to write an ad, write a lot of headlines first. Spend hours writing headlines — or days if necessary. If you can come up with a good headline, you are almost sure to have a good ad. But even the greatest writer can’t save an ad with a poor headline.” –John Caples

“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. If you haven’t done some selling in your headline, you have wasted 80 percent of your money. The wickedest of all sins is to run an advertisement without a headline.” — David Olgilvy

It never ceases to amaze me how many advertisements I see that don’t have headlines.

All advertisements should have a headline.

Let’s talk about the rules you should follow when writing headlines, the different types of headlines you can use, proven words to use in headlines, and how you can become an expert at writing headlines.

Rules to follow when writing headlines:

1. First and foremost, your headline must appeal to your reader’s self interest. Communicate the strongest benefit (or benefits) to your prospect. Everybody’s favorite radio station is “WIIFM” — What’s In It For Me? Your headline should answer this important question.

2. Attract the attention of the prospect you’d like to target. If your headline doesn’t attract the right people, it has failed. Your headline must reach out to your prospect, grab them by the throat and say, “Hey!!! I’m talking to you!”

3. Your headline must deliver a clear and understandable message. Most people read only the headlines. Because of this, your headline must make a complete statement and compel the prospect to continue reading the body copy.

4. If you have news, such as a new product, be sure to get that news into your headline in a big way.

5. Don’t try to be clever or humorous with your headlines. These type of headlines are ineffective and a waste of money.

6. Include the words “quick” and “easy” if it fits what you are communicating.

7. Use specifics in your headlines, not generalities. For example, “Make $5,274 In 30 Days” is a better headline than “Make Money Fast”. Specifics are more believable.

8. Always test two headlines against each other to see which one pulls the best.

9. Use upper and lower case letters for your headlines. This is easier to read than all caps. I also like to put quotation marks around my headlines. Studies have shown that quotation marks around headlines increase readership.

10. When it’s time for you to write a headline for your ad, write at least 50 headlines. Some direct marketers spend days writing hundreds of headlines in search of the right one. To come up with selling headlines takes more than just a few minutes. You’ve got to commit yourself to sitting down and writing at least 50 headlines!

Your headline is the key to your entire ad’s success. If you don’t tell your prospect what’s in it for them, you won’t get their attention. If you don’t get their attention, they won’t read your ad. And if they don’t read your ad, you’ve wasted your time and money.

Different types of headlines:

To help you write headlines that get attention, let’s take a look at the different types of headlines you can use, how and when you may want to use them, and actual examples of headlines that were successful.

• The News Headline. If your product or service offers something newsworthy, announce it in your headline. Newsworthy is usually the introduction of a new product or the improvement of an existing product.

Here are some words you can use in your News
Headline: New, Announcing, Introducing, Finally, Just Released, Now, At Last.

Examples:

“Now! Own Florida Land This Easy Way… $20.00 Down And $20.00
A Month”

“New Diet Burns Off More Fat Than If You Ran 98 Miles A Week”

“Announcing… The New Edition Of The Encyclopedia That Makes It Fun To Learn Things”

• The Guarantee Headline. Guarantee Headlines state a desirable benefit, and guarantee results or other benefits. If you offer a powerful guarantee, let your prospects know by stating it in the headline.

Examples:

“Play Guitar In 7 Days Or Money Back”

“Announcing A New Technologically Advanced Golf Ball You Will Never Lose, Never Slice, And Never Miss… 100% Guaranteed”

• The How To Headline. These two words — “how to”, are very powerful words. You can never go wrong using a How To Headline. (Over 7,000 book titles start out with How To.) How To Headlines promise your prospect a source for information, advice, and solutions to their problems. If you ever get stumped for a headline, use the How To Headline — it works!

Examples:

“How To Win Friends And Influence People”

“How To Get Your Cooking Bragged About”

“How To Form Your Own Corporation Without A Lawyer For
Under $50″

• The Benefit Headline. The key to a winning Benefit Headline is to know your market so well you can offer them a powerful, compelling benefit they can’t easily get somewhere else. You must thoroughly research your target market in order to know what benefits are going to motivate them to take action.

Examples:

“If You Are A Careful Driver You Can Save Money On Car Insurance”

“It Cleans Your Breath While It Cleans Your Teeth”

“Get Rid Of Money Worries For Good”

• The Question Headline. Here again, to use this headline, you must really know your market. You need to know what your prospect is thinking, what their anxieties are, and what they’re hoping to accomplish. If you know your target audience this well, then the Question Headline is an effective headline to use. The Question Headline must focus on your prospect’s self interest and ask a question they want to know the answer to. The best type of questions to ask are questions that get your prospect involved.

Examples:

“Do You Make These Mistakes In English?”

“Can You Pass This Money Test?”

• The Reason-Why Headline. With the Reason-Why Headline you give your prospect specific reasons why they should read your ad. Reason-Why Headlines are effective because they contain facts and specific numbers. Reason-Why Headlines don’t need to include the words “reason why”. You can use “38 ways”, “7 steps”, “5 secrets”, etc.

Examples:

“38 Fun And Easy Ways To Earn $500.00 Next Weekend”

“7 Steps To Freedom”

“67 Reasons Why It Would Have Paid You To Answer Our Ad A Few
Months Ago”

• The Testimonial Headline. The Testimonial Headline is just what it says — it uses a customer testimonial for a headline. With this headline, you get your customers to sell for you by talking about the benefits they received.

Examples:

“I Lost My Bulges… And Saved Money Too”

“How I Retired On A Guaranteed Income For Life”

“I Was Tired Of Living On Low Pay — So I Started Reading The Wall Street Journal — By A Subscriber”

• The Command Headline. The Command Headline tells your customer what to do. Your command should encourage action by offering your prospect a benefit that will help them. Effective Command Headlines start out with action verbs.

Examples:

“Stop Dreaming And Start Making Money”

“Throw Your Wax Can In The Trash Can — The New No-Wax Floor Is
Here”

“Order Christmas Cards Now — Pay After January 20″

There you have it! Several types of headlines you can use for any kind of circumstance or market. Each headline type works well on its own or it can be combined with the other headline types.

Now, let’s talk about words you can use in your headlines.

Powerful Headline Words That Are Proven To Work:

*  Advice To			*  Amazing
*  Announcing			*  At Last
*  Bargain			*  Breakthrough
*  Discover			*  Do You
*  Easy				*  Facts
*  Guarantee			*  Here
*  How To			*  Immediate
*  Life				*  Magic
*  Money			*  New
*  Now				*  Powerful
*  Proven			*  Quick
*  Sale				*  Secrets Of
*  Success			*  Surprising

And finally, the three most powerful headline words:

FREE		 	You			Your

The words that you use in your headlines are very important. Dan Kennedy has talked about how adding just one letter to a headline (with no other changes to the ad) almost tripled the response of an ad that ran in a magazine.

Let’s take a look at the headline Dan talked about. Here’s what the headline said before the change:

“Put Music In Your Life”

And here’s what it said after the change:

“Puts Music In Your Life”

Adding the “s” to the word “Put” almost tripled the response of the ad! (The first headline implies that you have to do something. The second headline implies that something is done for you.)

This example proves how important it is to spend lots of time writing dozens of headlines and then testing different headlines.

How To Become An Expert At Writing Headlines:

The first thing you can do to become an expert at writing headlines is to start a collection of headlines.

Whenever you see a headline that gets your attention and that compels you to read the ad, write it down on a 3 x 5 index card. Spend time studying these headlines and see if you can improve them.

An easy way to start a collection of effective headlines is to subscribe to the tabloid magazines. The people at National Inquirer, Star, and The Globe know how to write headlines. Because of their irresistible headlines, these magazines sell millions of copies each week! (Off the newsstands on impulse!)

I’ve got hundreds of index cards with headlines. When it’s time for me to write a headline, I use these index cards for ideas.

Here’s another trick for writing headlines:

Before you attempt to write a headline or any form of advertising, you should write down all the benefits of your product or service on 3 x 5 index cards. Write a single benefit on each card. When writing the benefits, remember to write them from your prospects point of view. (Also, convert the features of your product into customer benefits.)

Once you’ve taken the time to write down the benefits, you’ll have a stack of cards (maybe hundreds) that you can use for headline ideas. Isolate the most important customer benefit and use it to create your headlines. Sometimes, one of the benefits may turn out to be the actual headline. (Also, use the index cards when writing your ad or sales letter.)

Here’s a checklist to use when evaluating your headlines:

1. Does my headline communicate the strongest customer benefit?
2. Does my headline answer the question: “What’s In It For Me?”
3. Does it offer a reward for reading the ad?
4. Is my headline clear and direct? Does it communicate a complete message?
5. Is my headline get attention with a powerful sales message?
6. Does it motivate my prospect to keep reading?
7. Is my headline speaking directly to my target prospect?
8. Is my headline interesting to my prospects, or does it bore them?
9. And finally, is my headline an ad for my ad?

Remember, the difference between a good headline and a bad headline is the difference between success and failure in advertising.

Your headline is the deciding factor on whether or not your prospect will read your ad. It is the most important element in advertising. Spend the time that’s necessary to write winning headlines, and watch the response to your advertising sky rocket!

James A. Bower is the Co-Founder and President of Bower Income and Profit Systems a company dedicated to enhancing business performance in many areas through tapes books and seminars. His presentations include sales, marketing, telephone skills, motivation, goal setting and achievement, telephone equipment and voice mail design, and business organization for efficiency. He is an internationally recognized instructor and is the recipient of many awards in recognition of his successful efforts in assisting businesses create a more efficient environment resulting in maximum profits. He has had the opportunity to speak for groups as large as 5000 and can get his points across to any size audience.

James has been actively addressing business issues and solving business problems for over 30 years. He is available to make presentations to company staff or for individual consultation.

Contact James at 316-773-1994 or jbower1@cox.net

QUESTION: I’d like to sell a few hundred antique books left to me by my late Aunt. They were printed in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s and later. Since my aunt was an English teacher, many of the books are famous or classic works. I was considering selling them to a local book dealer, who gave me this advice:

“As any book dealer will tell you, the Internet has changed bookselling dramatically. Average priced books have dropped in price by a third to 75 percent in the past year. The best thing for you would be to … organize the books by condition. Tell us about the best first. We should be able to tell you very quickly which are or are not worth anything.”

What do you think of this evaluation?

ANSWER: What this book dealer is saying is fairly reasonable — from his perspective. But of course he wants to get books for resale at the lowest price possible. I wouldn’t say it sounds unethical at all, he’s just trying to maximize his profit, which is what everyone in business wants to do.

But he wants you to do some of the work yourself — organizing by condition, subject matter, and so forth. For a bit more trouble, you can sell them yourself on Amazon Marketplace, make lots more money, and perhaps have some fun in the bargain.

The Internet has cut out the middleman (in this case the brick-and-mortar used bookstore) and has enabled sellers of books to realize the market price of their goods.

One area where I would disagree with your book dealer friend is his assertion that prices have dropped by “a third to 75 percent in the past year.” Certainly, that can be true for current books where supply has overloaded demand (because a book has recently sold well, but is no longer being marketed — or the book has been “remaindered” and the publisher dumped all their copies into the used market).

But most older scarce books are becoming scarcer online and prices are escalating. In particular, you’re talking about the “high spots” of literature, which is exactly what book collectors are looking for these days.

Why are prices for highly collectible books going up? My guess is that used bookselling through popular venues such as Amazon has introduced many new people to book collecting. And since there is a finite supply of collectible books, their supply is rapidly being depleted as more people get into collecting, and the price of the remaining books is going up as they become even more scarce.

See a real-time list of the most highly sought after used and collectible books.

Read more free articles on selling used books profitably online: http://www.weberbooks.com/selling/selling.htm

Steve Weber is author of “The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon, eBay or Your Own Web Site” (ISBN 0977240606). Got a question for Steve? Send to: steve_weber@yahoo.com

I worked for a major company as an executive for over 20 years. I would work long hours and spend many hours traveling to and from work. I use to think what am I doing I could be working for myself and making money for ME and not for someone else!

I use to make millions of dollars for the company I worked for and through this business I have learnt a lot which I now use to make money for myself.

When do you decide enough is enough and I no longer want to commute backwards and forwards when I could work from HOME in my own business. If I worked from home my workdays would be shorter because I wouldn’t need to travel very far just from one room to another :-), I know that working from home can be difficult but if you do what I do and have a room setup as an office so when you are in there working it is your place of work…Sure the kids can still come in and get you or you could step out to make a coffee and a snack…But the beauty of working from home is that you are there and can manage your day as to how much time you are willing to put into your business.

Many people like me start their home business before they quit their fulltime job, which I might say is a very good way to do it…We all need money from one source or another.

I was so glad when I found the PIPS Program (check out pips.html in resource box) it is such a Great work from home opportunity. It allows you to start either slowly or rapidly your choice. There is the great 30 day training program as well, where you learn everything you need to know about successfully building your internet business.

I believe I have made the right decision to work from home. You see when working from home and on your own schedule you are your own boss and creator of your destiny. Don’t get me wrong IM no slouch I work very hard at working my business to be successful. Just because you work for yourself doesn’t mean that it is easier…Sure it is less stressful as there is no one on your back to get things done within a certain timeframe, but I am on my own back to get things done, I set goals.

It is important when you work from HOME for yourself that you have goals, it is so easy to fall into the I cant be bothered doing anything today mode. If you work from home for yourself you need to keep focused and motivated, as the saying goes keep on keeping on….

I think everyone knows when they want to work from home and be their own boss….The time comes when you think that`s it no more!!!….And then and only then will you be committed at building your business….Remember you can start building your business slowly and then when you are earning enough to cover what you are earning in your job then you can say seeya later….IM off to work my OWN HOME BUSINESS

You will know when the time is right for you I hope you are not like me and think about it for ages before you take the plunge…I only wished I did it sooner…

Goodluck in whatever home business you decide to do…..

Born in Australia, I worked as an ececutive for a major comapny for over 20 years.
www.moneyhomebiz.com/pips.html

It would be fair to say that Starbucks has penetrated the cultural fabric of America quite extensively. Now, it is also attempting to do the same with the rest of the world. It has become a place to get together with friends, an extended office, a pick-up joint, and many other things - different things to different people.

Starbucks is a consumer concept that was pretty much unimaginable until it was implemented, scaled, funded, and scaled further. Howard Schultz envisioned the concept after experiencing the popularity of coffee bars in Italy. For those who were gutsy enough to invest in the concept (Jamie Shennan of Trinity Ventures, for example, who is still on the Board, and invested in 1990; Starbucks went public in 1992) the deal paid off handsomely.

The world’s #1 specialty coffee retailer, Starbucks operates and licenses more than 8,500 coffee shops in more than 30 countries. The shops offer coffee drinks and food items, as well as beans, coffee accessories, teas, and CDs. Starbucks operates more than 5,200 of its shops in five countries (mostly in the US), while licensees operate more than 2,800 units (primarily in shopping centers and airports). It reports an employee count of 96,700 in 2004.

As the US continues on its quest towards finding business concepts that cannot be off-shored and out-sourced, clearly, high-touch retail and consumer concepts such as Starbucks are highly desirable.

Here is one that I like to fantasize about: Jazz Bars and Dance Floors of the ambience, musical quality, and vibrancy that we see in the movie, Ray, celebrating the life and music of Jazz legend Ray Charles.

As American culture degenerates further into becoming more and more sedentary, obese, isolated, on-line, and uninteresting, I wonder when would the pendulum swing far enough, that someone will get frustrated enough to start something new. A new place to “connect”, a new way to “enjoy”, and consequently a new way to “employ”…

My hope is, that those who will launch that quest will rediscover the joys of Swing and Foxtrot, as Herman Hesse described in his celebrated novel Steppenwolf.

I haven’t done the business plan, and I haven’t run the numbers but I sure hope there would be money in such a venture, if done creatively, with the thoughtfulness and business savvy of how Starbucks was launched upon the world.

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur and Strategy Consultant Sramana Mitra writes on Entrepreneurship, Business strategy, Emerging Technologies, Market Moves, etc. in her Blog “Sramana Mitra on Strategy”.
Read More at http://www.sramanamitra.com

Everyone loves money. Every day there is more and more ways to earn money. One way is to earn money online. There is hundreds of ways to earn money online. I hope to guide you through some of the ways to earn money. I will also inform you on some of the scams that say you can earn lots of money with little work. Hopefully you won’t fall victim to any scam and wasting time and money. One key thing to remember is if you find any money making opportunity that asks you to pay money before you can earn money it probably a scam.

There is many ways to earn money online. I will go over some of them for you. Paid to read email is one of the best ways to earn small amounts of money online. Paid to read email sites that will pay you usually pay you 1/10 of a cent to 5 cents per email. If a paid to read email site says they pay 1 dollar to $500 per email is usually a scam and will not pay out, so try to stay from those. Also you might stay away from high payouts unless they have proof that they pay.

To earn money online you can fill out surveys for money. Some survey sites let you earn points and later exchange them for cash.Other survey sites will pay you cash. There are also survey sites that give you merchandise for filling you surveys. Some sites say you can earn up to $250 per survey, but they ask you to pay them money to get the surveys. I would stay away from those sites unless you have money to blow(but who does). You can earn money by selling things on Ebay. By being an affiliate can earn you money. This way is the easiest way to earn money online and affiliates are in high demand.

Every company loves affiliates because affiliates get the sites seen by lots of people. There are all kinds of companies who use affiliates and they range from adult to wal mart and every thing in between. Affiliate sites usually pay you per click of per sale. If you have excellent computer skills you can earn money by designing banners and designing websites. There is good money in reselling software. You buy software and than you can resell if for any price. You can earn money online by surfing the web. Some surfing sites have you install a tool bar that keeps track of the amount of time you spend online and pay you for that time. They usually pay well and you don’t have do anything. This is great because you are going to be online why not earn money for being online doing what you want. The other way to get paid for surfing is joining a program such as SAS. They pay you for visiting sites and you also get hits to your site if you have one.These surf programs usually pay 0.50-1.00 for 1000 views.

With many mom’s opting to stay at home with their children. This has given rise to the home based business. I the past the only home based business out there were Avon, Tuppware, Mary Kay, and Amway. Those businesses were for women and left men out of the picture.

The internet has given the men an equal chance to stay at home and work. You can work at home doing almost anything. I will go over some opportunities for you. One of the biggest home based business is Specialty Merchandise Corporation also known as SMC. They have been around for for years and started with mail order products than moved to the internet. The good thing about them is you make profits ranging from 100%-300%.You don’t have to carry an inventory they do it for you and they do the shipping for you too. SMC also provides you with a personal business coach to help you every step of the way. Now you may have heard of the data entry and typing jobs that are out there. Well guess what they are a scam because they make you pay to work for them. You do not have to pay to work at home. When looking for jobs where you can work out of your house you need to know that you do not have to pay to get a job at home. The work at home jobs you should avoid are typing, envelope stuffing, processing refunds, making crafts, chain letters, and medical billing. All these jobs require you to pay fees to work at home. You do not need to pay to get in on a good work at home job. You can start a home based business on anything from a day care center to writing on things you know and everything in between. You need to find the right home based business for you. A lot of businesses ran out of the home fail because of the down times and you will have up times, but in the beginning you have more downtime. With all these opportunities around it is hard to choose one. Your best bet for a home based business is any idea you have in your head. Most people don’t want to act on their idea because they think the idea is dumb. The only dumb idea is the one not acted on.Your best tool you have is your brain and thinking is hard work and tiring, but if you think about what you want to do and you will be a success. You need to think about what you are going to sell. You need to research what people want. You need to think where you are going to advertise. You need to think what you want your ad to say. You need to think about what you want to write articles on. All that is why you need to use your brain. You can not put your home based business on auto pilot and expect to earn good money.

In conclusion,no matter how you choose to earn your money there will be a scam waiting to grab you and part you from your money.Keep your eyes open and you won’t get taken for a ride you don’t want to be on. You can earn money online for doing just about anything.If you have a good plan for a home based business go for it, but remember that it takes time to really get going. Use your brain and you can go far. When you start to earn money you will see that everything you put into your home based business pays off. Start off small than grow bigger. If you start small you won’t loose much and you will be able to see your growth. If you want to start big and you don’t grow you will be disappointed. Take it slow and you will earn more and more. If you find some one to help you make sure you can trust them. I hope you walk with a better understanding on how to earn money online. Here’s to you and all your success. May you be successful.

John Ong is editor of Top Work At Home - Focus on Earn Money Online, Work At Home, Home Based Business and Internet Home Business Opportunities. Work At Home Based Business

For many copywriters, correctly pricing their work is a constant
struggle. When it’s time to offer a price, a myriad of negative
influences — both internal and external — descends upon them.
Sometimes the result is disastrous.

I know this from personal experience. At the beginning of my
freelance career, some 20 years ago, I charged Stash Tea just
$18 per hour for my copywriting services. I got lots of work as
you might imagine!

My contact, Susan, eventually left, and just before leaving she
took me aside to tell me I’d been under-pricing by at least $30
per hour!

I never had the stomach to calculate my financial loss, but it’s
certainly been in the thousands, not just with this client but
with others too. The sum total of my foolish pricing decisions
could have funded a respectable CD earning hundreds of dollars
in interest over the years.

Why do copywriters under-price?

Here’s a short list of the primary reasons, and any or all may
play a part in the final pricing decision:

1. The copywriter is insecure. She reasons that she’s not highly
experienced or “famous,” and so should undercut her pricing.

2. No known benchmarks. The copywriter has not worked in an
agency environment, or “in-house” at a catalog company, or in
the advertising department of a sophisticated marketer, and has
no concept of fair pay for his services.

3. Financial stress. Pressure to meet financial needs and
obligations leads her to “come in low” in order to secure the
job.

4. Other motivators: He needs more samples on his Web page and
is willing to do the work for less in order to pad his
portfolio; the client is a small business and doesn’t have much
money for copywriting services; the client promises more work if
he’ll do the job “on the cheap” just this once (don’t believe
it); or… or… and the list goes on.

The fact is, many freelance copywriters talk themselves into
accepting less than they’re worth just to “stay in the game”…
but in doing so, they also ensure they’ll stay on the margins of
this highly lucrative career choice.

If you’re even the least bit weak-kneed when it comes to
pricing, you (and your family) will greatly benefit if you hone
your negotiation skills, and show the client that you demand
respect for your time.

To that end, here are some tools to help you price correctly on
every job:

1. Understand that you cannot price less than $50 USD per hour
and remain comfortably in business. You must charge for your
time, for your overhead, for your health insurance, for your
retirement fund, and for PROFIT, which is your right as an
entrepreneur. Generally, copywriters should charge at least $75
per hour to earn a livable income.

2. Charge more if you provide more. Are you an expert in a
particular field? Is your work impeccable, requiring little
revision work for the client? Do you offer creative direction?
Project management? Are you expected to attend on-site meetings?
When you price, price for everything you bring to the table…
not just the copy.

3. Avoid small businesses. They’re legendary for using too much
of a copywriter’s time, and paying too little for it as well.

4. Avoid working for individuals, small businesses, or other
entities that require education. If they don’t know what a
copywriter can do for them and you find yourself educating them
about copywriting or marketing, run as fast as you can in the
opposite direction. They’ll drain your energy and pay little for
it.

5. By the same token, if a business looks like it needs the help
of a copywriter (e.g., badly written Web site), don’t think
“Hey, they need me!” Rather, understand that they don’t need you
or their Web site would be well written in the first place.
Always work for people who understand and value copywriting.
They’re the ones who’ll be willing to pay your price.

6. Seek pricing benchmarks. Over the last 20 years I’ve
collected a file that is now 3 inches thick on copywriter
pricing. Like piecing a puzzle together, the “whole” of it
offers a better picture of what’s real — and what should be –
than the individual parts.

7. When you’re really stumped, try this simple but
stress-reducing technique (this works especially well for very
large jobs that are scary to price):

Simply sit down and devote an hour to actually doing some
writing on the project. (Don’t let the client know you’re doing
this or you’ll weaken your bargaining position.)

This one hour will help you grasp the true size of the project.
Often it’ll reveal that your original idea for pricing was way
off… in other words, way too low. Spending one hour on the
project will help you “chunk it down” so you can make a
realistic estimate of how much time you’ll spend.

Sometimes this hour is better spent thinking of all the things
you must do to complete the job, such as helping the client
write a Creative Brief, researching the competition, writing an
outline, etc. Then estimate time spent for each task, in
addition to writing the copy. Now you have something to work
with in pricing, rather than the amorphous thought, “this seems
like a big job.”

8. Write down everything you’ll do for the client and present it
to him with your pricing. In my Fee Agreement I’m very detailed
about what I’m providing (copy, testing concepts and rationale,
offer development, new testimonials, etc.), and will even detail
the size of the components of a package. When the client sees
all that copy representing what I’m going to do for him, he’s
less resistant about price.

Paul Zane Pilzer a world renowned economist became a millionaire
before the age of 26 after starting many entrepreneurial
businesses. He defines the term “wellness” as money spent to
make you feel healthier even when you aren’t “sick” by any
standard medical terms. He says that the next trillion dollar
industry is the wellness industry.

Wellness is on the increase as today people are becoming much
more aware of preventative healthcare and alternative medicines
than 15 or even 10 years ago.

Wellness simply means taking steps to prevent illness such as
eating a healthy diet,taking nutritional supplements,self
improvement,keeping fit,and using personal care products that
are non toxic to you or the environment.

He is a best selling author and has written several books one of
which is called “The Wellness Revolution, how to make a fortune
in the next trillion dollar industry”

The internet presents an ideal opportunity to develop a business
in the wellness industry as more and more people are buying
online.The number of people purchasing goods online has doubled
over the past year to 20 million.

A large proportion of these people are known as baby boomers.
They are reaching middle age and on the whole are concerned with
their health and diet,and are younger in appearance and attitude
than their parents were at that age.

They are looking to skin care products, vitamins and fitness
programs to keep them young.

Find a company with high quality, consumable products, and a
generous compensation plan to ensure your success.

To start an online business you will need a website or webpage
to show the products and the business. This may include a
shopping cart to enable visitors to purchase online.

Designing your own site is very easy now with the simple to use
software available. You don’t need to know HTML programing
anymore.

Some companies may provide you with your own homepage linked
into their main site. This would enable you to present the
products and business opportunity without the trouble and
expense of designing your own site.

This is great as you can produce business cards and flyers with
your address and promote both the products and business
opportunity to people who may be interested without the need to
hand out catalogues or leaflets.

The downside is that you don’t have control over the look of the
page which could make it very limiting.

The internet enables you to widen your search for customers and
potential distributors. Visitors will find your webpage and
approach you about the products and business opportunity. They
will be pre-qualified having read about your business
opportunity and products on your site.

The downside is that you don’t have control over the look of the
page which could make it very limiting.

Promotion of your site or webpage is vital to get traffic, and
there are many ways on and offline to do this including,

submitting your site to the main search engines and directories,

Producing a newsletter,

writing articles and submitting them to ezine directories,
handing out business cards with your website address on them to
people you meet,

placing ads in local newspapers, health magazines, your local
gymn or fitness centre.

Printing out flyers and leaving them everywhere including
cafe’s, on car windscreens, in newsagents windows etc.

by Karon Thackston © 2004
http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword

>From the early days of search engine optimization, keywords and
content have always been vital to achieving your goals. Starting
back in the days when we used to shove every slightly relevant
keyword into our Meta tags, it has been obvious that search
engines love text. The more advanced the engines have gotten
over the years, the more complex and sophisticated many writers
have gotten with their search engine copywriting.

Supposed formulas, saturation levels, and other mysterious
concoctions have been developed to help us outsmart the engines.
However, what we should have been doing all along was writing
for the visitor first and the engines second. Why? Because
creating a site that’s loved by visitors is a prime factor in
linking, ranking, and marketing as a whole. As the engines make
great strides with more personalized and efficient searches
(such as semantic search) natural search engine optimization
writing is even more important.

Rather than just indexing the copy on your site, engines are
learning to “understand” what a page is about. The ironic thing
is, as the search engines get more complex the “formula” for SEO
copywriting is actually getting more simple.

Write Naturally

In the future, search engines will be looking for Web pages that
reflect a natural tone with the copy. Is it obvious that
keyphrases are being shoved in wherever possible? Does every
headline/sub-head, image tag, and comment tag have a keyphrase
included? Does the copy sound fake, unnatural, and stiff? If so,
then spiders and bots will recognize it and possibly flag it as
something to be wary of.

Take a look at this lovely piece of copy I found while surfing
just the other day. (I’ve replaced the keyphrases used in the
original copy with the word “wherever” so as not to embarrass
the site owner.)

Wherever Holiday Rentals

Holiday rentals in Wherever for holidays in Wherever

Wherever holiday rentals directly from the owners. Rent a
holiday villa in Wherever or perhaps a 2-6 bedroom apartment in
Wherever. Wherever vacation rentals for holidays in Wherever are
easily located by searching the Wherever Holiday website.
Wherever Holiday Rentals offer holiday apartments in Wherever
and holiday villas.

Find accommodation in Wherever by clicking on the Wherever map
or the active links. You will then see holiday rental
apartments, villas and townhouses in stunning Wherever
accommodation.

Let’s suppose someone walked into your travel agency and asked
for help. You would most likely ask what they were looking for.
They would reply, “Holiday rentals in Wherever. What can you
show me?” Would you honestly take off on the spiel above? Can
you see yourself talking to a real client face-to-face and
saying, “We offer Wherever holiday rentals in Wherever and can
find you many apartments, villas, and houses in Wherever”? I
don’t think so.

Tips for Writing In Natural Language

1) Vary your keywords/phrases. For example, if a keyphrase you
particularly want to target is “14k gold jewelry” consider also
using keyphrases like “14k gold watches” or “gold wedding bands”
or others along those lines. This will give you a variety of
phrases within your copy.

2) Read it out loud. When you read your copy out loud you’ll get
a better sense of whether it sounds unnatural. If you wouldn’t
say, “We make 14k gold jewelry and have made 14k gold jewelry
for 10 years. If you need 14k gold jewelry just view our
catalog” out loud, then don’t put it in your copy, either.

3) Break up keyphrases. As searchers get more knowledgeable
about finding what they want in the engines, they use longer and
longer search queries some of which just don’t make any sense.
For instance, I recently had to use the phrase “real estate
Pittsburg downtown” when writing a page of SEO copy. Since this
search string was not easily worked in as that exact phrase, I
broke it up. One sentence I used it in said: “When looking for
commercial real estate in Pittsburg check the downtown listings
first for exceptional locations and prices.” The words are still
in the same order with minor breaks in between. When you can’t
use a phrase “as is” this is a very viable alternative.

Keep in mind the direction search engine optimization is taking.
The closer you can get to writing in natural language, the
better off you’ll be. It only makes sense to create a site now
that will last through the long haul. Especially when that site
will have a better chance of favorably appealing to the engines
and your visitors.