Illustrations

There are three primary reasons for using illustrations in an advertisement.

- To attract attention to ad. - To illustrate item being featured. - To create a mood in mind of reader.

Everyone has heard, A picture is worth a thousand words; in advertising, illustration frequently helps reader visualize benefits promised. You can almost feel warmth of tropical sun when you see photos in January travel ads. Cost and practicality may dictate whether your ad uses photographs, artists' drawings or merely canned artwork. Any of these can make ad more appealing to reader's eye.

Copy

If you follow three principles of good copy, your ads will be effective:

- Good copy should be clear. - Good copy should be crisp. - Good copy should be concise.

Clear, crisp and concise . . . three Cs of copy writing suggest that words in your advertising message merely do a good job of communicating. Do not use big words when small words can make your meaning clear. Use colorful, descriptive terms. Use number of words necessary to make your meaning clear and no more-but also no less! Selecting right words is critical to success of ads. Recent research conducted at Yale University found that following 12 words are most personal and persuasive words in our language.

You Discovery Safety Money Proven Results Love Guarantee Save New Easy Health Notice overused word free is not on list.

REMEMBER THAT WHEN YOUR MESSAGE IS PRINTED IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS INSTEAD OF UPPER- AND LOWERCASE LETTERS, IT IS FAR MORE DIFFICULT FOR THE READER TO FOLLOW AND REMAIN INTERESTED. EVEN IN HEADLINES ALL CAPITAL LETTERS SHOULD BE AVOIDED.

If you want to keep it simple, then start out with a blog where you post and others only read.

** How Do You Set Up a Blog? **

Log on to Blogger.com to set up a free account (monologue type).

With absolutely zero experience and without reading help files, I set up my blog - www.ebookblog.com - in about 5 minutes.

At first I just posted a few old articles to fill in content and see how process worked.

Lately I've gotten "blogger bug" and plan to start posting several times a week.

Though my blog gets posted on my own website, Blogger.com also allows you to post to their server so you don't even need a hosting account to set up your own blog.

You can get a more full-featured blog (dialogue type) from MovableType.org.

There you have option of getting their software installed on your server or obtaining a very reasonably priced account hosted on their servers.

Either way you choose, posting rates as simple as typing into a web form, clicking a button, and your articles and comments automatically get posted to your blog (no html or ftp skills required).

If you want to find one of thousands of blogs online about everything from cooking to puppy potty training, log on to: www.daypop.com www.blogsearchengine.com www.feedster.com

You can easily and quickly search through rapidly expanding databases of blogs open to public.