Make sure that you are promoting a product that is useful and/or desirable to audience you are targeting.

2. Use Attention Getting Headlines:

You web site will have or should have much useful information embedded within. Just like direct advertising, you must be sure that you have a great headline to get your reader's attention.

3. Expand Headline with Lead Paragraph:

Follow up headline immediately with first paragraph. If you ask a question, answer it. If you propose a thought, explain it. Don't leave them hanging too long, you may end up hanging yourself.

4. Draw Reader In:

Avoid page and advertising layouts that are confusing or hard to read. Reading your message should be a pleasure to read. Keep your copy simple, clear and concise. Talk to your reader as you would a friend or family member. Be straight and sincere with them. Spell it out and explain point that need explaining. Don't leave your reader second-guessing your copy.

5. Support your Opening Idea:

When you plant that opening idea, build on it and support it. List your strongest and key points. Don't just tell your reader you're better, state (brief) facts why!

6. Focus on Reader, not Product:

Of course your copy must contain information and facts about your product or service, but that is not your focal point. You must focus reader. Use their needs, wants, desires, fears, weaknesses, concerns, and even fantasies to sell your product or service.

7. Empathize with your Reader:

Many buyers have firm beliefs and strong feelings for type of product that they are interested in. Share their enthusiasm; support them in their interests outside product itself.

8. Use "That's Right!" Principle:

Get your prospect to agree with you. Tell them something they know already. Get them to say to themselves, "That's Right!"

9. Ask Provocative Questions:

Leading into your copy or headline with thought provoking questions will grab reader's interest and move them to read more for answer.

10. Move Quickly from Intro to Pitch:

Don't waste your reader's time trying to "warm them up". If they got that far, there's blood flowing already. People are busy creatures. If you lose their interest, you neither sell nor profit. Get on with it!

11. Be Sincere:

What's number one fallback for sales on web? Fear! Fear of being scammed or ripped-off. The more sincere you are better your chance of building a "selling" relationship.

12. Don't Contradict Yourself:

Double-check your copy. You would be surprised to know that many copywriters unknowingly contradict themselves leaving reader suspicious, thus destroying your credibility with them.

13. Keep Your Focus Aligned:

The more focused your target group, better your chance of meeting their needs. Don't try to sell everyone!

14. Make Your Product Irresistible:

Dress it up. Your product should sound like cream of crop. Focus on your selling point (price, quality, etc) and make it impossible for reader to imagine another in comparison.

15. Use Fear as Motivation:

Fear is both a weakness and strength, but also a powerful selling tool. Fear of injury, death or missed opportunity. If you sell a safety product you would use this fear to your advantage. If you're offering an opportunity, fear of missing their chance is a strong seller.

16. Anticipate Problems and Complaints:

And if you’ve spent effort and dollars to attract visitors, you don’t want to lose them in time it takes to back out of driveway. After all, if you’ve got something to sell, you’re not looking for “hits”, you’re looking for sales. The only item someone will buy in fifteen seconds is a face-value ticket to Super Bowl.

With advent of simpler, fast-loading sites with fewer graphics, headlines and text may be most important tools you have during those 15 seconds.

Headlines

The objective of a headline is to interest visitor in reading text. Plain and simple. Without a well-written headline, visitors will never go far enough to investigate details of what you’ve got to offer. You don’t sell with a headline. That’s job of your text. All you want to do is get reader to desire more information.

--Choose right words First, certain subjects create more interest than others. Among most effective are money, wealth, love, health and safety. Practice writing three or four headlines using those subjects.

There are also words that seem to attract greater interest than others. Here are some of those words: Learn, discover, easy, new, proven, save, you, now and free

Now re-write your headlines incorporating those words.

And, of course, many effective headlines start with “How to…” or “How you can…”

--Use a question Many times a question works well because it involves reader. Ever heard this one? “Where Do You Want To Go Today?” Sure you have.

Here are some other ways to incorporate a question into your headline: “Have You Ever…?” “Do You Want To…” “Do You Think You Can…” “How Do You…”

--Experiment with your headlines Chances are, you’re not going to hit best possible headline on your first try. And nobody can tell you in advance what will work for your product or service. Don’t be afraid to experiment early on, trying to gauge response to each headline.

--Put a tracking system in place Make sure you have a system in place to track which headlines are generating response and which aren’t. An easy way is to make multiple, identical pages on your site. Each page should contain a hit counter. Then assign each headline you use to a particular page. The highest number of responses wins. Headline one might be www.yourdomainname.com/product/hd1.html and second headline aims visitors to www.yourdomainname.com/product/hd2.html.

Writing Effective Website Text

Now that you’ve perfected your headline, you should tailor your text to involve visitor in your site, describe what your product or service will do for them and lead them toward a sale. Here are some DOs and DON’Ts: