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19 Formatting Tips To Improve Your Sales Letter

by Susan Carroll

Before I list 19 simple ways to improve your sales letter you need to understand 2 things:

a. An online sales letter is defined as any web page where you want to get an action from your reader—a sale, a sign-up, go to another page, etc.

b. It's the words and the way you format the words on your sales letter that cause the reader to do the action you want. The words—not the pictures—do the work and cause the reaction of your site visitor.

Now that you know what a sales letter is and it's the words that are the most important part, here are 19 tips for writing effective sales letters.

1. Have an attention grabbing headline at the top of the page where your visitor can see it without scrolling.

2. The best color to use for your headline is red. It can be any shade of red but red works the best to get someone's attention.

3. Put your name close to the top of the page before the body of the sales text.

4. Put your name at the bottom of the sales text.

5. Use a picture of your real signature or one that looks real.

6. Use sub-headlines within your sales letter.

7. Sub-headlines should be the same color as you main headline.

8. Don't underline text in the body of your sales letter (people assume underlining means it's a link and may try to click on it).

9. Draw attention to your testimonials by having them in separate boxes.

10. Put some space between the testimonial and the border of the box containing it so it will stand out. A different background color for the box is good too.

11. A good testimonial should state specifically what they liked about your product, e-zine, etc. Use some method to highlight the specific thing they liked.

12. If you are selling a product on your page do not use red for the price. Subconsciously red means 'stop'.

13. Bonuses are good when they relate to your main offer. Unrelated bonuses can work against you.

14. Use some method to highlight the important parts of your sales letter for those who just skim the page.

15. Even though PayPal has some "bad press" within the Internet Marketing community, it is still one of the best payment processors to use because it is so widely known and trusted. So if you use another payment processor you may want to include a PayPal button as an additional method of payment.

16. Just like they work on paper, sticky notes on your web page capture your visitors attention for a few seconds. Make those seconds work for you.

17. White space is very important because it makes the sales letter easier to read. Use it to separate paragraphs and important list items, especially when the list items have a lot of text.

18. Chose an easy to read font and make it an easy to read size and color.

19. Make sure you include a "call to action". That means you tell them exactly what they are to do—buy, sign-up, go to, etc.

Remember, every time someone visits your sales letter they've come with the idea not to do what you want and it's your job to sell them the idea that they WANT to do your desired action.

It's your words and how you format them on your page that make the difference.

Susan has been helping people with their online marketing for more than 3 years. You're invited to join her free membership site at http://www.friendswhocare.us/join.htm.

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