Thousands of new websites are springing up every week. The owners of these sites are full of optimism that their venture into e-commerce will transform their business by bringing in new customers and boosting their sales.

But reality is that most websites fail abysmally as sales tools. Why? Because owners of these sites have spent a lot of money creating fancy graphics but have paid little attention to words on site. And it’s words on websites that sell. Your fancy graphics might entertain your potential customers but they won’t make sale.

Take a look at many of websites out there in cyberspace. They are full of spelling mistakes, poor grammar and cumbersome text that makes you want to do only one thing … click your mouse button and move to something else.

Small and medium businesses are particularly guilty of this. The words appear to be an after-thought, hurriedly cobbled together to fill space between images.

One of America’s e-commerce gurus, Ken Evoy, believes 90 percent of websites are failing to “get order” from potential customers browsing web, because they are badly written, or written in wrong style.

“Remember, people use Net to find information. And information is contained in words, not graphics,” Evoy says.

“Let’s face it, there’s some pretty cool stuff on web, and it’s fun to play with. But don’t be tempted. Your sales site can’t be self-indulgent. You have to think customer every step of way. Customers want information.

“Compelling text is 1000 percent more important than fancy design. After all, if a fancy page has no substance, it delivers no value.”

Web selling also has two important features to consider. First, customer sought you out. This is a big positive. Second, there are thousands of other companies on web competing for your customer’s business. And since you are a ‘virtual vendor’, customer can click you away in a second … without even feeling bad about it. This is a huge negative.

When you think about selling on web, keep these two points clearly in mind. You have a potential customer browsing your site, finger poised over their mouse. One click and they’re gone.

So what should an effective website look like? First, keep it simple. It may be nice to have moving images to greet customer when they enter site, but make sure it doesn’t take too long to load. Otherwise customer will get impatient and … click … they’re gone.

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.