By adding "No experience necessary," you build interest, because your reader is thinking, "No experience necessary. I can do this!"

Next comes third letter letter in formula: D="DESIRE". You have to make your reader "DESIRE" whatever it is that you're offering. And best way to do that is with benefits! Let's continue to build on classified ad we started:

Make $50,000 Yearly Selling Books! No experience Necessary. Over 1000 money-making titles. Small investment!

By adding "Over 1000 money-making titles. Small investment!" You're making your reader desire what you're offering. At this point your reader is thinking, "I can make money selling books. It doesn't cost a lot to get started, and I don't need any experience!" Those things are all "benefits."

Again, just tell your reader what your headline promised.

Push his emotional "hot buttons", by using magic selling words like, revolutionary, new, amazing, free, guaranteed, security, love, sex, make money, etc! Example:

Make $50,000 Yearly Selling Books! No experience Necessary. Over 1000 money-making titles. Small investment! FREE information!

By adding magic selling words like "money-making" and "FREE," you're pushing your reader's emotional "hot buttons!"

Finally, we come to last letter in formula: A="ACTION". You want to close your classified ad with a call to action! In other words, tell your reader what you want him to do. For example, "For details click here!" or "Write for more information!" Example:

Make $50,000 Yearly Selling Books! No experience Necessary. Over 1000 money-making titles. Small investment! FREE information! Click here!

Adding "Click here," is a call to action. You're telling your reader exactly what you want him to do.

In closing, remember, when writing a classified ad, always use AIDA formula. It will rarely let you down!

Dean Phillips is an Internet marketing expert, writer, publisher and entrepreneur. Questions? Comments? Dean can be reached at mailto: dean@lets-make-money.net

Visit his website at: http://www.lets-make-money.net

Don’t See Big Picture Another common shortcoming of small business web sites is that many fail to realize a fundamental marketing concept: most consumers who make a decision to buy something make decision to do so after 6 - 8 contacts with some form of marketing for a particular product or service. Failing to realize and act upon this marketing fact will hinder your ability to grow your business.

The purpose of marketing is to establish your business in marketplace so that consumers think of you when they are ready to act to fill a need or desire. By regularly getting your marketing message in front of your market you can help them associate what you do with what they need. You can also attract more clients by demonstrating your expertise to clients in your marketing material.

Poor design Do visitors to your web site do what you want them to do? If they are not it may be design of your web site that is preventing your visitors from taking action you want them to take. The design of each of your web pages is instrumental in guiding actions of your visitors.

So what constitutes good design? Good design stems from skillful integration of graphical and textual layout, color, shape and choice and flow of content. If your site does not have content your visitors seek you will strike out each time someone visits your page. If your web pages don’t put what you want your visitors to see immediately in front of them you will miss opportunities to sell. If your choice of fonts and colors make your pages difficult to read your visitors will likely move along to another web site they can understand more easily.

To identify if your web pages suffer from poor design ask yourself following questions: Does my text stand out over my background color? Does design of my site focus my visitor’s attention where I want it? Does my content give my users what they want?

If you answered ‘No’ to any of questions above you can improve your ability to get your users to do what you want by taking steps to correct anything that may be wrong.

Failure to Focus on Client Needs When people visit your web site you want them to read through content of your site. By doing so your visitors develop a sense of how your product or service can help them. If your copy doesn’t focus on your clients’ needs and desires they will be off to another site in a blink.

If your visitors are quickly leaving your web site it may be because your copy does not focus on their needs. Here are some common mistakes to avoid: Don’t focus on process or method you use to do your job Don’t focus on your existing clients Don’t focus on your experience Don’t focus on quality of your product

By making any of above mistakes you detract attention from reasons that are going to help your clients make decision to buy from you. You may be very proud of your accomplishments, and you should be, but focusing on them does not address your clients' needs and will do little to help you sell more effectively.