To many internet newbies focus on fancy website technology. I have personally been to hundreds (...maybe even thousands) of websites that have sounds, flashing popups, scrolling messages and more...but I can't find what they are selling!

Your goal, whether it's a webpage, sales letter or newsletter article, should be to get visitors to take immediate action. You want visitors to view literature that you've created and immediately be motivated to learn and/or know more.

There are numerous individuals promoting information on writing sales letters and advertisements - and I'll even recommend a few at end of this article. But what you need to fully understand first, is basic ingredients of a "sales copy":

1. The Headline 2. The Opening 3. The Selling Copy 4. The Tone 5. The Offer 6. The Guarantee 7. The Motivation 8. The Postscripts

Obviously I don't have time to go through all of these items here. So, let me just touch on first item. But remember, you are going to have to fully understand all of these basics to be successful.

The Headline - "Writing Headlines"

The headline of a sales letter is so important because this one little item will either make or break you. It's estimated that 85% of of a sales letter's effectiveness is gathered in headline!

As I was riding down road last week, I noticed a billboard. As I sat waiting on a stoplight I kept staring at it. I couldn’t help wondering what those people were thinking when they created that thing. It made no sense to me whatsoever. The focus was completely off. They were spending all that money on a billboard that was practically useless.

That happens quite a bit with all types of advertising. Well-meaning people design and/or write ads that just don’t make good sense. For all their time and all their money they will likely get nothing in return. So, what did they do that was all wrong?

This particular billboard was for a realtor. Half of it was taken up with his photo. I understand photos… they help to create relationships and give people a face to put with an otherwise arbitrary name. But half billboard? The photo should have definitely been much smaller.

The next biggest thing on billboard was realtor’s tag line. To be honest, I don’t remember what tag line was… something pretty generic like “Serving your real estate needs for 15 years.” Nothing worth taking up all that space for.

Next… in about same size font (type) as tag line were name of real estate company and realtor’s name.

Last - and in smallest type - was contact phone number. Hmmm… does something seem wrong to you?

Now let’s think about this. What is purpose of putting up a billboard - or any other piece of advertising? To get people to respond. And how do people respond? In this case by contacting you. If I had a shot at redesigning this billboard, I would do a lot of things differently.