Excess Voice

Reviews of useful resources for copywriters and online marketers

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 16:34:18 -0400

MarketingSherpa's Ecommerce Benchmark Guide 2006

The core purpose of all 300-plus pages is to help you optimize your online marketing efforts and increase conversion rates and revenues.

As always with MarketingSherpa, this report is not a collection of expert opinions, but a compendium of results -- including 311 charts, 23 heatmaps (eyetracking) and data from 1,101 companies which have been tracking their own performance online.

Read my review of MarketingSherpa's Ecommerce Benchmark Guide 2006...

Keyword Discovery - a keyword research and analytics tool for search engine optimization

Filled with advanced search features, Keyword Discovery draws on search results from over 200 search engines. If you are serious about attracting organic search engine traffic, or optimizing PPC campaigns, you'll want to check this out.

Read my review of Keyword Discovery...

Secrets of Writing for the Business to Business Market

There are 8 million business-to-business companies out there. And they all need good sales copy. The opportunity in B2B copywriting is huge, and this 350+ page course tells you everything you need to know about getting your own slice of the market.

Read my review and find out how...

DOUBLE Your Profits in 12 Months Or LESS!

This 215-page e-book by Clayton Makepeace gets to the heart of what it takes to be a successful copywriter. He gives advice not only on how to write great copy, but also on how to be a great marketer. It's a killer combination.

Read my review of this excellent book...

Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2006, from MarketingSherpa

This guide comes out once a year, and at 150 pages this year's guide is more comprehensive than ever. If you are involved in email marketing, you'll find figures and tactics here to help you make significant improvements to the performance of your email campaigns.

Read my full review...

Other New Pages...

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 07:10:22 -0400

I have just added an Events page to the site,

From time to time I hear about upcoming events for copywriters...conferences, teleconference calls and the like.

Whenever I hear about something I will add it to this listing. And if you hear about events not listed, please let me know.

Current list of events...

Latest Excess Voice Newsletter

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 10:15:56 -0400

Excess Voice Newsletter
April 2006, Issue # 104

In this issue:

>> Intro: A New Area for the Site?
>> Review: Recent & Popular Reviews
>> Article: Writing Quality Content...Even for an Audience of One
>> Experiments: Testing Headlines
>> Survey: Do You have a Portfolio Online?
===============================================

Greetings,

In the last issue I asked about which software you had purchased recently. There wasn't much of a response and no pattern or theme apparent in our purchases.

This week's survey asks whether or not you have a portfolio of your work online. I ask, because I'm in the early stages of thinking about creating a section for the site, or even a new site, devoted to showcasing copywriters' portfolios. We'll see. Let me know if you think it's a good idea.

This issue's article is about writing quality content, even when you have a small audience of readers.

Read the complete issue here...

Web Copywriting Tips

Sun, 17 Jul 2005 10:36:41 -0400

It's Not About Keyword Stuffing

This is a topic that has been covered by many people, but it seems the message about keyword stuffing still hasn't reached everyone.

One of the mistakes I keep hearing about is when people stuff their web pages with one or two keywords as often as possible.

There is still a widespread belief that optimizing for the search engines involves including your best keyword as often as you possibly can.

Not so.

Learn the truth about keyword stuffing...

Learn the Language of Your Prospects

I'm in the middle of reviewing a package of information by and about the legendary copywriter, Eugene Schwartz. There are some CDs, a video tape and, most important of all, a copy of his 1966 book, Breakthrough Advertising.

It's all great stuff. He was an amazingly successful copywriter and marketer.

Anyway, here's a quote that really resonated with me.

Click here for the full tip..

Connect Your Emails with Front Page News

Many businesses and non-profits have an opportunity to take advantage of big news stories.

A typical example would be how a home insurance company might talk about recent floods or high winds in a part of the country.

While news of the bad weather is still front page news, that is the time to send an email that talks about the event and makes a pitch to buy more home insurance.

Read the complete tip...

Latest Excess Voice Articles

Fri, 15 Jul 2005 13:53:35 -0400

7 Tips on writing a web site landing page sequence.

Much has been said and written about how to optimize individual landing pages.

However, when you want a web site visitor to take an action, if often takes more than one page.

So how much work do you put into optimizing not just the primary landing page, but also the pages that follow?

Here are some tips to keep in mind as you write and optimize a landing page sequence.

Read the 7 tips here...

Do Internet users want deep content or immediate gratification?

For a long time I have been an advocate of quality content on web sites.

And now I am conducting an experiment that pitches quality content against immediate gratification.

Here's what I have been up to...

Is your web site old and out of touch?

A great many changes are taking place online right now. This is particularly true when you are trying to reach and sell to potential customers who are up-to-date with new technologies and ways of using the web.

I'm thinking of the people who download podcasts to their iPods.

And about people who tag and share at del.icio.us, digg.com and other social networking sites.

And about the people who share video clips at YouTube.com.

There is a profound shift taking place in how many people like to use the web.

Meanwhile, too many online marketers are still scratching their heads and wondering whether they can muster the courage to launch a blog.

>> And what tools and services are you using right now that you didn't use last year?

Do you have a lens at Squidoo?

Have you created a Swicki at Eurekster?

Read the whole article...

Avoid the use of familiar phrases and messages in your emails.

Sometimes copywriters and content writers write in clichés.

They say things like, "Company X offers an integrated end-to-end solution".

To a reader, the line has barely any meaning, and certainly no impact. Why not?

Because it is too familiar. Because he or she has read the same phrase so many times before, in too many other places.

In other words, when a phrase or sentence has a very familiar ring to it...it has very little impact in the new copy you are writing.

But this isn't just about clichés... (read the full article)

Give Your Testimonials More Credibility

All too often when I read testimonials on web sites, the fifty billions neurons in my brain devoted to being cynical wake up and say, "Sure buddy. We believe every word. Not."

They may be cynical neurons, but they have a point.

When I read one of those long sales pages with hard-hitting sales copy interspersed with raving testimonials, here's the longer version of what I think...

I think that the people who give the testimonials do so for the additional exposure they receive for their own names, sites and businesses.

I also think they do some mutual back-scratching, and hype each other's products and services.

In other words, the testimonials are just additional sales text. They have no credibility as outside, third-party endorsements.

Read the complete article here...