Pretty rude comment, but I'll answer your comments as I own the site you have been ridiculing .. pattayai.com. Maybe, maybe not. Well, if you are that confident .. YOU make the edits, I'll add them to the pages and post the stats. Then you can say, "I told you so!" Well, as I said, I won't use that language .. but I will post the results .. how about the traffic for July and the traffic for September
Out of all that, this is the question you want to ask? Ok... You make it sound like trial and error are something you can do without. That if you learn "real copy writing from a pro" you are not going to have to worry about it. Sweet! I'll tell you something for nothing, Experience is that thing you get right after you needed it. Most web marketers call it Path to Sale, but really "Sale" doesn't have to be the goal when you are learning to write on the web. Put your 'sale', your goal, as a response you want to get from the reader. (this way you can use your own blog or website as your chalk board). Let's just put it on clicking on a link to start, and then move to signing up for a news letter. In this day of age, getting someone to give you their email address for your newsletter is just as difficult as getting them to buy something. Sign up for Google Analytics, if you don't already have a good Analytics program on your website. Write an article with an intention. (your goal, whatever you want to have happen when someone reads that article). Use your Analytics program to monitor the following aspects of that article 1) bounce rate (means they hit the page and left in under 10 seconds) 2) on page time (were they there long enough to read the full article) 3) where did they go next? (did they click on the link, sign up, buy?) You can read and write and guess all you want, but analytics programs tell you (in sometimes rather stark clarity) how you did. I don't want to guess that something works for my clients, I want to know it worked. I want to see what I wrote, sold items. I want to see an increase in traffic, and know exactly why that traffic increased. Yes, there are excitement and energy words you need to know, beef is more tasty than meat, 30 minutes is shorter than a half-hour, etc. You never use the word 'quality' in copy, it slows down the energy. All well and good, and can be learned from your $60 in books. Those are basics, that's just copy. Learning what works for web copy takes a bit more. Nothing is static on the web, nothing cut and dry. The readers change, you have a greater influx of cultures. You also have several design and intention issues to deal with. Knowing the basic rules is necessary, but using Analytic tools will show you where you need to break them. A perfect example is a client I worked with last month. Going through the analytic reports they showed most of their traffic (over 50%) was coming in from Google, with MSN and Ask being around 10% each. However, in the path reports I noticed that 70% of those coming in from MSN and Ask were making sales, whereas only 10% of those from Google were getting to the cart. Checking the listing for those other two I found that the entry pages were different than those Google were hitting on. Comparing the writing styles I discovered a more subdued style on them. I changed the entry page Google was hitting on to a similar, more subdued style, and sales increased within the week. You say you want to get juices flowing... well okay. What I want are sales. You are going to learn the craft of excitement, I'm going to craft to the reader, and for that you need tools. The next thing you do with your article is to put it on other sites, such as posting it in a couple of forums, or submitting it to a blog or two. Then use your Analytics to monitor if you get similar results from those other sites. From experience, you will probably find that you don't get similar results, you will get drastically different results. The trick then is to figure out why, and that's when you really start becoming a writer on for the web. Not having those tools working, leaves you with formulas, and formulas sound good; Very impressive. Beef really does taste better than meat. They don't always work, but you aren't going to know why they don't work if you don't have the experience honed by the tools of the trade.
Naw, you are going to do it anyway. I'm going to watch. I answered your question. Normally I would say something like "you want real web copy, you hire me.", but that boat just sank. I find your proposition much ruder than anything I wrote. I don't need to see your stats. I have paying clients to write for.
I think there is an insult then educate thing going on. Not at all, testing is crucial and when I used the word "sure", it was meant as agreement. So I am afraid you are not arguing against what I believed. It was the only thing I asked because I was underwhelmed by most of the stuff you wrote having already learned it. But it might be useful to others. I wish I had the time to write more to justify your verbose posting. But what about Pork?
Well in my suggestion code entegrition could be done on written documents where the craggle can read where it can be index'ed and where it can also be copy protected . Writing the article helps you get index'd correct ? Well take screan shots of the article and then post it at the same spot give properties to comment and also give a diffrent url of the original article that is written at your site but dont give it to public . So what i mean in this way your written articles are protected this way. Many of clients do this , nothing change's in the seo or the index'ing . Only its protected document against copy writers..
What web tools are you talking about - that will make your copy found, read and acted upon, if you wudn't mind sharing of course?
I would recommend something like Clayton makepeace's Ultimate Desktop copywriting coach. Its very comprehensive and looks at each copy element very throughly. Priced at I think $1500 but well worth it if u r serious.
Clayton Makepeace's course and Joe Sugarman's books I think should get you in the right path to making progress in your copywriter career.
I'll Second Clayton Makepeace, his stuff is amazing. You really can't go wrong with John Carlton's stuff either. But you know an amazing source of copywriting information that won't cost you thousands, but the information is worth thousands? How To Write A Good Advertisement by Victor Schwab, Scientific advertising by Claude Hopkins, and many other old copy books that can all be found on amazon.com for very reasonable prices. Brett
reading on the web and understanding at own pace is a better option that reading a whole book on the issue.
You need to learn how to touch people's emotions. How to hit their deepest desires, compel and persuade them to buy what your offering. That is not going to be achieved by reading a few things on the web. That is going to be done through studying the copywriting masters. -Brett