Just as great fiction is an art, so is great copywriting. Beneath art, however, there's a foundation of basic knowledge and skills. The craft that goes into your writing.

Craft comes first. Art follows.

You learn craft of writing by educating yourself, by actual process of writing (the doing), and by reading incessantly. Every successful writer will tell you that reading has been and still is cornerstone of developing his craft.

Reading presents you with a written illustration of what works and what doesn't, of what you like as a writer and what you don't. It helps you understand possibilities, and offers practical instruction of how rules of your craft are used.

Most writers, when they start out, mimic their favorite authors. I have a friend who became incredibly adept at writing like Stephen King. For several years, everything I wrote had a Ray Bradbury flavor.

Eventually, we developed our own styles, which were richer for having first gone through this mimic stage.

The point is this: part of any effective learning process is to mimic what has been successful before you.

This is true of copywriting, too. And it's reason you need to start a "swipe" file if you want to become a successful copywriter.

What is a "swipe" file? It's exactly what it sounds like ... a file of great copywriting examples that you've collected, studied, and can access whenever you're in need of a little inspiration. These are not examples meant to be plagiarized. You aren't copying work here; you're adapting it to your own copywriting needs.

If you are like many professionals, you know your subject, you are an expert in your field. You are even passionate about it! What you may not know is how to tell people about your services and products to get them to buy.

Your home page needs passion. You have only 10 seconds or so to impress your visitor. Make sure you don't have long paragraphs of bio or description of your mission, service, or book. Visitors, who really are potential clients or customers, want to know what's in it for them. Make every word count.

Place most important messages in top half of your Web home page.

"How to Transform your Home Page to Pull Sales With Passion Copywriting"

1. Prepare a list of benefits for each product or service. Some of top benefits are making money, saving money, creating loving relationships, saving time, disappointment--anything that solves person's particular problem. Be sure to survey your friends and associates, ask them to vote on which phrases compel them to buy. Ask them to add words or phrases that would convince them. Benefits sell.

2. Prepare a list of features. These describe your products and services. They are parts of your book such as charts, tips and how-to's. These are ways you can help your clients such as phone coaching or teleclasses.

Choose best five benefits and features. Combine them. For example: "Seven Ways/Steps to Quadruple your Online Sales Within Four Months." The ways or steps are feature, specific benefit is "quadruple sales within four months."

2.. Include a benefit-driven headline for each product or service.