How To Make Money Online

8 SEO Trends That Are Changing The Face Of Blogging

Irina Weber — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 09:10:04 +0000

8 SEO Trends every blogger and website owner needs to understand and implement.

Enjoy!

#1 SEO Trend -The voice search explosion

Voice search is all around us. With the launch of the voice-activated speakers like Google Home, Amazon Echo, Android Auto, etc., voice search is becoming more and more a new platform for marketing and advertising. It is totally changing the way the users’ are communicating with search engines to find solutions to their issues.

Take a look at the latest statistics:

=> Google says that 20% of search queries are accounted for voice search.
=> 40% of adults use voice search once every day.
=> 50% of all searches will be voice related by 2020.

Of all the SEO Trends currently, Voice Search is perhaps the most important.

Frankly, if you are not catering for Voice Search you are being left behind!

How to optimize for voice search?

It is not enough to use traditional keyword phrases.

People are asking different questions like “how to”, “what”, “where”, “best”, etc.

Create more question-related content by describing their problems.

Top Tip: Use words like ‘what’ , ‘how to” and ‘best’ in your Blog Post Titles (H1 and H2 Tags)

Examples:

How To Do Voice Search SEO?

What Is RankBrain?

What is VPN?

Tips For Voice Search SEO

=> Try to find question-related keywords and develop a content that provides an answer to those questions.

=> You can create Q&A section in your site where you can quickly answer all possible questions from your clients.

=> You can use instruments like the keyword suggestion tool from SE Ranking to find what those questions are.

Just go to Keyword Research, enter a keyword and get results:

Related link: Optimize Your Site for Voice Search

#2 SEO Trend – Video

Video as a must-have part of any content strategy.

Video is still growing and becoming an integral part for any serious brand or company. People spend less time reading a bunch of information on a site, instead they prefer watching videos. Video is one of the most persuasive form of content that helps retain users on the page and, as a result, let Google know that this page is great.

Video marketing is a must-have job skill.

Especially, it will work well for e-commerce businesses that use videos on their product pages.

Here are a few interesting facts:

=> 55% of users watch online videos every day.
=> Video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer internet traffic by 2021.
=> Almost 50% of people search for videos involved with services or products before visiting a store.

If you want to get the most out of videos, YouTube is your partner of choice!

YouTube takes the second place as the most visited site on the web, after Google.

Some Video SEO optimization tips:

a. Start keyword research in YouTube.

Just enter a keyword in the search, and you will find the most popular search terms on YouTube. Gather a list of your niche-related keywords and use the best ones from your list.

b. Create high-quality videos.

Keep your videos on point and informative. People love watching high-quality and long-form video content. Videos that have at least 5 minutes in length will have good chances to rank higher in Google search results.

c. Make punchy video titles.

Titles affect the ranking of your video, that’s why it is vital to develop video descriptions with utmost care and consideration. them seriously. Create complete titles – at least 5 words long and include a target keyword you want to rank for.

d. Write a smart description. [This is KEY]

It is important to add video descriptions as it helps search engines better understand the content of your video. The better you explain your video, the higher you will rank. Write at least 250 words and make sure to use your keyword in the first sentence of your description. (see perfect example below from Brian Dean)

e. Embed your videos in blog posts.

This is obvious, but a surprising number of people who create great videos, do not embed them on their own blogs.

This gives you a perfect opportunity to connect with readers who may not be YouTube visitors

Not only that, done correctly, it can help you stand out from the crowd and increase conversions.

#3 SEO Trend – Mobile-first indexing

With the forthcoming mobile-first index, the rise of the voice search, the fact that 60% of all searches come from the mobile devices and mobile optimization becoming a ranking factor – we can’t ignore mobile SEO anymore. Google prefers more and more mobile-optimized web pages and recommends to focus on the user experience for mobile devices. If your website is not mobile-friendly, it is time to to do it.

What can you do about it?

Check out whether your web pages are mobile-friendly.

You do it with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

Just enter the URL you want to test and get your results.

If you have some issues, you can get instant recommendations on how to fix it and re-run the test once again.

It is essential to pay attention to things like your mobile speed, AMP, and mobile UX optimization. Mobile audience is less endurant while waiting for the web page to load. Test your mobile site speed and fix all issues that can hamper your mobile pages to load quickly.

A truly responsive design is crucial if you want to hold and attract customers that search and shop using mobile devices. Along with a responsive site, there are things you should focus on like content, images, videos, slideshows. Make sure that content for mobile devices is easy to read, titles are short, and the touch elements are clickable.

If you don’t have time to make your site mobile-friendly, you can do it using the mobile website builder by SE Ranking. It will help you create a mobile version of your site within a few minutes and increase conversions by 28% on average.

#4 SEO Trend – Featured Snippets

Based on this survey, Google provides instant answers to users’ questions in the form of the featured snippets, and it makes up to 30% of all search queries.

This is a Big Deal for SEO as these featured snippets take the new position #1 or position 0.

Featured snippets are stimulating the development of a new type of content like Q&A content. They help users find a clear answer to their questions.

Google takes the best content to answer users’ questions from web pages.

If you want to get listed as a featured snippet, you need to work on SEO optimization too.

Use Q&A style content on your website and follow the structure and formatting of the content to help Google find relevant information for the featured snippets.

Tables with highlights of your content or bullet point lists can also have good chances of becoming a featured snippet, even for small websites.

See this example from our sister website: RetireAt21.com

=> Do research and ask yourself what your target audience wants to know?

=> What kind of information you should solve their problems or answer questions they are asking?

=> The more useful the answers you provide, the higher chances of ranking better you have.

#5 SEO Trend – Linkless backlinks

Major search engines like Google and Bing have developed the ability to gauge a website’s reputation via any reference to a brand, anywhere online, together with the sentiment it is mentioned in. These references are known as “linkless mentions”, or “linkless backlinks” ~ Search Engine Watch

Over the years, links have been the foundation of SEO.

Right now links are still important, but the best links are those that naturally integrate with the web pages and those that spark users’ interest and encourage them to click on them.

At SMX West 2016, Duane Forrester, Bing senior product manager, announced that Bing is taking into account linkless mentions for ranking.

In other words a mention of your website or BRAND – even though the ‘mention’ does not link to your website.

Some marketers believe that these may be even more valuable than backlinks, as they are more difficult to create.

And many SEO experts believe that this patent may serve as the basis for Google to do the same thing.

What can you do about it?

First, you should rely on long-term link building and get natural and quality links. Learn to lay weight on unlinked backlinks. Search engines are associating more and more mentions with brands that can be a direct signal to define a website’s authority.

It is important to invest not only in the backlink monitoring tools, but use a good web monitoring tool to track any brand or product mentions.

Mention is my favourite tool to get live monitoring data in real time and focus on your brand awareness and reputation management.

#6 SEO Trends – The User Experience

Talking about SEO optimization, we don’t do that for search engines to rank well, we do for the users of search engines to find our websites. On this basis, the user experience is becoming more and more important for SEO.

Google throws no doubt that a poor user experience will affect site rankings. That’s why it is critical to be adapted for desktop and mobile devices to help users find what they are searching for easily and quickly.

Here is the following to-do list you should focus on:

=> Fast-loading website:

Do you know that the 40% of users leave websites that load more than 3 seconds? In other words, the success of your business doesn’t depend on minutes; it depends on seconds. Make sure your website is loading quickly. From time to time, test your site’ speed and fix any possible issues.

=> Mobile-friendly website:

Given that about 60% of all Google searches come from mobile devices, it is critical to optimize for mobile.

=> Technically functional website:

Users are really picky, and if something doesn’t work on your site, they will leave for good. Try to improve your site’s navigation and avoid using flash.

=> Easy-to-read websites:

If you want to attract users’ attention and increase engagement rate, you need to organize your content in an easy-to-read form. Create catching titles and subheadings, keep your paragraphs short, use visual aids and bullet lists, make your fonts readable, highlight important things.

#7 SEO Trends and Content

Content is still one of the key Google ranking factors.

But content alone is no longer a king.

Context, organization, relevance, and connectivity – all of these elements help you achieve your goals and make the most out of your content.

Over recent years, Google has remarkably improved the analysis of the textual content with the help of the RankBrain technology that understands content better.

So, you should work hard to make genuinely useful and unique content. Make sure that it meets users’ needs and interests. Ponder over the goal of the content you are creating. If you want to get an intense payoff eventually, you need to offer the best content in your industry.

#8 SEO Trends and RankBrain

On October 26, 2015, Greg Corrado, Google senior research scientist, announced that RankBrain has become the third-ranking factor.

Since then Google became more intelligent about detecting links and content that are not natural and unique. With RankBrain, you will get answers to the most challenging questions and get relevant results for the ambiguous search queries with different meanings.

If you want to succeed in SEO, start preparing for search engines. Focus on making natural links and quality content to reach the first page of search engine results. Moreover, Google will pay much attention to usability and technical SEO factors like page speed, site security, schema markup, site architecture.

How to get ready for RankBrain?

a) Drill down your keyword list

Stop using just one keyword or keyword phrase.

Try to expand your semantic core and use more variations and synonyms:

=>Use trending words and hot topics.
=> Pick up your competitors’ branded keywords.
=> Enrich your content with semantic keywords.

b) Write for people, not for search engines

A few years ago it could work, but not right now. Don’t try to please search engines, try to satisfy your target audience. Pick up on designing a better user experience, reviewing users’ behavior and making changes properly.

Make your content comprehensive.

Whatever your Niche – Go in depth!

=> If you’re serious about SEO, you NEED to optimize for RankBrain.

Final Thoughts On SEO Trends In 2018

More than ever, it is not about tricking the search engines, it is about working with the search engines!

While the SEO strategies mentioned above are important – it should not be forgotten that creating quality content, acquiring natural links, offering a great user experience and making sure your website functions technically* still remain essential.

* Survival of the fastest – Keep an eye on website Site Speed

* 18 Things Making Your Website Slow

* Keeping Plugins and Software Updated (checking for any compatibility issues)

* 18 Website Optimization Tips For More Traffic and Higher Conversions

Nate Rifkin | How To Write Better Copy and Make More Sales

Barry Dunlop — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 21:00:10 +0000

Nate Rifkin is one of the most prolific and successful young Copywriters of his generation.

His clients include publishing behemoth Agora, as well as starting his own nutritional supplement company.

But, unless you have a large budget it is almost impossible to hire him!

So we are very fortunate that Nate agreed to do a Skype Interview for us.

In this interview, Nate reveals his…

# 5-step Formula For Writing Sales Copy.

# How he researches a product,

# How he makes sure he is speaking his customers language

# Why sometimes too much knowledge can be a hindrance.

Enjoy!

Barry Dunlop

PS: We are including a very detailed edited transcript which we recommend you print off and read. There is also an audio recording for those that prefer to listen. This was a Skype Interview so in places the quality of recording is a little crackly – but this should not distract from your enjoyment too much;

Nate Rifkin Copywriter | Secrets To Writing Better Copy and Making More Sales

We started our interview by asking Nate how he got involved in being a copywriter?

Nate Rifkin: 5 Step Formula For Writing Sales Copy

1) Who should get this product? In one sentence, tell me who they are and what their problem is.

2) What’s the story behind your product or service?

3) What problems does it solve? Big and small, tell me all of them.

4) What’s your offer? What are you charging, why is it a bargain, and why should I buy it right now?

5) In one, short sentence, tell me what’s so great about this product.

Edited Transcription – Nate Rifkin Interview

We started our interview by asking Nate how he got involved in being a copywriter?

Nate Rifkin: …when I was around college age, in fact just entering my first year, I’d be surfing the Web. I’d find these odd, really long letters. They were sales letters. I didn’t know what they were.They just read like these letters where someone who had just written a book or put together a DVD course, let’s say it was on fitness or health or something, they would describe this amazing story of the struggles they went through, what they did to overcome them, all the things they learned, and talked about this product that they self-published and that they’re offering.

I would buy these courses. They were pretty cool. That’s when I start to actually discover this is a whole business. It was a way of bypassing a traditional publishing house or even just lucking out and getting involved with a massive business that creates products and being your own business owner and creating your own products.

I always loved writing, so I decided I was going to scour the Internet and search around, and study, and buy everything I could on how to write these kinds of letters, because I wanted to be in business for myself, and I was just some little guy. I didn’t have any connections.

I figured this was the best, and maybe the only way someone like me could do that. That was about 12 years ago, and I’ve been obsessed with it ever since.

Barry Dunlop: Thanks, Nate. The most important thing, probably, is the last thing you said. You’ve “been obsessed with it ever since.”

You mentioned you bought some books or you read something? Was there any particular mentor you wanted to give a shout out to? Is there anybody’s writing who, in particular, influenced you?

Nate Rifkin: Yeah. There’s a big one. The one that changed my life, that one is Gary Halbert. He’s pretty easy to find online. Unfortunately, he’s passed away now, but he did leave behind a legacy called the “Gary Halbert Letter. This is someone who got started in direct mail.

Gary Halbert is someone who generated millions and millions of dollars in a plethora of different businesses, who in time went on to teach how he did it. The Gary Halbert Letter is essential reading for anyone serious about about becoming a copywriter.

Barry: It’s remarkable how many people tell me Gary Halbert was the big influence. As you say, he’s no longer with us, but his influence lives on.

Nate, your 5-Question Formula For Writing Copy is a huge help for any copywriter, but are there any specific steps you may suggest for a first time copywriter?

Nate: One of the biggest problems I hear is overwhelm.

There are a million different ways to talk about something that you want to sell.

# Before you write any copy you need to know exactly where your audience is at in terms of the problem they’re facing?

# Do they know what options / solutions they have available?

# What solutions have they already tried?

For example, let’s say your potential customer has heart disease.

In addition, perhaps they have high blood pressure.

And they have already been to see their doctor.

Before you write any copy you must do your research.

If available, survey existing customers – what issues did they experience? What persuaded them to buy your product?

Another place to look is on social media sites – they are particularly good for identifying the PAIN your prospect has.

It is this PAIN you address in your sales copy!

I also recommend Amazon.com for doing research – reading the reviews is another great place to identify pain.

The best copywriters are human data-gathering machines

Coming back to a prospect who has heart disease…

Are they aware of the various prescription options?

Have they considered natural health supplements?

What have they tried, and what are they trying right now?

Then – and this is personal to everyone – you have to take stock of your solution and figure out if they’re even aware of its existence, if they’ve tried it before, and if they were satisfied (or not) with it the first go around.

Barry: That is very interesting Nate:

You need to know what they’ve used already and what happened when they used this previous solution.

Nate Rifkin: Yes, either way, you have to know.

I prefer ‘speaking’ to audiences that already have tried some standard solutions that didn’t work out. That’s when copywriting can be at its most powerful!

At its best, copywriting is education-based marketing.

However there can be some pitfalls…

Let’s say you’re offering a solution for heart health that has to do with lowering levels of homocysteine.

You could write a headline being like:

“New breakthrough solution cuts your levels of homocysteine in half. Read all about it,”

But there is a problem…

Hardly anyone knows about homocysteine!

Barry: I don’t know what it is, Nate.

Nate: Exactly. I have failed to research the awareness of my audience, and as a result, everyone will ignore my message.

On the other hand, contrast that with say blood pressure, where I write a headline saying,

“Amazing natural breakthrough lowers your systolic blood pressure 20 points overnight.”

Someone who has just been to their doctor, and discovered they have an issue with high blood pressure will want to read more.

Indeed, anyone with high blood pressure will want to read more!

You must speak your prospect’s language – no matter what the product or service. This is why the research is so important.

Imagine that instead of saying the above I had said…

“New threat to heart health that has to do with the pressure to your veins and your arteries”

It would have nowhere near the same impact!

People understand blood pressure – Like I said, you must speak your prospects language.

What’s funny about all this is I haven’t even really talked about writing yet.

The phrase is copywriting, but all I’m talking about it getting familiar with your audience and knowing where they’re at.

From there on, your sales message continues in the form of education.

You figure out where they’re at. You figure out what they know, what they’ve already tried, and then you educate them on what the pitfalls were and what they should do next.

For instance, in the blood pressure example, they already know about it, so you basically educate them on why other solutions are not as good. You may say, “You’ve probably heard of these prescription drugs. Sure, they might lower your blood pressure, but here is the problems with the side effects,” and then you continue from there.

In the case with, like you said, you’ve never heard of homocysteine. Right off the bat, even before I mentioned the term, if I’m writing to prospects interested in heart health, I would describe how there is a certain threat to your heart that you have not heard of, and here’s why you haven’t heard of it.

“Let me tell you the story. Let me tell you about this threat and what the science is behind it,” and then I would say, “OK, it’s called homocysteine,” and then — and only then — will I get to the part of the formula where I actually describe the solution, because I can’t describe the solution unless people know what the issue is.

Barry: That sounds amazing. I think actually the key takeaway for me is “education-based marketing.”

Nate: Yeah, but I do need to give credit. This is commonly referred to as “the state of awareness of the market”, and it was the book “Breakthrough Advertising” by Eugene M. Schwartz , who really broke this down.

That book is out of print, decades old. You can find copies on Amazon selling for over 350 bucks per copy, but the secret juice of that book is pretty much what I just revealed, knowing where the state of your market is.

Barry: That’s a good way of putting it, again, “the state of your market,”

Nate: I think that’s good for now, because the rest will be revealed as we go along. That’s kind of what I really wanted to hammer home, that first part of the state of awareness, so please fire away with what else you’ve got.

Barry: You’ve semi-answered some of this question already, but just for clarification, what do you do first when you are asked to write copy about a product or service you have no personal experience off?

Nate: The first thing I do is I stay away from that blank page, and I stay away from any heavy writing.

As in the example above I dive deep into researching the background of the product, researching how it works, researching the problem it addresses, and researching the folks who are most in need of the product, because they’re the ones experiencing the problem.

The market, the problem, and the solution, I research all that stuff.

I’m looking for how does it work, and what is the news story I can tell in my education-based marketing?

I’m learning about the folks who need it, because I want to make sure that I don’t, basically, say something stupid that they’re just reading it and going, “What? You obviously don’t know me. This obviously doesn’t apply to me, and it’s kind of a turn off.”

I’m also researching the problem itself, because I want to make sure that I understand it properly, for basically the same reason I understand the market. I want to make sure everything matches and aligned.

I guess I might as well go with the same example.

I will research what high blood pressure actually is, the science behind it, why it’s a problem, and in doing so I will find out some interesting things that I can reference in my education-based marketing.

For instance, with High Blood Pressure I’m going to look pretty terrible if I wrote a piece of copy that says…

“Have you felt the strain of high blood pressure when you suddenly get up, and it really hurts?”

You see that is not how high blood pressure manifests itself and I will almost certainly break rapport with my audience, because they see that I don’t know what I am talking about.

However, if on the other hand I said:

You may feel fine right now, and not know you have a serious blood pressure issue.

Then that is more likely to grab attention.

Then I want to research the mechanism behind the product, what makes it work, because I want to find out what makes it superior. I’m going to find out if there’s an herbal solution for blood pressure, I’m going to find out it actually brings levels, keeps it to the normal range, keeps them in the normal range, and it does this without any side effects.

I need to know all these facts because people are so jaded today.

You can’t just scream bigger and bigger benefits at them.

In copywriting you have to address customer skepticism and given them a reason why something is going to work.

I have to do my research, because if I don’t know my stuff, I’m going to be a terrible educator and then the entire sales message becomes a deck of cards and someone kicked at it like it’s a soccer ball. It’s all going to fall apart.

That is the first thing I do. If I’m entering a new market with a new product, it’s even more important than ever.

Someone asked me recently, how much of what you do is research compared to actual writing? Unless I know my stuff, it’s going to be like 80 percent research.

Barry: 80% research! That is remarkable.

Another big takeaway here is saying something that’s not correct.

I mean, if that’s not what they’re experiencing, they’re catch you out and say, “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” and close the page, and go somewhere else.

Nate: That’s crucial, and it’s very tricky, because kind of by definition it’s not something you can 100 percent watch out for, yourself.

You may be working the project alone locked up in your room, but eventually, this is going to go out to other people and they are different people from you. It’s very helpful if you have someone you can share your writing with and get feedback. Someone who perhaps knows the product and industry better than you.

You are not requesting a marketing opinion – rather you want to know:

“Am I addressing you properly? Am I speaking to you, what your experiences are?”

And most importantly, “Am I saying something where you’re like, ‘No, that’s not how I feel. That’s not something I’m going through'”? That one little extra step can kind of save you from tripping over yourself with your words.

Barry: Excellent, I like that a lot.

I have been told that when writing copy, the headline’s the most important thing, and if you don’t get that right, you might as well not write at all. Do you have any particular hacks or secrets for coming up with great headlines? What is a good headline?

Nate: I agree with what you say, because a headline…just think of it this way, it’s like a first impression when someone walks up to you and shakes your hand. In that five seconds, there is a lot going on. There is a lot of impressions being made, and a lot of them will never be unmade, even if you hang around that person for the next year. It’s kind of similar with headlines, even more so because if your headline isn’t going to grab the reader’s attention, they’re not going to hang around at all, much less for a year.

When you’re aware of your audience’s awareness, when you know what they know, and you know where they’re at, you can craft a great headline that speaks to them exactly where they are, and introduces them to a new idea.

Your headline’s job is simple. You want to grab their attention in a way that’s relevant to the issue they’ve got, and then presents them with kind of an inkling, a curiosity, where they realize, “You know, I gotta pay attention to this.”

Just as important as what a headline does is what it does not have to do. I didn’t say you had to sell your product. I didn’t say you had to get them to bust out the credit card and buy anything, or even believe you, or even necessarily trust you, not yet.

You just want to get them to say, “OK, I’m gonna check this out.” That’s it.

It’s kind of like a newspaper. People are aware of a current event going on. That newspaper headline grabs their attention because it speaks to what they already know, that something’s going on. It’s sort of an implied promise that they’re going to learn more information that’s very valuable to them.

Barry: That’s perfect. I like that a lot.

Do you have a best-ever headline that you’re particularly proud of, that you’d like to share with us? And if you have one, why did it work so well for you?

Nate: Let me think. There is one that, not only, it’s very successful and I think could be a great example, here.

The headline is:

“Toss Your Alkaline Water Down the Drain.”

Barry: Nice.

Nate: There’s a number of reasons why it works pretty well.

The audience that sees that headline is an audience that is interested in their health.

If you walk into a Whole Foods, or a store like that, there are rows and rows of these premium-priced waters boasting of their alkalinity, so it’s on people’s minds.

They’ve seen it. It’s something they can reference and it’s something they traditionally view as healthy, or positive, or certainly socially acceptable.

A headline saying toss it down the drain, it’s going to make them go, “What?

Why would I want to do that? As far as I know it’s good for me.

Is it dangerous? Is it bad? Is it just stupid? Why?

Is it wrong in some way that I should be even keeping this alkaline water in my home?”

There’s only one answer and that is to keep reading to discover this reason why.

Barry Dunlop: You’re really on fire, my friend. I appreciate your time.

I was wondering do you have and ideas or thoughts on creating lead magnets or offers that gets people to opt into your sales funnel?

Nate Rifkin: Sure. I’m not as involved in that as I am in the longer copy that sells the actual product, so I’ll be quick about it. I do have my ear to the floor of what’s working very well.

Answering one bit of curiosity is always what works best with lead magnets.

Just today, I saw a headline for a lead magnet that read:

“What oatmeal does to your body”

That got my curiosity. Made me ask:

Is oatmeal good for me? Or is it bad for me?

Naturally I want a copy of the report so I can discover whether or not oatmeal is good for me.

One little thing is all it takes.

One is infinitely better than two, three, four, five, or six.

When creating a Lead Magnet pick one thing that sparks folks so much they just need to know the answer to it.

Barry Dunlop: Yeah, that’s great. Now that all makes sense, my friend.

You’ve been a copywriter for a little while now and things change. Is there anything in particular that used to work and doesn’t work now, or vice versa, for example? What’s working right now that people really should know about that is relatively new on your scene?

Nate Rifkin: There’s two things that come to mind:

First is what’s not working well.

In terms of the state of awareness of the market people have increasingly already tried a lot of different solutions for their problem and have not been satisfied with those solutions. This is quite a different scenario from say a few decades ago.

People and prospects generally are a lot more jaded these days.

When you’re writing an ad and you’re not addressing the facts that people have tried other things and they did not work, you’re going to have a real tough time selling them.

You need to address their previous disappointments in your sales copy. (Again all part of your detailed research)

I mean, how are they not to know that what you offer them will not FAIL them also?

The second thing I would mention is that your marketing should match the media that the buyer is consuming on a regular basis.

Let me break that down.

30 + years ago, when Gary Halbert was in direct mail, he would send out sales letters that looked like letters because that’s what the person wants to read, a letter. It didn’t need to be a fancy catalog with amazing graphics.

However, when Gary ran ads in magazines, he made sure to format them like magazine articles because that’s just the easiest, most convenient thing for people to consume. Their defenses are down and they’re open to your message.

It’s the same thing with television when infomercials came out, they would often be in a format of news programs and interviews. That is what I mean by matching your message / sales copy with the media format that your buyer is used to watching / reading.

Then this funny thing called the Internet came along and marketers for a while struggled like, “What are people wanting to see on the Internet, and how do we align our sales messages with that? What’s the format?”

Today we’ve kind of figured that out in terms of presenting things with video, and also presenting things with pages that have pretty nice graphics that make it look like a nice WordPress blog.

Those are the two things — making sure that you’re up-to-date with just how many solutions your audience has tried and failed with, and also making sure that your sales message matches what people are used to seeing on the Internet.

By the way, an easy hack for that is to just look at the most popular media blogs and publications and social media sites. If you can mimic the look and feel and experience of them, you’re going to be delivering your content in a way that your audience will appreciate and consume better.

Barry Dunlop: That’s a very strong tip, Nate.

Do you have anything else you’d like to share with us that you feel would be valuable to our audience?

Nate Rifkin: Sure. My last little warning to entrepreneurs and would-be copywriters is a simple one:

Beware of the curse of knowledge.

It’s an advantage that you know your stuff, you have your product line, and you have your facts down cold. The curse of knowledge is you might be speaking to your audience in a way that’s a little bit too in-depth or fast for them.

My words of wisdom would be, take a step back. Make sure, even before you’re selling or asking for an order, make sure your audience gets it. Make sure you understand where they’re at.

Make sure that they get why your solution is better.

If you can show them that you know where they’re at and why your solution is better, they’ll credit you with knowing your stuff and more importantly, buy from you!

Provided the above is applied then the selling part will be a very easy, natural, and mutually-beneficial process from all!

Barry: Thanks Nate, that is an awesome summary. A great deal of value for here, for both the apprentice copywriter and the seasoned pro!

=> Nate Rifkin is one of the busiest and most in demand copywriters on the planet. Contact Nate via his website at NateRifkin.com

Nate Rifkin – 5-step Formula For Writing Sales Copy

Copywriting Related Posts On IncomeDiary:

Ted Nicholas Interview – Master Copywriter Reveals His Billion Dollar Secrets, Creating Killer Copy That Sells

Ray Edwards Copywriter – Interview

The post Nate Rifkin | How To Write Better Copy and Make More Sales appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

The 100 Richest Internet Entrepreneurs

Ivars — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 17:26:11 +0000

Find out which entrepreneurs have made the most money from their internet businesses with the all-new IncomeDiary rich list!

The post The 100 Richest Internet Entrepreneurs appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Top 30 Website Sales Of All Time

Barry Dunlop — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 10:00:59 +0000

A lot has changed since we first published Top 30 Website Sales Of All Time back in March 2009.

In this, our 2017 update we feature some brand new websites such as JET.com and Lynda.com.

All 30 website sales have been at valuations of over 1 Billion USD and the largest grossing exit was for 26.2 Billion!

Truly starting a website is still one of the best routes to riches!

If you are planning to sell your website one day then there can be no better advice than to start with the end in mind or as Ryan Allis succinctly puts it:

“You have to work with the end in mind and every day make sure your working towards it”

That last bit is particularly important:

Ask yourself daily – are you working towards your goals?

The entrepreneurs who founded the businesses below are outstanding examples of starting with the end in mind and working towards your goals.

I am inspired, I hope you are too!

Special Notes:

a) We are focused on successful Website Sales by founding entrepreneurs. We have not included businesses that went public (eg Facebook and Twitter) – However an number of the successful Website Sales have been as a result of the business being bought by Public Companies.

b) Not all Website Sales worked out well for the purchaser. An example of that was Microsoft paying over 6 Billion in cash for online display advertising company aQuantive in 2007 (No 2 in our list)

Top 30 Website Sales Of All Time

Rank	Website	Acquired By	Price	Acquisition Date
1	LinkedIn	Microsoft	$26.2 B	Dec 8, 2016
2	Aquantive	Microsoft	$6.33 B	Aug 10, 2007
3	Yahoo	Verizon	$4.5 B	Jun 13, 2017
4	Geocities	Yahoo	$3.6 B	May 28, 1999
5	Chewy	PetSmart	$3.35 B	Apr 18, 2017
6	Allegro	Permira	$3.3 B	14 Oct, 2016
7	WebEx	Cisco	$3.2 B	Mar 15, 2007
8	DoubleClick	Google	$3.1 B	Apr 14, 2007
9	Jet.com	Walmart	$3 B	Aug 7, 2016
10	OpenTable	Priceline Group	$2.6 B	Nov 7, 2016
11	Zulily	Liberty Interactive	$2.4 B	Aug 17, 2015
12	GSI Commerce	eBay	$2.4 B	Mar 28, 2011
13	TRADEX	SAP Ariba	$1.86 B	Mar 10, 2000
14	KAYAK	Priceline Group	$1.8 B	Nov 8, 2012
15	YouTube	Google	$1.65 B	Oct 9, 2006
16	Overture Services	Yahoo	$1.63 B	Jun 14, 2003
17	Lynda.com	LinkedIn	$1.5 B	Apr 9, 2015
18	PayPal	eBay	$1.5 B	Jul 8, 2002
19	eBay India	Flipkart	$1.4 B	Apr 10, 2017
20	Avito	Naspers	$1.2 B	Oct 23, 2015
21	Billmelater	eBay	$1.2 B	Oct 6, 2008
22	Yammer	Microsoft	$1.2 B	Jul 19, 2012
23	Zappos	Amazon	$1.2 B	Jul 22, 2009
24	Tumblr	Yahoo	$1.1 B	May 17, 2013
25	MapQuest	AOL	$1.1 B	Dec 22, 1999
26	Art Technology Group	Oracle	$1 B	Nov 2, 2010
27	Dollar Shave Club	Unilever	$1 B	Jul 19, 2016
28	Ebates	Rakuten	$1 B	Sep 9, 2014
29	Instagram	Facebook	$1 B	Apr 9, 2012
30	Lazada Group	Alibaba	$1 B	Apr 12, 2016

Final thoughts on Website Sales:

=> Every website I create is a asset I will sell one day.

=> My websites don’t just earn me money every day – they are my retirement fund!

Are you considering selling your online business?

=> Claim Your Free Website Valuation & Exit Strategy Today

Save

The post Top 30 Website Sales Of All Time appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

21 Smart Ways To Increase Website Value

Barry Dunlop — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 19:56:30 +0000

The subject of website value – attracts a lot of conflicting opinions!

Worse still, there is a multitude of so-called online “website value” calculators that claim to tell you how much your website is worth! Think about it – how can any website claim to give you a website valuation, without knowing your revenues, your profit?

No wonder website owners get confused!

If you own a blog, an eCommerce site, an Amazon FBA site, a lead generation site or any type of website here are:

21 Smart Ways To Increase Website Value

Special Note: No matter if you intend to sell your website now, or indeed never sell, there is much information here that will help you build a better website business.

#1 To Increase Your Website Value, Start With the End In Mind

It was Stephen R. Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, who in habit #2 introduced us to “starting with the end in mind’.

This one ‘simple strategy’ makes the difference when it comes to building website value – but it is often overlooked!

Fact is – you are never going to build website value and worth without first acknowledging it and stating it as a GOAL.

So let us start with this thought…

What is your exit plan?

Who will buy your website business?

Why will they buy your business and for how much?

A wise friend once said:

The Biggest Mistake A Small Business Can Make Is Thinking Like A Small Business

If your goal is a successful exit with a life-changing sum of money in the bank, then thinking and acting like a small business is one of the first things you will need to stop doing!

Millions of dollars (or Pounds, or Euros or whatever your currency) does not fall into your lap by accident.

There is lots more we could add here – but perhaps the most important thing is knowing who your potential buyers are.

Even if it may be many years in the future, now is the time to appear on that buyers radar, to make connections with them, to network with them.

Knowing the largest players in your market and understanding their intentions is invaluable when it comes to finding buyers for your website..

Do You Buy Websites?

Join Our Website Buyers List – subscribe below:

Subscribe to Website Buyers

#2 Use Diversified Traffic Sources

Bloggers and online business owners boost about getting huge amounts of business from SEO, or Facebook or whatever the latest Hot Traffic method is.

But what if Google no longer likes your site or suddenly advertising on Facebook doubles in cost – where are you then?

Experienced buyers of websites and online investors will down value your website business if most of your income/traffic comes from one source.

Having most of your traffic coming from a single source leaves you vulnerable to future changes in search engine algorithms, increased competition, and other factors.

Diversity in traffic is also a factor that search engine algorithms increasingly consider more and more.

You should try to get traffic from a multitude of the following sources:

Search (Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc.)
Social Media (Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)
Direct
RSS Feeds
Partner Websites
Other Industry Specific Blogs
Industry Specific Forums
PPC Ads

#3 Create Unique Evergreen Content

Over the past few years, online marketing has shifted from ‘outbound’ to ‘inbound’ marketing. For you, this means that you must educate your customer, not just sell to him or her.

Unique content is one of the best ways to provide educational material about your industry, which informs the client and explores his needs and concerns. In addition, through such content, you can position yourself as an authority in your industry. Having a blog is one of the best ways to present your own content.

When possible, your content should also be “evergreen” – meaning it should preferably be on topics that are unlikely to change significantly in the future. Evergreen content will keep attracting visitors even in the long-term future and will keep generating new clients.

You can find many content writers for your business through freelance platforms such as:

For an example of evergreen content check out this IncomeDiary post from 2012 – Thoughts On Success

Over 5 years later this one post still brings this website traffic every day!

#4 Secure Domain variations | Major Social Media Extensions

With so many domain extensions available today it is difficult, not to mention impractical and costly to secure every domain extension.

Our advice – focus on securing at least the .com plus your local domain extension [e.g .co.uk and .com.au]

Then if you are serious about your brand also secure .net and .org

Website buyers are impressed and reassured if you own all the major domain extensions for your brand.

If you are a Startup, a great place to check both Domain Name combinations and social media username availability is NAMECHECKR

In test search below, you will see that the .com plus Twitter handle is not available – while the .net, FACEBOOK and YouTube extensions are.

Website buyers like to see that you have secured your [brand name] in all the major social media channels.

Having a different username on Facebook compared to say Twitter or YouTube is not ideal.

Again being on every social media channel is impractical – focus on the BIG ones like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest and Linkedin. In short, establish yourself on the social media channels that your customers frequent most often.

A lot of social media can be automated – but we discourage anything spammy or BOTS crawling across the Internet auto liking certain hashtags!

Suddenly losing your Facebook or Twitter accounts because of spammy practices is a way to decrease website value!

A great way to automate your social media is to use IFTTT

For example, with IFTTT you can easily set INSTAGRAM up so that every time you do a post it also posts to Twitter, your Facebook page, and Pinterest account.

By automating your social media marketing and presence, you increase your website value faster.

#5 Increase Website Worth Through Testimonials and Star Ratings

Social proof is an essential persuasion tactic.

It creates trust with your customers, making it more likely that they will commit to making a purchase. It will also make the information you provide appear more reliable.

And there’s no better way to give social proof than by using testimonials and Star Ratings.

By placing testimonials on your website, you significantly increase your website value.

Customers relate to your brand more easily when they see active engagement coming from others like them.

Today’s evolved entrepreneur doesn’t just deliver a product – they deliver an experience!

How will buying from you differ from buying from a competitor?

It is that difference that will create the biggest increase in website value!

Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit put it brilliantly:

“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what consumers tell each other it is.”

This is why testimonials and endorsements are essential when building website value.

How Do You Get Testimonials?

In short – ask for them!

Follow up with customer satisfaction surveys that ask questions like:

What, specifically, was your favorite part of my product, and why?

If you were to recommend my product to your best friend, what would you say?

Of course, some customers will give you testimonials without asking – but the best policy is to ask.

You can add a link on your website where customers can provide their testimonial.

See the Expert Photography Submit Testimonial Page

Star Ratings are a slightly different subject and one that worries some entrepreneurs.

What if your competitor or a disgruntled ex-business partner decides to give you a nasty review?

Yes, that could happen – but most Star Rating services give you the opportunity to respond.

A website with thousands of 4 and 5-star reviews you will have a lot more website value than one without any star review scheme.

Accept it entrepreneur – transparency is essential in the modern business.

Businesses such as Amazon and Tripadvisor would not be the massive sites they are today without a Review Scheme.

TrustPilot and YELP are two of the biggest review sites.

Also, check out: 19 Online Review Sites for Collecting Business & Product Reviews

Want even more proof?

Check out useproof.com

This website helps deliver higher conversion rates on your website by displaying recent sales and opt-ins.

#6 Get A Premium Domain Name

Premium domain names are short, memorable, easy-to-spell names that end in popular extensions like .com. They cost more than normal domains (often a lot more) – because they are more likely to drive traffic to a website.

Also, when it comes to branding and authority – owning the generic keyword domain name (especially the .com) adds a lot of value to a business. You can use these Premium Domains to point at your main website or develop new websites on them that compliment your business. See also #8 below – Turn Your Website Into a Hub

My Own Experience:

Back in the early 2000’s, I was running a portfolio of successful lead generation sites in the home improvement niche. As that business became successful we invested in a number of generic keyword domains that added to the authority and reputation of our business. This strategy paid off handsomely when we eventually sold the business.

And it doesn’t even have to be an obvious strong generic term – check out this example:

SumoMe pays $1.5 million for Sumo.com domain name

Getting a premium domain that relates to your industry or products can give you a significant and lasting competitive advantage.

Quality domain names can also help your website achieve higher rankings in search engine results, giving you greater visibility and increasing your website value.

To purchase premium domain names, you can visit any of the following markets and search for key terms in your industry:

Of all the suggestions we are making for increasing website value this one has one of the highest cost implications – but if you have a successful business and are serious about building a valuable brand this is still one of the best things you can do.

#7 Inbound Link-building (Backlinks)

Getting back-links from reputable, high authority websites is a great way to build value. Overall, it helps you achieve two things.

First, getting back-links from highly reputable and authoritative websites makes your own domain more authoritative. Higher authority means you to rank higher in Search Engine results resulting in more traffic and greater revenue.

Second, back-links increase the diversity of your traffic sources directly by adding referral traffic.

That’s two benefits into one!

A good way to start link-building is to join the conversation on other blogs in your industry, provide valuable content to other websites in your industry through guest posts, and get links from partner sites. [ see #13 Guest Posts]

#8 For Maximum Website Value Turn Your Website Into a Hub

A good copywriter friend of mine once told me that as soon as he discovered a winning product or offer he would ‘knock himself off”.

Success breeds copycats – and my friend’s strategy was that in this instance, he may as well “compete with yourself” by creating a related but not identical product. (It could be a superior product with better features and more expensive or even an inferior product with fewer features and cheaper)

A hub is the center of activity. If you can turn your website into the center for your industry, it will become a strategic asset. You can achieve this by providing access to vital resources about your industry through your site or a series of related sites.

In point 6 above – we emphasize the advantages of buying Premium Domains.

For example, if they are 6 main keywords that describe your product offering and you own most or all of them as .com’s you will be default be creating a HUB and recognized as the premier authority.

Education of the customer is essential.

Customer education can come in the form of your own content, links to other highly authoritative industry leaders, as well as a place where customers can come and discuss.

So long as customers can navigate to everything they would need from your website, you are achieving this goal.

Reality is there will always be those who will try to emulate you – and unless you have a patent-able concept it will be difficult to protect yourself from them. The successful entrepreneur knows this and will of course also do all they can to protect their Intellectual Property (IP)

Indeed another way to add website value is to create IP (Courses, software, systems) related to your websites. If you can show that you are doing this and successfully protecting yourself, buyers will be encouraged and more likely to make you a substantial offer.

Talking of copycats here is a brilliant 2.15 min video that is too good not to share.

#9 Keep Good Records

Prepare for your buyers’ due diligence – in particular financial, legal and website due diligence.

If you run your website keeping in mind you plan to sell it one day, this kind of information will be at your fingertips.

Keeping financial records for a website is relatively straightforward – just make sure that if for example, you have more than one website that all income attributable to each website is clearly defined in your accounting. Likewise with costs. This is essential if you only plan on selling some of your websites and not all of them.

Likewise keeping track of traffic and sources of traffic is pretty straightforward with Google Analytics.

Again, make sure if you have multiple websites that you can show each website’s traffic individually.

Are there any skeletons in the closet?

Disagreements with former business partners, disputes with suppliers? unpaid bills? unhappy customers?

Don’t be naive and think the due diligence process will not discover these ‘issues’.

Indeed nothing puts off a buyer more than that feeling you are trying to hide something.

A sensible buyer will require you to sign a disclosure making you liable for any undisclosed issues that come up after the sale is concluded. All the more reason to disclose everything remotely legal or negative – even if you think it is not that important.

In fact, disclosing issues is more likely to make a potential buyer feel confident in purchasing your website business.

#10 Make Sure To Optimize Your Website For Mobile Access

OK, this should be obvious but it is remarkable how many ‘old websites’ with good evergreen content have never been updated to mobile friendly. Of course, this represents an opportunity for the entrepreneur who can pick them up cheaply and convert them to mobile-friendly.

The ever helpful Google have a mobile friendly test

Without a well optimized mobile experience, you’re likely to lose a lot of traffic, and with it significant revenue.

Not to mention that given how fast the mobile age is developing, you’re liable to fall behind the competition. If you want to increase the value of your website, it’s a must to ensure that it is mobile-optimized.

You can use an online tool, such as HubSpot’s Website Grader, to check how well your site is doing in terms of mobile optimization amongst other things.

#11 Use Great Copywriting

Effective copywriting is key to communicating your brand’s message to the consumer. It’s also the key to more sales. With well-written copy, you can tap into your buyers’ psychology, and start getting the results you’ve always wanted.

In this manner, you can increase customer engagement, click-through rate, conversions, and purchases. Great copywriting will make your online real estate more attractive and more valuable – and this is true regardless of your monetization method.

Related: How to Create a Killer Offer

#12 Use Multiple Monetization Channels

Buyers like websites that have multiple sources of income.

For example, if you are a blogger you can make income from selling your own informational products, creating a mastermind group, run your own events (seminar/conferences), run Google Adsense, website sponsorship and as an affiliate.

If you have an eCommerce store, you can also add Google Adsense to your site or launch your own affiliate program.

If you train your mind to look out for opportunities for additional revenue streams they will appear.

One store we know was selling herbal teas – but then discovered there was a huge demand for the tea caddies the teas got shipped in. (all because one customer emailed to ask if they could buy the empty tea caddies)

Whatever the case, multiple sources of revenue make your business stronger.

#13 Guest Posts | Write For Authority Websites

Quality guest content is a great way to form relationships across your industry. You can invite other authorities from your industry to post articles on your blog. And you can also get your content on other valuable sites as a guest writer.

Note the word Quality here!

IncomeDiary gets a huge number of guest posting requests but publishes very few.

The reason is simple.

Most of the so-called guest bloggers are more interested in getting a quality link back than they are in delivering quality content!

If you are going to write for an authority website take the time to produce something of real value, something that adds value to the readers’ life, something that makes the reader appreciate the website more.

Writing a load of average commentary that could be found on just about any average website is a waste of your time and the authority websites time!

IncomeDiary guidelines for writers include:

=> Your post must be original — NO SPUN CONTENT;

=> You agree you will not publish the content anywhere else (i.e., in your own blog or as a guest post in other blogs);

=> Author bios/bylines which are displayed on the post page can include one link (no keyword stuffing);

=> Articles can include non-self-serving useful and relevant links, none in the first paragraph (spammy and self-serving links will cause the article to be rejected);

=> Great grammar and spelling required — US or UK English and

=> Guest posts need to be no less than 1,500 words. (ideally in excess of 2000 words)

Guest posts are a wonderful way to generate high-quality back-links, get referral traffic and increase your brand awareness.

Creating quality guest posts is also one of the best ways to increase your site’s rank in Google search results. An incredible asset to have, which will certainly increase your value.

#14 Create A Sales Funnel

Not every website is a Sales Funnel.

Many websites are just information sites – where the visitor leaves and buys elsewhere!

A Sales Funnel, on the other hand, collects your information (usually with a lead magnet or offer) and SELLS you something.

Or as a friend of mine likes to put it:

“Give me your information, let me sell you something”

Without a properly thought out Sales Funnel your website will not be able to convert adequately.

A sales funnel involves integrating all elements of your website such that everything works together to drive sales.

From building customer awareness to gathering leads, to finally monetizing them, a sales funnel helps you bring everything together.

It also helps you clarify your strategy, and understand where future growth may come from. Such understanding can help you extract a higher value from your existing customer base.

Being able to demonstrate a sales funnel that works is one of the best ways to add value to a website.

#15 To Add Website Value – Build An Email List!

If you have been following IncomeDiary for any time, you will know the importance we attach to email marketing.

An email list of clients is precious since it provides access to a particular, targeted group of people. And you already know that your services and products interest your subscribers.

Putting out future offers to your list of subscribers is likely to give off much better conversions than cold emails. Not to mention that if you ever decide to sell your business, this will be a precious asset. A list of customers is one of the key assets buyers are looking for and without question a sure fire way to add website value.

#16 Make Use Of Original Image & Video Content

The use of image & video content is one of the best ways to drive user engagement.

Having a multitude of ways to present content, marketing material and products increases conversions and customer enthusiasm.

Video content, especially when hosted on YouTube, can also help improve search rankings. It will also improve user engagement and will increase share frequency on social media.

Visual content is also essential to create a clear brand image. With original pictures and video, you can increase the value of your online real estate.

Well produced videos are a great way to add value to not only an article but your website.

For example 21 life Lessons from Steve Jobs

#17 Deliver Your Content Through a CDN

A CDN, or Content Delivery Network, is a series of cache servers that store your online content and provide it to users from the closest server. Nowadays, CDNs deliver more than half of all traffic over the web.

A CDN adds value to your website for the following reasons:

Faster page loading speed.
Can handle high levels of traffic.
Blocks spamming bots.
Increases security against DDoS attacks.

The speed benefit is the most important. Delays in page loading time cause significant drops in conversion rates. You can check your current page loading speed here. You should preferably aim for pages that load under 3 seconds.

There are both free and paid CDNs. From the free CDNs, two excellent choices that integrate well with WordPress websites are Cloudflare & Incapsula. From the paid options KeyCDN, MaxCDN and Amazon’s CloudFront are all good options.

For more on CDN and ways to increase y0ur website speed see click here.

Also, 18 Things making your website slow.

#18 Use an SSL Certificate (HTTPS)

Acquiring an SSL certificate is essential to assure your customers that their connection to your website is secure. Its presence significantly increases customer trust, as well as the value of your online property.

Among the many other benefits, SSL encrypts data your clients send to the server. The certificate ensures that the data can only be read by the intended parties.

Other advantages include:

Protects against phishing.
Required for Payment Card Industry (PIC) compliance.
Provides certification that the website is yours and not a carbon copy.
Increases customer trust and conversions.

Despite the cost of acquiring an SSL, the benefits it provides are well worth it!

#19 Use Personalized Content

Many successful websites today make use of personalized content. Such content is most effective in eCommerce businesses, but it can work with other monetization methods as well.

Personalized content allows you to target the products/information shown to users based on personal data. This data includes:

Geographical Location.
The device used to access the website.
Search terms used.
Local time.
Referring URL.
Visit frequency.
Client behavior on the page and viewing history.

With personalized content, you can increase conversions, improve lead nurturing, and be more customer friendly. Besides, you can also target your customers with more specific marketing material.

This is why having personalized content can have a significant boost in your website’s value.

#20 Build A Network of Internal Links

The following is especially important for BLOGs.

It is a fact that every time IncomeDiary publishes an article it appears on other websites (scrapped) often within minutes.

The worse culprits get a cease and desist – but even those who get past our radar will find that this article they have ‘published’ will have lots of links embedded within it linking to our content. This article alone has 14 links to other related articles within the site.

A website without a proper system of internal links is very difficult to navigate.

Isolated, un-linked content is also more easily stolen by competitors or internet bots.

If you publish an article with many links to other pages of your website, it’s easier for users to navigate to resources they may be interested in.

In addition, it’s harder to copy your content since internal links will still redirect to your domain.

Such links also help you build the relevance of individual pages with regards to search engines.

Of course there is content (such as in a Sales Funnel) where you would not wish to cross-link or take the visitor away from the task at hand, but generally speaking, that is not the kind of content that gets stolen.

#21 Ensure You Have High-Quality UI/UX Design

Get a professional design for your site’s user interface and user experience. It will help you build a stronger brand image and will increase your website’s conversions as well.

Having a professional image that customers can relate to is one of the main ways to increase the value of your website. You can contract professional designers through crowd-sourced design competitions on the following sites:

Alternatively, you could also use the freelance platforms previously mentioned especially if you’re looking to work primarily with only one designer.

Implementing a high-quality design plus the other 20 steps is essential if you want to sell your website at the highest price as quickly as possible.

Final Thoughts!

To create a truly valuable website business you should:

a) Systematize and automate as many procedures as possible.

With the technology available it has never been easier to automate tasks. If you can show to potential buyers that you have been reinvesting profits in making your website more efficient and that they can reap the benefits when they buy your website, they will pay more for your website.

b) Remove Yourself

For a successful exit, you should be able to demonstrate that the business can operate without you.

A business that relies on an owner to succeed is going to sell for less than one that can operate without the owner.

You know you have a successful business when you can remove yourself and the business operates perfectly well without you.

Looking for a Website Broker?

Our grateful thanks to Logan Chierotti and the team at BizSold.com^SM for their assistance with creating this article.

BizSold are masters at extracting website value with over 500 successful sales and 10 years of website broker experience.

Have Logan and the BizSold team provide you with a Free Website Appraisal & Exit Strategy

Name*
First Last
Best Email*
Your Main Website Address:*
Telephone Number:*
Please provide the best numbers to contact you on. (include area code and country)
Turnover / Revenue*
Details of your recent annual turnover (at least last 12 months, ideally longer)
Tell us about your business
When did you start? Who else is involved? Major achievements?

Author Bio:
Barry Dunlop is a lifelong entrepreneur, Mastermind Facilitator and sales coach who launched his first Internet Business in 1998. He invests in renewable energy technology, Domain Names, and Website Flipping.

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The post 21 Smart Ways To Increase Website Value appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

7 Secrets To Writing A Best Selling Book That Sold 2 Million Copies!

Jerry Gillies — Mon, 01 May 2017 11:11:32 +0000

How To Write A Best Selling Book…

Most successful bloggers dream of writing a best selling book one day.

A book that will impact the lives of MILLIONS!

In this article best selling author Jerry Gillies reveals his own personal secrets on how to write a best selling book.

Jerry wrote the 2 Million selling best seller MONEYLOVE back in 1978 – in the days before the Internet and Amazon.

At a time when you could not fake your book into a “best seller”.

How I Raised Myself from Poverty to Prosperity With a Bestselling Book, plus 7 Secrets That Will Help You Do The Same

By Jerry Gillies

I am not declaring that I am smarter, or even a better writer than you.

In fact, I’d be willing to bet you are in better financial shape right now than I was then.

Two things, however, that led to my success:

An overwhelming belief that I had something valuable to say.
The willingness to drop everything else in my life, including an income, and focus all my energy and attention on writing.

I was barely getting by after quitting my job as a broadcast journalist in New York and moving to Miami. Then, Moneylove came out and hundreds of thousands of dollars started pouring in. This is not a unique or unusual story. Many writers have seen their fortunes dramatically improve following their first bestselling book.

In fact, there are few single events in life that can produce the results in cash, widespread recognition, and building a legacy than having a book hit the NY Times bestseller list. Being able to call yourself a bestselling author is just as prestigious, though not nearly as difficult to attain, as being able to call yourself an Academy Award-winning actor, or Nobel Prize winner.

In the process of moving from poverty to prosperity, I discovered some truths gathered during thirty years of being a bestselling author and knowing many authors even more successful than me. So, here are the seven secrets, the concepts, the strategies that produced two million sales for Moneylove.

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #1:

The Company You Keep

Most of us have heard this or a variation of it ‘You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.’

Well before Moneylove, I wrote a book called FRIENDS–The Power and Potential of The Company You Keep.

In that book, I focused on the importance to a happy and successful life of having what I termed a “supportive interpersonal environment.”

Since all writers need encouragement and praise, it is vital that the people around you can provide these benefits. Particularly, you need to include writers in your circle of friends. And specifically, if possible, writers who are published and more successful than you.

This is a big one you don’t hear about too much. Instead, you hear about how writers are mostly loners and isolated, therefore not available to you for mentoring and support. This is basically a Big Lie.

It is true that a majority of writers keep to themselves a lot, otherwise they wouldn’t get much writing done. But I luckily stumbled upon the fact that there are bestselling authors hanging out at a lot of specific places, and they are very friendly and approachable at those places. The advantage of getting to know some bestselling authors is that you will discover we are ordinary folk, and you fit in very well when we get together.

A bestselling millionaire author would much rather hang out with a beginning writer earning minimum wage as a waiter (while writing his or her book) than a banking tycoon or multimillionaire builder.

Best Selling Writers – Where Are They? How Do You Reach Them?

When I was doing interviews at NBC Radio in New York, I got to talk to a number of bestselling writers, but it wasn’t until I joined and became active in the Association for Humanistic Psychology that I had the opportunity to be in the company of lots of them. One amazing thing I discovered was that I was treated with the same welcoming energy and respect before I had written my first book as I was when sales of Moneylove started approaching their first million copies. And the lectures and workshops at AHP conventions were fascinating and gave me a lot of material for future books.

Next, I joined The National Speakers Association, thanks to Mark Victor Hansen, who invited me to my first NSA convention. Then, the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, where I got to know people like Ray Bradbury and Rita Mae Brown.

Finally, The Inside Edge, the famed leadership support group [Mastermind] that Jack Canfield, Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, Norman Cousins, myself and Susan Jeffers helped found, and most of the board of advisors had written successful books.

There’s not enough room in this article to list all the advantages of hanging out with other authors.

A strategy you might explore is to get in touch with some successful authors and find out whether they attend any of the writers conferences or other professional associations, and, if so, whether they would be willing to meet with you for a chat.

Of course, if you have any bestselling authors in your city, you can contact them and ask for a personal interview. As a former newsman, I sometimes used this ploy and just asked a favorite author if I could interview them for a possible article or newsletter. Now we have blogs to serve that purpose. No matter how rich, famous, and busy a bestselling author is, they will rarely turn down a new writer who wants to spend a few minutes with them.

A perfect example of this comes from two of the bestselling authors in human history. They are also two longtime friends of mine, going back over thirty years, before they ever wrote or even thought of the first book in the bestselling series
of the 20th century, the Chicken Soup for The Soul series.

I first met Jack Canfield when I interviewed him for NBC. Mark Victor Hansen and I became friends after he wrote me a wonderful note telling me how much Moneylove had meant to him and had helped him become a prosperity teacher. They were both impressed with how successful Moneylove was.

The Chicken Soup for the Soul books, over 225 of them, which have sold half a billion copies in 47 languages, are collections of short true stories from teachers, workshop leaders, and ordinary people. Some of them are funny. Some are sad. But they all have an uplifting message. I’ve written five of the stories myself for three of the books over the years.

I think Jack and Mark would have been astonished, to know two things when we first talked about this first Chicken Soup book: One, how very very successful it would be, making them both millionaires many times over. Two, and maybe even a bigger surprise–they did not start out planning exactly this kind of book, of tales from mostly ordinary people out there.

Here’s a Chicken Soup for the Soul story, which I don’t think has ever been told anywhere before, but I was there.

Shortly after meeting Mark Victor Hansen, he invited me as his guest to the annual convention of The National Speakers Association, being held that year in New Orleans. I didn’t know any of the professional speakers in the group, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover how many knew me through Moneylove. These included people like Zig Ziglar and Denis Waitley and Og Mandino. I became a member, and I then told Jack Canfield about the group and that I thought he’d enjoy it and gain some real value from being a member.

One of the great benefits of seeing all those great speakers in one place, seeing and hearing their best talks, one after the other over several days, was that we got to hear their best stories. Jack and Mark and I talked about the fact that every speaker had at least one killer story he or she told at the end of their talk.

It was either a funny or inspiring or poignantly moving story, sometimes all three.

I don’t know which of us thought of the idea first, but we began to discuss going to all these top speakers and collecting their killer stories for a book.

Jack and Mark took off with this idea as I got involved in other things, mostly traveling and doing workshops overseas. A problem came up that provides a valuable lesson for all authors.

That lesson is:

Since many of the most famous and successful speakers had just one powerful closing story they used for audiences all over, year after year, they were reluctant to allow them to be circulated more widely in a book. Also, some of them were the types of stories that had to be heard with an audience to be most effective. Their power and impact might be diminished by appearing in print.

So, Jack and Mark dramatically changed their focus. They realized that lots of people had great, moving, funny, inspiring stories. Stories from their own lives. And Chicken Soup for The Soul was born. They also deserve a lot of credit for their persistence and commitment (two more qualities any author needs), since that first Chicken Soup book was turned down by about 150 different publishers in the course of a year or so. Finally, the small Florida-based company, Health Communications, took it on. The rest is truly publishing history.

Some valuable lessons for all writers and potential bestselling authors in the experiences of Jack and Mark. But I think the most valuable one of all was that they were ready to turn on a dime when circumstances changed. They changed the criteria for the stories in the book itself, and they kept going when many another author would have given up after the first 10 or 50 or 100 rejections.

Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer.
– Ray Bradbury

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #2:

Happy Talk About What You Do

Many writers giving advice say an author shouldn’t talk about what he or she is writing. It’s true that talking too much to too many people about your forthcoming book, article, or blog post can suck the energy out of any creative project. I agree with that premise, but do want accentuate the positive truth that you should be talking about what you are doing in your own life. Especially the stuff you plan to include in your book.

“You better make them care about what you think. It had better be quirky or perverse or thoughtful enough so that you hit some chord in them. Otherwise it doesn’t work. I mean we’ve all read pieces where we thought, ‘Oh, who gives a damn.’ ”
—Nora Ephron

My Own Happy Talk Experience

A lot of the success for me in writing and promoting Moneylove came from the fact that I was already talking about prosperity consciousness before I even pitched the book to a publisher. I had listened to some tapes of a man named Leonard Orr, who had an unusual concept. He said your attitudes about money itself dictated your financial results.

This excited and stimulated my creativity and I went to one of his evening seminars. I started to come up with strategies of my own to put his ideas into action. I had been doing lectures and workshops on communication and relationships. Now I threw in little tidbits about prosperity consciousness, and how I was using it in my own life.

People got enthusiastic, got results, and asked for more and the rest is all about the momentum that energy generated.

I love the song Happy Talk in the musical, South Pacific. Especially the opening:

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk,
Talk about things you’d like to do,

I would change the second line to: “Talk about things you do.” If you are passionate and excited about the subject of your book, or whatever you are writing, and have found the ideas are making a difference in your life, or the lives of anyone else, then talk about that–not the specifics of your actual book.

One great strategy to put this concept into practice is to prepare, before you even start writing your book, an actual thirty minute talk on the subject. This will also enable you to introduce your ideas and focus on the most important theme. You can even approach local organizations that book speakers about having you do your talk. Even if you do some free talks for charitable groups, churches and such, it’s a great marketing research tool.

This also helps with something all aspiring authors need to do. In today’s publishing world, an author needs to do a lot of the marketing and promotion himself. It is vital that you not only provide a great proposal or manuscript to a publisher, but also tell what audiences will buy the book and how you intend to reach them

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #3:

Start Immediately

“My advice is not to wait to be struck by an idea. If you’re a writer, you sit down and damn well decide to have an idea. That’s the way to get an idea.”
~ Andy Rooney

One of the first pieces of prosperity advice I put in Moneylove was from pioneering psychologist William James. He said that in order to change your life, you had to start immediately. So, let us consider this: you are probably not a bestselling author right now, or you wouldn’t be reading this article. What you want to therefore change is to become a bestseller author, at least to begin that process. Start immediately. Start writing, even if you’re not sure what you want to say.

If you are serious, begin to write at least one page a day. It doesn’t have to have a purpose or specific goal, but you have to do it with energy and without exception. Julia Cameron says in, The Artist’s Way, that you should wake up every morning and immediately write three pages. Some folks might find that too daunting. Do it if you can, but at the very least–one page. Once you have done this for a month, check out your first pages versus your latest pages and you will find the practice has made a difference. This will change your results whether you are wanting to write a book, a blog, persuasive emails, or clever Tweets.

Here are several starting immediately strategies I’ve given in my Writing A Bestseller workshops along with personal coaching clients:

Write a simple and clear sentence that explains what your book is about.

If you have such a clear command of your purpose in writing a book (or anything) that you can convey its essence in a single sentence, you are starting out way ahead of most authors.

Write the copy for your book’s jacket.

For the research necessary to do this, you will have to go to the library or a bookstore and check out the jacket copy on hardcover books, particularly the side flaps. Writing your own version of this for your own book can provide momentum, even if what you write now won’t accurately describe your finished manuscript.

Start doing what I call Sampling Your Future Success.

I did this by cutting out a copy of the NY Times bestseller list, and typing Moneylove on the list before putting it on my bulletin board.

In addition to a proposal or manuscript, you need to have a clear idea of who your audience is and how they can be reached If you have a blog with thousands of hits, that’s an easy one.

I also always visualize myself appearing on a major talk show and imagine what questions the host (I use Oprah a lot, since I actually was a guest on her show) will ask, and how I would respond.

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #4:

Capture the readers attention with your opening lines

One way to always guarantee you will intrigue, attract, interest, and capture the attention of a reader is to become a master of the opening line, or even the opening several lines.

Even before you fully write your book (or even a blog post) getting the opening clarified and clear in your head is essential.

I don’t know about you, but when I am browsing through books in a bookstore, the library, or online, I always check out the beginning sentences. The first words either trigger a desire in me to read more, or they don’t. In Moneylove, my opening lines in the Introduction were:

“You deserve to be rich, and you can be rich. MONEYLOVE can help you have a life of abundance, filled with love and creativity and, incidentally, all the cash you want.”

I call this, beginning the begin!

Business experts doing a lot of market research and psychologists doing a lot of studies, have both reached the same conclusion, that first minute of contact is vital. It’s that minute that determines the progress of any interaction–personal or professional.

Widely considered the best opening line in literature is Jane Austen’s for Pride and Prejudice:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

This sentence lets the reader know what kind of a book he or she has chosen. It sets a tone.

And here’s a shocking truth about being a bestselling author: you can learn as much or more about good writing from reading really great opening lines from books, as you can from almost any college course on writing. And this is the best time in history to do this, because you can find those openings online without having to go to a library or bookstore. If you put into your search engine a request such as “great opening lines in books,” or: “the best literary opening lines,” you will gain access to an unlimited stream of the best ones out there.

In nonfiction, look at the opening line of the foreword to Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich:

“The Thirteen Steps to Riches described in this book offer the shortest dependable philosophy of individual achievement ever presented for the benefit of the man or woman who is searching for a definite goal,”

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #5:

The Short and Sweet of It

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.
– Henry David Thoreau

Short words and short sentences are pretty much norm now in most writing courses, but when I first started talking about this in the 1970s, the standard was flowery language and complex sentences, except for a few brilliant writers who knew this secret. That it is no longer a secret is pretty much due to one man, Rudolf Flesch (see Secret Seven below for more on him).

As you can see by my opening for this article, I do not always follow the popular advice to keep sentences short. Sometimes long is more expressive. Sometimes a few long sentences interspersed with a lot of short ones can create a pleasing rhythm. Back and forth. A master of this quality in her writing is Harper Lee. Her opening for, To Kill a Mockingbird, is a brilliant example of mixing short sentences and long flowing ones. She didn’t go for flash or shock, but simply started with the kind of statement a child might make,

“When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”

Look at how simply Harper Lee conveys the life of a sleepy old Southern town in very few words. “There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and nothing to buy it with.”

To Kill a Mocking Bird, one of my very favorite books, is the epitomé of clear and simple writing. As the best books in fiction or nonfiction always do, an author should create a dialogue with the reader that resembles a good friend telling a good story.

In terms of cutting down on wordage, I have had any number of successful nonfiction and fiction writers tell me that one of the most important disciplines any writer can master is to take a paragraph or sentence, or even a page, that you really are in love with, and cut it from your manuscript.

I had a whole chapter left out of Moneylove when I got the final galleys prior to it going to the printing presses. The book originally had seven chapters, and my editor, Herb Katz, without telling me, cut a whole chapter out because he felt it didn’t fit with the other chapters. After a while, I was forced to agree with him, but not until I had ranted and raved for a week or two.

Writing can be like music. There are high notes. There are low notes. And once in a while, there are no notes, as you pause to let the mind breathe between paragraphs.

A Warning Note:

If most of the writing you have done has been of an academic sort while taking college courses, you will be at a disadvantage in writing for a larger mainstream audience. Most readers today are most comfortable with a 5th grade level of vocabulary, and anything more may go right over their heads.

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #6:

Become a One Trick Pony

This cliché phrase is often used in a pejorative way, to describe someone who has only one talent or skill and nothing more to offer once that is displayed or presented. However, for a writer starting out, it can be a valuable strategy, No matter how many subjects you have mastered and how many tricks you possess, It’s useful to appear as if you are a supreme master, a real expert about one important subject.

One of the bestselling authors I had some impact on was Spencer Johnson. Spencer has been kind enough to tell me my two hour seminar on writing a bestseller at the National Speakers Association really made a difference in his approach to writing. What he was doing with corporate clients was teaching them the value of praising employees, in a very short amount of time. This one minute praise technique led to the huge bestseller he wrote with management expert Kenneth Blanchard, The One-Minute Manager, which has sold over thirteen million copies. Spencer Johnson went on to write the bestselling, Who Moved My Cheese, as well as the ValueTales series of children’s books.

Spencer Johnson is obviously a very creative writer who has lots of ideas for books, but his first effort was so successful because rather than just come up with a book he thought would sell, he focused on what he was already doing. And once he became a master of that one idea, he and his co-author, Ken Blanchard, came up with the add-ons of One Minute Goals and One Minute Reprimands. They thus became three-trick ponies and much more.

Louise Hay is another multi-million copy bestselling author who started out with one trick, which led to You Can Heal Your Life — over 50 million sold and counting.

I remember back in the early 1980s, Louise, her assistant, Julie, and I sitting in a hot tub in the backyard of her rented house in Santa Monica. She had produced a cult classic, You Can Heal Your Body. A small booklet, it was beloved by the holistic health community. But Louise had delayed turning this material into a full-length book, even though she had a publishing contract to do so. A lot of our conversation focused on trying to motivate Louise to finish the book. I can assure you that, at that moment, Louise did not have a clue, or even a dream, about being a bestselling author. And she certainly could not have foreseen that she would create a large publishing empire (Hay House) and influence and help millions of people around the world. And it all grew out of her original idea that certain emotions trigger certain illnesses and symptoms. For a one trick pony, Louise Hay certainly picked the right trick.

We were friends, so I wouldn’t have even thought about charging her for the coaching I did in and out of that hot tub. I earned a lot more money than any coaching fees would have produced, however, as she mentions Moneylove very favorably in You Can Heal Your Life. This led to thousands of sales for me.

Often, when you want to be focusing on an upcoming book project, no matter how multi-dimensional you are–no matter how many tricks you have up your sleeve–it is best to focus on a single strong subject or theme. For an aspiring bestselling author, multitasking can be a mental vampire, sucking the energy out of the big idea you have.

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #7:

Bookworm Your Way to Success

A simple truth: your success as a writer of books is affected by your reading habits.

Ask any successful author…

“If you stuff yourself full of poems, essays, plays, stories, novels, films, comic strips, magazines, you automatically explode every morning like Old Faithful. I have never had a dry spell in my life, mainly because I feed myself well, to the point of bursting. I wake early and hear my morning voices leaping around in my head like jumping beans. I get out of bed quickly, to trap them before they escape.”
—Ray Bradbury

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” Stephen King

“I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”
Samuel Johnson

I don’t know any good and successful writers who don’t surround themselves with books, both fiction and nonfiction.

I have long asserted that fiction is important to read, especially for those who have limited themselves to nonfiction. I have had a number of professional speakers and motivational teachers say they only read nonfiction because that’s information they need for their careers. Wrong!

Fiction is important because novelists are some of the great thinkers and philosophers about the human condition. I have learned more about life and people from novels than from any nonfiction books on the subject. There are parts of the brain that are stimulated and enriched by reading fiction that no other method seems to duplicate.

I also have never met a successful author who didn’t have a few favorite books on writing.

So, here are my seven favorites on being a better writer:

1. The Elements of Style…by Strunk and White. This is the classic on writing style that almost every writer of note has a copy of. It is an enduring masterpiece whether you are writing a nonfiction book, a novel, an article or blog post.

2. The Artist’s Way…by Julia Cameron. A book not just about writing but an instruction manual on training your mind to be more creatively productive.

3. On Writing Well—by William Zinsser –This addresses directly the problem most beginning writers have with too many words, sentences and paragraphs that are just too long. And Zinsser demonstrates how it should be done by his own crisp,clear, simple writing style.

4. The Art of Readable Writing—by Rudolf Flesch. You might as well start with this classic from 1949, though almost any of Flesch’s books on speaking and writing plainly and clearly are well worth reading. This was the very first book I read on writing, as a high school student. It may just be the single book that most influenced my writing style. Flesch was also the author of the iconic bestseller, Why Johnny Can’t Read.

5. Bird by Bird—by Anne Lamott. One of the most outrageous and down-to-earth and funny books you’ll find on the subject of writing. She is one of my very favorite writers, and unusual in that she has had bestsellers both on the fiction and nonfiction lists.

6. Zen in the Art of Writing – by Ray Bradbury. The late genius created this collection of essays on writing and creativity. A lot of the material was introduced during his annual opening night lecture at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, where we were both on the faculty. I was proud to be his friend and for him to be my generous mentor. Those of you familiar with my Moneylove philosophy will understand why I love this book. While many writers talk and write about how difficult and lonely writing is, Ray thought writing was more fun than anything else. He said, “If you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer.”

7. Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writer’s Manual – by Rita Mae Brown. While still in her twenties, she wrote Rubyfruit Jungle, a novel about growing up as a lesbian in the South. Rita Mae is also one of my all-time favorite authors, and listening to her erudite lectures at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference was a delight and powerful learning experience.

You may choose your own favorite books about writing, there certainly are hundreds, perhaps thousands, to select from, and maybe a friend or teacher or writer you know has recommended one or more. For me, these seven books contain the essential information I want and need to practice my craft, though I have read and collected many others over the years.

How To Write A Best Selling Book – Bonus:

It always astonishes me how many writers don’t know what a tremendous resource the magazine, Publishers Weekly, can be. It’s the trade publication for the publishing industry and aimed at publishers, editors, bookstores, and literary agents. If you are serious about writing a bestseller, it is a must-read. Or I should say it’s a must-browse. With hundreds of pages every week, actually reading the whole thing would be overwhelming.

Publishers Weekly will help you keep up with what books are coming out, which authors just got a big advance, how social media is promoting book sales, and whether an editor you were thinking of sending your book proposal to has just left and gone to another publishing house. For me, however, the best part of PW is the review section, with nonfiction as a separate category. In those mini-reviews, you will find books you wouldn’t know about otherwise, books that aren’t to be found in your local bookstore or library. I’ve lost count of how many books I’ve ordered after first reading about them in Publishers Weekly.
It is more than worth your while to check out this little-known publication (among the public, including writers). Your local library probably has a copy, and most bookstores do. You can therefore check it out at no cost.

I cannot imagine any writer who follows all seven secrets will have any difficulty in creating at least one huge bestseller. Go forth and prove me right!

About Jerry Gillies

Jerry Gillies passed away late 2015.

Jerry was one of the first prosperity teachers of modern times – writing International Best seller: MONEYLOVE in 1978 – His reach and influence was considerable. Although Jerry is no longer here in body, he will always remain in the hearts & souls of the people whose lives he’s touched over his 75 years on this earth.

IncomeDiary is honored to feature a number of posts and an interview with Jerry.

The post 7 Secrets To Writing A Best Selling Book That Sold 2 Million Copies! appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Ray Edwards Copywriter – How to Write Copy That Sells

Barry Dunlop — Sun, 19 Mar 2017 07:58:13 +0000

The Step-By-Step System for More Sales, To More Customers, More Often

When asked who impresses me most in selling and persuasion…

I don’t mention a great statesman or politician or business leader or even a top sale closer…

No, for me, the greatest salespeople are the writers of persuasive sales copy!

One such person is Ray Edwards.

Lets face it, sales often gets a bad name – but not with Ray Edwards.

He is a master at taking the sleaze out of sales.

Earlier this month I was fortunate to have some time with Ray and interview him for our new series of Podcasts.

Two things in particular stood out for me…

The P.A.S.T.O.R Formula (a very easy to understand way to write persuasive sales copy)
Plus Ray has some very wise words about SEO Copywriting – top advice for all serious bloggers (19.55 min)

=> Listen to this Podcast several times. It really is that GOOD!

Free Ebook Reveals… The $2 BILLION Sales Letter You’ve Never Heard Of…
PLUS
A Free Copywriting Course

Ray Edwards – 5 Recommended Books on Writing and Copywriting

=> How to Write Copy that Sells By Ray Edwards (Get it!)

=> The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. (fantastic book)

=> Deep Work by Cal Newport. (highly recommended)

=> Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott,

=> On Writing by Stephen King

Ray Edwards Podcast Transcript…

Barry Dunlop: First things first, Ray, and the most importantly, how did you get started as a copywriter?

Ray Edwards: It’s an interesting question to me, because I didn’t know that I was getting started.I was about eight or nine years old. I used to go to my grandparents’ house on the weekends, and they had this newspaper that they got every week.

It had the most fascinating articles in it, the most fantastic articles about how you could use certain pressure points on your body to relieve pain, and how you could absorb books in just a few minutes that other people spent weeks reading.

Only later did I discover, Barry, that these were not articles. These were long-form, direct-response copy advertisements, and they were written by Eugene Schwartz, the great copywriter from the ’50s and ’60s.

The newspaper was the “Weekly World News.” It was a tabloid, kind of fantastical, the newspaper that had stories about UFOs, the boy who eats his own head, and stuff like that.

Barry: [laughs] We had them in Ireland as well, by the way.

Ray: People love that kind of stuff. That’s why it’s at the checkout stand in the US at the grocery stores, because people buy them on impulse.Later, I got into the radio broadcasting business, and I began studying copywriting to help small business owners that we were working with — they were our clients — to help them bring dollars in the door.

Those kind of business people did not care about building their image or building a brand. What they cared about was getting the cash registers to ring so they could pay the bills every month. That was really the beginning of it for me.

Barry: Got you. I like it, actually, because if I look at my own life, quite often people ask me how I did this. I often answer, “Well, it was really an accident.”I’m sure that it isn’t really an accident, but you didn’t know you were becoming a copywriter then – but you where.

Possibly maybe the question I should have started off with then is, “How do you define copywriting? What is copywriting, and why is it so important to us entrepreneurs and small business people?”

Ray: That’s such a good question, because usually with half the people I talk to, I have to clear up the confusion about the word copywriting. Most people, many people, think that it refers to that little symbol after the title of a book, a piece of music, or a work of art that protects your intellectual property.

That’s not the kind of copywrite that we’re talking about. We’re talking about writing the words that sell products or services or ideas. That is writing copy.

It is really salesmanship or persuasion in print.

Barry: : I like that. “Salemanship or persuasion in print.”I always prided myself in being very good at face-to-face selling, and over the years, I always said to people who might congratulate me on my sales ability, that “The salespeople I really admire are the salespeople who can move you from far, far away by something they’ve written.”

Those are always the most impressive sales people to me.

In your book, “How to Write Copy that Sells,” which is a great book, you refer to the magic building blocks of sales copy. Would you mind giving a little bit of information on what are those blocks and how we use them?

Ray: Sure, I’d be happy to walk through the basics of that.What I discovered pretty early on is that there is an underlying formula to how to construct a persuasive sales message. The building blocks of a sales letter, the perfect sales letter…I’ll give you the basic outline of the sales letter. It starts…

Actually, with your permission, I’d like to back up. I think there’s a better place for us to go with this.

The building blocks are a little lengthy to describe, but there’s something I can give your listeners that I think they could start using five minutes from now to be more persuasive, not just in their sales copy, but in their emails and their conversations with people. Do you think that would useful?

Barry: That would be spot on. We’d absolutely love it. That’s what we like at IncomeSup, real actionable stuff we can take away today.

Ray: Good, because this formula that I’m about to give you, this framework, is really the foundation of the building blocks. If people want more information about the building blocks, they can refer to my book, which I think they can get on Amazon for eight bucks or something like that. Obviously, I’m going to get rich if I sell enough of those books.

[laughter]

Ray: Here’s the foundation. I call it the PASTOR framework. People look at me sometimes with the raised eyebrow when I say, “I’m going to give you the sales copy.” They’re like, “Do you want me to be a preacher? “My answer is, “No, this is about you thinking of yourself in the original meaning, context, of that word, which was to shepherd. The shepherd is in charge of caring for the flock, protecting them, feeding them, making sure they have water, keeping the predators away.”

I tell people, “If you will take that approach, if you will think of yourself as a shepherd to your customers, then you will never come across as pushy or salesy, because you’ll always be working in their best interests, to protect them.”

That’s the attitude that the word pastor is designed to invoke. The letters of the word pastor, P-A-S-T-O-R, actually stand for the outline of any persuasive messaging.

It starts like this.

The P stands for the person, the problem, and the pain.

You need to identify the person you’re writing to, the problem that your product or service is intended to solve, and you need to be able to express very clearly the pain that your person is experiencing, and you need to be able to express it in their terms, not in your terms.

What I mean by that — just a quick example — someone who is struggling to get into physical condition, into physical shape. Maybe they’re overweight, and they want to lose some pounds.

You might see their problem in the pain that they’re experiencing in terms of their cardiovascular health, the risk of diabetes, and so forth. You may see those as the big reasons they need to make this change.

They, on the other hand, don’t perceive that pain. That’s not what’s most real to them most of the time. What’s most real to them is the way they look, the way they feel about the way they look.

You need to talk about the pain the way it’s meaningful to your person. It’s a case of that old adage, that is, we sell people what they want, but we have to make sure we give them what they need.

Barry: Got you. That’s great.

Ray: The A of pastor stands for amplify, and this is where you stress the consequences of what will happen if they don’t solve the problem.

Barry, we are great creatures of denial. We are able to deny so many things.

I was a smoker for quite some time. I smoked a lot of cigarettes, about two packs a day, I was able to deny that that was really bad for me. That was creating a terrible risk for my heart. It was creating a terrible risk of cancer.

As I saw more and more people fall victim to those problems, I realized, “I need to stop this,” because the consequences of not stopping that behavior became more real to me.

That’s part of our job in the sales copy , to amplify the cost of not solving the problem.

The S in pastor stands for story and solution.

This is where you tell the story of someone who has solved that same problem using your solution, or even a solution like yours.

The T stands for transformation and testimony.

This is where you articulate the results that your product or service will bring, and you provide real, live testimonials to strengthen your case.

It’s really important to understand here that you need to talk about the transformation and not about the methodology.

The example I often like to give is if people buy the P90x weight loss and exercise fitness program, they are not buying the box of DVDs, the wall chart, and chin-up bar. That’s not what they’re buying.

What they’re buying is the six-pack abs, the muscular physique, the great-looking body that they really feel like they should have, the great-looking body that most people feel like they have, until they look in the mirror, and then they realize, “Oh, I look like that?”

They’re looking for that transformation. That’s also what you need to talk about in the offer, which is the next part of the framework.

The O is the offer.

This is where you describe exactly what you’re offering for sale. 80 percent of your offer talk, where you say, “Here’s exactly what you get,” 80 percent of what you say there is also about the transformation. This is where I see people mess this up a lot of time.

They talk about the methodology, the DVDs, the 800 pages of coursework, or the three-day seminar. That stuff, the deliverables, the vehicle that gets people to the transformation, should only be about 20 percent of your offer talk.

Finally, the R stands for response, and that just means you ask for one.

You ask for the sale.

Using those letters of the word pastor to build out the framework of your persuasive message works with any kind of messaging that you’re doing, including an interview like the one we’re doing right now.

Barry: I was almost going to say at the beginning, “Do you have a formula?” and here you give us one. I didn’t even ask you did you have a formula, and you’ve come right out with it. So many people try to make out that somehow you have to be some sort of special clever, if you like, or something like this. When you lay it out like this, it gives people like myself who, obviously, I’m fairly confident as a salesperson, but was never very confident as a copywriter. I think, “OK, well, I can follow a formula like that. That’s really quite straightforward.”

I know our audience would love that, Ray, and it’s really good.

If I may, I keep coming back to your book, How to Write Copy that Sells, but there’s something in particular that got my attention, which I think I know where it goes with this, but I wanted to get your clarification on it.

You mentioned in the book the secrets of writing blockbuster copy by watching movies. Can you elaborate? Can you go a little further into that? How in the world can I write really great copy by watching movies?

Ray: This is like the best news ever, right? You’re like this too good to be true.[laughter]

Barry: Something like that.

Ray: “I can watch “The Avengers,” and I can learn how to write copy?”

Barry: Yes.

Ray: There’s a Native American proverb that says,

“Those who tell the stories rule the world.”

I’ve written some blockbuster promotions. Some of my sales letters have brought in multimillion-dollar paydays for my clients and for me. Something that I recognized early on is that as I compared the successful pieces of copy that I had created, I began to identify the single biggest difference between copy that rocks, that really gets the job done and sells stuff like nobody’s business, is stories.

The way I came across this idea — which I’m not the first person to come across this, but I think my particular view of it is a little bit different.

I figured it out watching moves, and more specifically, watching movie trailers. You know, when you go to the theater, and they show the coming attraction previews, they have these super compelling preview reels that often more compelling than the actual movie itself?

Barry: I know I’ve gone to the movie and been disappointed. [laughs]

Ray: Yes, you walk out of the movie and say to yourself, “They put all the best stuff in the trailer.”

Barry: Sometimes. Not always, but sometimes.

Ray: Yes. I think that the secret of great movie trailers, and of great sales copy is something that I call the dominant story idea, or I call it the DSI for short. The formula — I’m into breaking things down into processes and formulae, and the formula that I see happening with the best, most successful movie trailers is they do three things without fail. There are other elements they may bring into it, but they do these three things without fail.

Number one, they give you the dominant story idea.

Number two a sample of the feelings you will get from the movie itself.

Number three, they provide proof that the movie delivers . I’ve selected a couple. In the book, I give a couple of examples. They’re older examples, and I do that because most people will recognize these films. If they don’t immediately recognize them, they were made so long ago that nobody will get mad at me for giving away the spoilers.

The first example I love to share is the movie “21,” which starred Kevin Spacey. The dominant story idea of this movie was a college math whiz professor uses his skills to beat the Vegas casinos, gets seduced by the dark side, and gets in trouble with some very, very bad guys.

The sample feelings are we see Ben Campbell and his innocent face. We see him start winning. We see him getting seduced by money, power, and very hot women, and then we see him getting into some really scary situations.

We’re already kind of tense, and thinking, “I want this guy to win, I don’t want bad things to happen to him.” The proof that the movie works is really social proof, because we see Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, and Laurence Fishburne.

These are proven actors that we love, and some very compelling scenes. They’re tightly edited, only the best parts are shown, and in the background, we’re anchored to the sound of The Doors playing “Break on Through to the Other Side.”

We get all these feelings delivered to us, proof that the movie works, and we instantly get the dominant story idea. We could walk out of the theater and say, “Well, I’ll tell you what that movie is about. It’s about this guy who learned how to beat the casinos, and then they start chasing him down.

“He’s in trouble with the mob.” It’s very easy to describe the dominant story idea. When we’re writing our copy, we need to first of all, showcase our dominant story idea, “What’s the big idea of our copy?”

Number two, give sample feelings. If we look at movie trailer examples, in your copy, you need to show some scenes that will help the reader feel the feelings they want to get from your product .

To go back to the P90x DVD product, if you watch their ads on television, their infomercials, what you see is transformation after transformation after transformation. You see people who look maybe like you do now, and then you see those people transformed into what you want to look like in the near future.

That’s not an accident. If you look at those commercials very carefully, Barry, you will see that the Beach Body people have selected an assortment of individuals who pretty much look like anybody.

Anybody in the audience who’s watching this is going to find somebody that looks sort of like them. That’s not an accident. Then proof the product works are the before and after shots.

That’s an example of how to use this framework that movie producers use to pull people in and get their attention, and get them interested in the story.

Barry: Wonderful. This is absolute gold dust, this is. Assuming that I’m a rookie copywriter, or I’m a business owner, which is most of our audience, who might be writing a sales letter or a sales copy for the first time in their life, in your experience, what’s the biggest mistake people make when they first start writing copy?

Ray: There’s absolutely one biggest mistake that wrecks and destroys most copy, and that is writing the copy for the benefit of the marketer instead of writing it for the benefit of the customer. We have such a hard time getting out of our own heads, and into the heads of the people we’re selling to. This is almost impossible to do without interacting with customers in some way.

Maybe it’s reading emails from customers. Maybe it’s reading your customer support desk tickets. The best way is to do it through talking with actual customers and listening to their language, the way they describe their problems, their situation, their life, and writing from their perspective.

One way to gauge this is to go through your copy and see how much of the time you spend focused on you, your awesomeness, your good product, your good reputation, your good track record.

These are all things that are important for people to know, but really, 80 percent of the copy should be about the problem that your customer has, how you’re going to help them solve it, and the pain that they experience.

Jay Abraham is the one who made the observation that if you can describe your customer’s problem in so much detail that you can describe it better than they can, they automatically assume you know how to fix the problem.

Barry: That’s wonderful. I get that, that’s clever.

Something that’s always fascinated me, Ray, about copy, and you will know the stats a whole lot better than me, is the difference between writing copy and also the headline.

In your experience, which comes first, the headline or the copy, or is there no right or wrong way for doing it?

Ray: Well, it’s like any art form, and copy is part science and part art. Sometimes the headline comes to me first, but usually that’s not how it works. I’d say 90 percent of the time I write the copy first, and the headline emerges. My experience is that the more time you spend in research, preparation, and writing drafts, the more discovery you do about the right language to use to express your main idea.

You need to have a big idea.

A corollary to not writing from the perspective of the consumer is not having a big idea that you can quickly sum up for people.

P90x, I don’t know that they would approve of how I’m going to describe their big idea, but I think their big idea is, “Spend 90 days working out so hard you will puke in a bucket, and you’ll look great.”

[laughter]

Ray: The unique thing about them is they were the pioneers of going the opposite direction of the whole market, which was to say, “This device, this exercise machine, this diet program is easy. It makes you burn pounds while you sleep.” The P90x people made their mark by saying, “This is really hard, but it’s worth it.”To get back to your question about which comes first, the headline or the copy, I think most of the time it’s writing the copy first, and the headline emerges, but as I said, sometimes it works the other way around.

I think every person has to find their own process, but that’s my process.

Barry: That’s very interesting, because a lot of our audience is bloggers. Generally speaking — this is not always the case — but bloggers quite often are into SEO, so quite often, they’ll write a title first, because they’ll have to include whatever term they’re going after for search engine optimization. They work backwards, which I know…It’s interesting, that your way seems much more genuine and sincere. It seems the right way. That’s why the question came up, because I wondered if there was a right or wrong.

What you’re really saying is there is no right or wrong, but you personally start with the copy, and then you go to the headline.

Ray: Yes.

Barry: Talking of the headline…Go on. Sorry, Ray.

Ray: I’m going to jump in for just a moment, because you just brought up something that I’m a little bothered by, that is this idea of SEO copywriting. I understand how important it is, but I believe that you have to focus on good writing first and SEO second. If you start by focusing on SEO, and you build your writing based on that, I think you end up with a lesser quality piece of writing.

It may not be true in every case, so I don’t want anybody to get angry with me, but I think if you start from figuring out, “What’s the message that I’m trying to deliver? What’s the change that I want to make with people?”

I have a concept I call your unique core thesis. I think for every piece of writing that you’re creating you need a unique core thesis. One way of describing it would be it’s the one idea that you want people to walk away from your presentation with. If they don’t buy anything, if they don’t remember anything else you said, this is the one thing you want them to take away.

If you can figure out what that thing is, it will shape the rest of your writing. After you do that, you can figure out the SEO part based on what you wrote. You’ll attract the people you actually are writing it for, which may be a different group than you started out thinking about.

Barry: That is brilliant, Ray. That is exactly the kind of information we need. You’ve put it better than I could have ever imagined putting it, so thank you for that. It really is good.You might well be able to get a theme here coming up, because I’ve got a bit of a fascination with headlines. [laughs] Maybe I should see a doctor about it.

Do you want to give us some ideas? Do you have any particular headlines that work really well for you, and maybe can you explain why they work so well? Why did you think they worked so well?

Ray: I said earlier this is part art and part science. The science part is learning from things that have worked in the past and being able to use those forms to guide your creation process, especially early in the game when you’re just getting started, either when you’re just getting started with copywriting in general, or maybe when you’re just starting on a project.You need to have a little bit of a kickstart. The headline is a really important piece of copy, because its job is to get people to stop and then read what comes next. That’s the job of the headline.

John Caples, who’s a legendary copywriter said:

“If you can come up with a good headline and lead” — the lead is the first part of the ad — “you’re almost sure to have a good ad. But even the greatest copywriter cannot save an ad without a good headline.”

I think the qualities that you are looking for in a good headline, there are five of them.

Number one, it grabs attention. It needs to make people stop and think. Here’s a couple of classic headlines that worked really well on this score, on the grabbing attention idea.

“Can you really be younger next year?” That’s a great headline for the people that it would appeal to. If you’re a 20-year-old, you’re probably not going to be interested in that, but if you’re of a certain age you might be interested in that headline.

“Which of these five mistakes do you make in English?” That’s another famous headline that was a real attention-getter and made a lot of money for the company that hired John Caples to write it.

The second quality of a headline that works is it screens and qualifies your readers. The third quality is it draws readers into the body copy. The fourth is it communicates the big idea, which we were just talking about a little bit earlier. The fifth is it establishes credibility.

You can’t always get a headline to meet all five of those criteria, but I usually try. I shoot for at least three.

You asked me, though, for some examples of headlines that work really well. I’m going to give you a couple that people can start with, and they can use them today.

The first one is the how-to headline. The key to making this particular headline work is you need to tie it to a benefit your reader cares about. You’ve seen these so often you may dismiss them, but they really work extremely well.

“How to write a blog post every day.”

That’s one of the best testing headlines that I’ve personally used myself.

“How to land more clients as a freelancer.”

You can see that those are directly tied to benefits that readers are going to care about. That’s the key to making that headline work.

I’ll give you three.

The second form of headline I would give you that would work really well is what I call the transactional headline. This is all about making a promise of a trade.

You say something like,

“Give me 30 minutes, and I’ll give you more blog traffic.”

You’re asking them for something, but you’re giving them something that is much more valuable.

“Try these five tactics for a week and be twice as productive.”

That’s a transactional headline.

Barry: Interestingly, when you’re coming with those headlines — again, maybe it’s because I’m focused on blogging — those are great, also, for SEO, actually. Those are terms that people might use or want to use when searching for the information that you’re providing. It’s actually brilliant. I have, obviously, got a big fascination with headlines. We’re going to change the subjects, just for a little bit, because I do know that you personally do a lot of, have in the past, done a lot of writing for print.

Would you say there’s a big difference between writing for a printed material rather than the Web, or is there no difference between the two? What would you say the difference was?

Ray: There is some difference, but I think there’s less than most people believe. The main difference is you can click on things on the web and go somewhere else and explore further.If you’ve been using a tablet or a touch device long enough, you’ll find yourself in a restaurant trying to tap things on the menu and realize, “Oh, that doesn’t work on a paper menu.”

That’s the biggest difference, is the clickability, and the fact that you can incorporate videos and things like that into your copy.

The actual writing of the text is not all that different, especially when you consider that I believe one of the main principles we need to remember is we need to think about, “What’s the context in which people are coming to our copy?”

If people are coming to the copy that represents your product, your company, or your service, and they’re coming to it online after having read an ad, say on Facebook, that’s much different than people coming to your copy because a friend of theirs sent them an email and said, “Hey, you’ve got to go check this site out.”

They have a whole different attitude , or they have a whole different set of desires, and so, you have to think about, “How are most people coming to my copy online?” and having to write in a way that responds to that context.

If you think about it, the same is true of something in print. If you’re sending a letter in the mail, you know certain things about what’s going to happen. They’re going to get the letter out of the mailbox, out of the post. They’re going to open it, or maybe they’re going to throw it away.

What makes them throw it away? You need to think about what the envelope looks like. It comes down — again, I know I sound like a broken record, if anybody remembers what those are, but…

Barry: I do. [laughs]

Ray: Thank you. Bless you, my friend. It comes back to understanding the life, the worldview, the context of the people you’re writing to, and delivering content to them in a way that’s relevant to them and their situation.

Barry: Got you. We’re going to go slightly off at a tangent now, just because the question’s come into my head. There’s a question which I ask a lot of entrepreneurs when I meet them, so I don’t see why I can’t ask it of a copywriter, as well. If it doesn’t stack up and doesn’t make sense, obviously, you’ll tell me so.

But if you could go get in a time machine, and you could go back in time 5 years, 10 years, 20 years — it doesn’t matter how far you go back, is there anything you personally…This is a very personal question.

Is there anything, not necessarily that you would do personally differently, but anything that you think, “We should have done this,” or maybe, “This would have been something to have done then.” Is there anything that you would like to add there?

Ray: In the context of my business, I would have started much earlier building an email list that I sent email to regularly. A lot of people will say, “The money’s in the list.” No, it’s not.

The money is in the relationship you have to the list. You can have an email subscriber base of 100,000 subscribers, but if none of them open your emails, guess how much that list is worth?

Barry: Nothing.

Ray: Exactly. Then again, you could have a list of 1,000 subscribers, and if all of them are rabidly waiting and paying attention for your next email, that is an extraordinarily valuable asset, so I wish, a lot earlier.

Barry: You seem to have done very well with the catching up, put it that way, Ray. I’ve been aware of you for quite some time. One thing I’ve been primarily aware of about is your very good reputation, because you know that we’re in a world today where bad reputations get around really fast. Your integrity and your honorability is something that most…

They’ll say, “Ray, a good guy. A good guy.” I congratulate you on that, because that’s the kind of thing that I’d like to think most people would say about me. Whether they do or not, I don’t know. I think I would like to acknowledge that, Ray, because I think it’s very important.

Also, and this is where we’re going to come back to something you and I are involved in in a moment, is product launches. People have different opinions about it.

Actually, can I just make a recommendation to everybody here? I think most of the IncomeDiary people will have heard of you now.

If you’ve not heard of Ray, I would seriously suggest you get on his list. Go to his blog. It doesn’t even matter if you get a link from IncomeDiary telling you about Ray, just make sure you’re getting email from Ray Edwards, because it’s an education. It really is.

Today I had an email from you. I want to pick this one up in particular, Ray, because I thought it was great. It relates to a product launch. It’s a launch for your product, The Copywriting Academy Online Coaching Program. Your subject line for it was, “My Clever Scam.”

It related to me, because quite often, doing what I do in business and did all my life, you quite often find somebody who tries to see the worst in you, and tries to assume that you’re a nasty person. Maybe you’re just there to take money off people, and maybe not even deliver any value.

I know that’s not the case for you, and hopefully people know that’s not the case with me. I loved your email, and how you went about it.

How do you handle, may I ask ? I’m sure you don’t get a lot of it, but you get the odd negative person. Does it ever get to you? Does it get you down? How do you handle it? Do you let it go in one ear, out the other?

Ray: Obviously, I would be lying if I said it didn’t get to me. It bothers me, because none of us likes to hear that people don’t like us for whatever reason. In this case, I think it was for no real good reason at all.My wife sometimes will say to me, “Honey, don’t burn down their newspaper stand.” What she’s referring to is there was a television show in America called “Frasier.” I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it.

Barry: Oh, indeed, yes.

Ray: There’s an episode in Frasier where — for those who don’t know, in the series he had a radio show. They were doing a focus group where they brought in all these listeners to talk about what they liked about the Frasier show, and what they didn’t.Everybody loved his show except this one guy, who just didn’t like it, and Frasier became obsessed with making that guy like him.

He started following him around and stalking him, and in the end of this comedic sketch, Frasier ends up accidentally setting fire to the guy’s newspaper stand. That’s what my wife is referring. She’s basically saying, “Let go.”

Barry: I’ll use that next time, because that’s a good explanation, actually. I’ve seen this a lot in life. You could have a hundred really happy customers, one customer who really doesn’t have anything to be unhappy about, but just is a miserable person, if you like, and you worry about them. Terrific. Thank you, Ray. That’s a great answer.

Coming back to the product launches, I think most people now are familiar with what I would call a product launch formula, if you like, of how they work. In your opinion, do these still work, or if they don’t, what needs to be done to them these days to adapt them to work in 2017? What’s your view currently?

Ray: They still work. They work better than ever, in fact, when you do them correctly. I think the problem that happens is people have seen product launches from the outside, and they think they know how to do one, and what’s involved.What they’re missing is the fact they’re looking at the tip of the iceberg, and underneath the water, there’s much more substance than there is above the water line. They don’t really see the internal workings.

Often, they’re watching a person do a product launch who copied what they’re doing from a person who copied what they were doing from another person, who copied it from another person.

None of them actually went to the source, who is Jeff Walker, who created a thing called Product Launch Formula. He’s the guy who really has the latest data, because he’s at the center of this particular form of marketing.

The short answer is, I think you need to do product launches with intelligence, with grace, and for those who don’t know, it’s simply a matter of releasing a sequence of free, useful material that people can use and benefit from, whether they ever buy anything from you or not.

For me this is modern marketing.

You need to make your marketing valuable in and of itself, whether people buy from you or not.

I have a philosophy that if people don’t get something from my marketing that they can use, that benefits them, if they walk away from it saying, “Well, that was a waste of time,” then I haven’t done my job, because I believe that marketing is something we do for people, not something we do to them.

Barry: I love that. I think that’s the point, which I emphasize to people. In fact, I’ve said it to many people, because occasionally people will say to me — I actually would get emails, because people often just reply to the list email when we send it out, and say, “What’s he selling, and how much does it cost?” I would say, “Obviously, eventually Mr. X or whoever is going to probably try to sell you something, and that’s wonderful. However, that’s not what you need to worry about right now. Right now, he’s giving you a 30 minute video. There is a price to the 30 minute video.

“It’s 30 minutes of your time to watch it. It isn’t entirely free if you look at it that way. From the point of view that you’re going to have 30 minutes, and if you get some value out of it, it’ll be worth your 30 minutes investment.”

That’s what I like about product launches. In fact, I actually tell everybody to get on as many lists as possible, certainly of all the high quality guys, because there’s so much wonderful information that they’ll give away at no cost to you, except investing your time to watch it, or listen to it.

That’s something that I have really got from you, Ray. Sometimes, I look at what — and don’t take this the wrong way — at what you’re giving away, and I think, “Is the man really thinking right? [laughs] It’s almost too much.”

Like earlier on, you’ve given us this PASTOR formula, which is an amazing formula. If nobody does anything but just implement that PASTOR formula, they’re going to make money from it. They’re going to have value from it. All they’ve done is listen to two guys talking on a Skype call across the world, and they’ve got phenomenal value out of it.

I’m really grateful for you making the time to do this for the IncomeDiary audience, Ray. It’s really kind of you.

Ray: It’s my pleasure. If I may take just a moment, I want to button up this topic a little bit, because I think it’s important to understand that everything that happens to you in your business is an opportunity, if you’ll take the time to see it that way. The email that you referred to, the opportunity arose with me being really, honestly, Barry, I was upset with this person who made these comments about me online. Then I took a moment to calm down, and think about my spiritual practices, and thinking, “Well, this is not really the right way to respond to this. What’s the opportunity in this?”

I didn’t name this person by name, and I didn’t point out anything that would make them feel belittled. They’re not reading my email, because I made sure they were unsubscribed from my list.

I titled it My Clever Scam, and then I said in the email, “Every time we open the doors for the Copy Writing Academy, this happens. It’s just like it’s a full moon. The crazies come out.”

Then I said, “We had thousands of people go through my all-new free training. 99.9 percent of the people loved it, but there’s always a few jokers who just don’t get it, or maybe they do, they just like stirring things up, like the guy who posted, “Very clever scam, teasing before selling us something.”

Then he wrote in all caps, “SCAMMER.” I wrote — and I did get a little sarcastic here — I said, “How doth cluelessness show itself? Let me count the ways.

“Number one, if you think selling something is evil, then why are you watching a video about how to sell stuff?

Number two, did you not read the thousands of messages from other people who got great value from the series?

“Number three, well, you figured out my clever scam, which is to give away free stuff that’s so good, people want to buy my paid training.”

My message was, to my subscribers, if you become successful at all, you’re going to have these people show up.

These trolls are going to show up. I made the observation, “It doesn’t matter how good you are. I bet even Mr. Rogers had trolls. Take it as a sign that you’re on the track.”

Barry: That’s very good. I always say that to people as well. If you don’t occasionally sort of — I hate to use the word — “upset” somebody, or somebody says something negative to you, you’re really not trying hard enough. You’ve nailed it there. I, obviously, like everybody, see a lot of email, but I printed this one off.

Actually, I realized I only printed off the first page of it. I’m pretty sure you had a very clever PS on it. Did you have a clever PS, something about commies, or something like that in it?

Ray: I said, “I suppose I should be flattered to have a troll or two. This will happen to you. Want to see the free training that has Tommy Troll so upset? Go grab it soon. We’ll be taking it down in a few days.”

The PS said, “Yes, I might eventually sell you something, so if you hate capitalism, bunnies, and babies, you won’t be interested in this.” I made “be interested in this” into a link.

Barry: Indeed. That was actually, to me, the best part of the email.

As I said earlier, people, get on Ray’s list. If you don’t…Listen, you can hear the guy’s as genuine as he ever could be.

Look, the man’s saying, “Look, you don’t even have to buy.” He’s going to try reasonably hard to sell you something, but he hasn’t yet worked out a way to get the credit card out of your pocket and make it work.

Ray: If I could work that out, I wouldn’t do it, because that’s not a good thing to do.

Barry: Indeed, that’s not a good thing to do.

Many, many years ago, I remember a story I was told by somebody when I was starting out. Believe it or not, my entrepreneurial career started out as an Amway distributor. I remember my upline gave me this advice.

I had somebody, a family member, that was really laughing at me, and saying I was being silly to do this AMWAY thing”

My up-line explained, “These are the people you’re going to succeed in spite of.”

I found it a way to great way to turn it around. It was in spite of that person writing that really nasty email, or that person saying that nasty comment on Facebook. “You’re going to succeed anyway.”

They’re always going to live the life that they’re going to live, but the life they’re living isn’t going to impact on your life. Whatever they say, you’ve always got the opportunity to turn it around, and make it into something positive.

Ray: I love that. There’s a book I would recommend that talks about this, not just about emails or online trolls, but it’s about any obstacle that you run into in your life. The book is called “The Obstacle is the Way.” It’s by Ryan Holiday. It’s a fantastic book.

Barry: We will put a link to that in the show notes. That’s really, really good. In fact, actually, you raced ahead again there, Ray. I was going to ask you, apart from your own fantastic books, and I know you’ve got a number, is there a particular business book that you would say right now, “This is a book I’ve read recently. I really like it,” or even one maybe 20 years ago. Would you want to recommend a book?

Ray: I’m going to give you the one that is having the most impact on my life and my business right now. I’ve read this book three times, and I’m getting ready to do a fourth read through. It’s called “Deep Work,” and it’s by Cal Newport. The subtitle is “Rules For Focused Success in a Distracted World.”

Barry: Wow. Is it a big book, a small book? Is it a scientific book, or is it more of a…?

Ray: It’s not a boring academic book, but it is not small. It’s about 250 pages or so.

Barry: I think most of us can cope with that, just about.

Ray: In the notes to his book, he says, “One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you’ll achieve extraordinary results. Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.“Now, first of all, that’s great copy. Secondly, I think this is an important book for us, just as people, because the world is full of so many distractions these days, I think it would be easy for most of us to miss our real calling in life.

Your calling, it may be to be an Amway distributor. Whatever it is, if you get distracted by too many video games, too much Candy Crush, too much Facebook, whatever the case may be, you may miss what you’re really put here to do.

This book is really powerful. It’s had a big impact on my business. Many of my colleagues and friends whose names most people would know who are listening to this, they’re all loving this book. It’s something we’re all sharing with one another. I would really recommend this book.

Barry: Thank you. I’ll be on Amazon as soon as this call’s over and ordering it. I look forward to reading it. I really appreciate the recommendation. Ray, just a summary, actually, I was going to ask you. You’ve given us so much, I’m thinking, “How do I describe this particular interview? [laughs]

Some closing thoughts, if you like. Thinking again, our audience, a lot of bloggers, a lot of small business people, a lot of people who, or want to be, I would actually say they’re wannabe copy writers. What’s your pieces of advice you would possibly give us, if you like, as your parting thoughts?

Ray: I’ll give you a couple of things. For those who want to write, or want to be copy writers, Stephen King in his book, “On Writing,” which is another book I highly recommend — even though it’s about writing fiction, it’s still a wonderful instructional guide for how to write anything really successfully. He says, ” to write good stuff, you have to write a lot of bad stuff,” and that the one thing writers who become good have in common is they write a lot, so I would encourage you to write a lot.

The second piece of advice I would give you comes from Anne Lamott, who wrote a book called “Bird by Bird,” another strong recommendation for reading. This is kind of colorful language, so I have to clean this up a little bit. She says,

“Give yourself permission to write crappy first drafts.”

When you do that, when you tell yourself, “OK, this is my first draft, and it’s going to be horrible, and I’m OK with that.” It relieves so much pressure that you can pour out the creativity that’s inside of you, knowing, “I’m going to edit this later. I’m not going to edit it right now.”

Then the final thought that I would offer is something that is a powerful, formative belief that I picked up from a legend in the field of motivational speaking. He’s really the guy who invented, I believe, motivational speaking, Earl Nightingale.

Earl Nightingale said something that I heard him say when I was probably 19 years old, and it’s had a huge influence on the rest of my life. He said, “The best definition of success I have ever encountered is this.

Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.”

If you think about that sentence, it means that you can become successful today if you made a little progress toward a worthy ideal today.

=> Check out Rays website

The post Ray Edwards Copywriter – How to Write Copy That Sells appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

How To Make Money Online

8 SEO Trends That Are Changing The Face Of Blogging

#1 SEO Trend -The voice search explosion

How to optimize for voice search?

Tips For Voice Search SEO

#2 SEO Trend – Video

a. Start keyword research in YouTube.

b. Create high-quality videos.

c. Make punchy video titles.

d. Write a smart description. [This is KEY]

e. Embed your videos in blog posts.

#3 SEO Trend – Mobile-first indexing

What can you do about it?

#4 SEO Trend – Featured Snippets

#5 SEO Trend – Linkless backlinks

#6 SEO Trends – The User Experience

#7 SEO Trends and Content

#8 SEO Trends and RankBrain

a) Drill down your keyword list

b) Write for people, not for search engines

Final Thoughts On SEO Trends In 2018

Nate Rifkin | How To Write Better Copy and Make More Sales

Nate Rifkin: 5 Step Formula For Writing Sales Copy

** Edited Transcription – Nate Rifkin Interview **

The best copywriters are human data-gathering machines

You figure out where they’re at. You figure out what they know, what they’ve already tried, and then you educate them on what the pitfalls were and what they should do next.

In copywriting you have to address customer skepticism and given them a reason why something is going to work.

When you’re aware of your audience’s awareness, when you know what they know, and you know where they’re at, you can craft a great headline that speaks to them exactly where they are, and introduces them to a new idea.

When creating a Lead Magnet pick one thing that sparks folks so much they just need to know the answer to it.

Nate Rifkin – 5-step Formula For Writing Sales Copy

The 100 Richest Internet Entrepreneurs

Top 30 Website Sales Of All Time

“You have to work with the end in mind and every day make sure your working towards it”

Top 30 Website Sales Of All Time

Final thoughts on Website Sales:

Are you considering selling your online business?

21 Smart Ways To Increase Website Value

21 Smart Ways To Increase Website Value

#1 To Increase Your Website Value, Start With the End In Mind

The Biggest Mistake A Small Business Can Make Is Thinking Like A Small Business

Do You Buy Websites?

Subscribe to Website Buyers

#2 Use Diversified Traffic Sources

#3 Create Unique Evergreen Content

#4 Secure Domain variations | Major Social Media Extensions

#5 Increase Website Worth Through Testimonials and Star Ratings

“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what consumers tell each other it is.”

How Do You Get Testimonials?

#6 Get A Premium Domain Name

#7 Inbound Link-building (Backlinks)

#8 For Maximum Website Value Turn Your Website Into a Hub

#9 Keep Good Records

#10 Make Sure To Optimize Your Website For Mobile Access

#11 Use Great Copywriting

#12 Use Multiple Monetization Channels

#13 Guest Posts | Write For Authority Websites

#14 Create A Sales Funnel

#15 To Add Website Value – Build An Email List!

#16 Make Use Of Original Image & Video Content

#17 Deliver Your Content Through a CDN

#18 Use an SSL Certificate (HTTPS)

#19 Use Personalized Content

#20 Build A Network of Internal Links

#21 Ensure You Have High-Quality UI/UX Design

Final Thoughts!

Top 10 Content Creation Steps For Bloggers

The 10 Most Important Steps For Successful Content Creation

1. Choose a Topic To Write About

How does your blog post benefit the reader?

2. Deciding On What The Goal Of Your Blog Post Is

3. Research Keywords For Blog Post

4. Creating Your Blog Post

5. How to Display Content For Readability

6. Adding Images To Your Blog Post

7. Optimize Text For SEO

8. Optimize Images For SEO

9. Add Internal And External Links

10. Marketing Blog Post For SEO and Social Media

Final Thoughts on Content Creation…

7 Secrets To Writing A Best Selling Book That Sold 2 Million Copies!

Edited Transcription – Nate Rifkin Interview

Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer.
– Ray Bradbury

Free Ebook Reveals… The $2 BILLION Sales Letter You’ve Never Heard Of…
PLUS
A Free Copywriting Course