As I’m sure we are all incredibly aware, there are no shortage of ads out there. Not on the street, not on t.v., and definitely not on the internet.

Open a web browser, boom, ads. Go to a webpage, ads. You get the picture.

Obviously, the reason you see so many ads is because, well, they work. But what sets one ad apart from the next?

My first guess would be the product, but then, how can you know how good the product is until you actually own in. Unless of course someone told you (more on that later)…

So let’s say that what sets one product apart from the next is how the product is presented.

Enter the landing page.

A landing page, for those of you who are new the the internet marketing world, is the “next step,” it’s what your potential customers see after clicking the link that grabbed their attention in the first place. It’s your chance, albeit not a long one, to really sell your product.

Here are a few design tips on maximizing the effect of your landing pages.

Start At The Top

I don’t know about you but I’m often weary of clicking random ad links that find me online. So when I do click on a link I always feel comforted by a landing page that shows me I’m not alone.

These are called credibility indicators. A credibility indicator can be anything: number of Facebook likes, a testimonial, positive tweets about your product, etc. Anything that lets whomever finds your landing page know that you and your product are on the level.

Bare Bones Is Best

There seems to be trend among a great many landing pages out there that states “the more the better.” I guess it makes sense. If you only get one shot at a possible sale, you may as well try to get them to sign up for your newsletter while your at it. And why not show them some other products?

I disagree. If I clicked on a link to find out more about one product, all I want to see is information on that specific product. Anything more and I feel like I’ve been tricked. The cleaner and more straightforward the page, the more likely I am to stick around to find out more.

The Call To Action

There’s a good chance that every article ever written about internet market has the phrase “call to action” thrown in there somewhere, and for good reason. A page without a call to action may as well not exist.

The call to action is the section of the page where you tell the reader what it is you want them to do. Sign up for my email list. Buy my magical hair tonic. Take this poll.

The key to a successful call to action is clarity. Be upfront about what you want.

Diversify

I already told you to keep things simple, but that doesn’t mean you have to be boring. A great way to expand the possibilities of what your landing page presents is to give one extra option.

For example, if you are selling an ebook about, I don’t know, email marketing, include two buttons in your call to action. One to buy the book and one to download a small portion of the book for free. Giving a sample of your product away for free shows your potential customer how much you believe in your product without forcing a sale.

Always Test & Adjust

There’s no sure fire way to make that sale, but you can always improve your page. Use Google Analytics to track your click through rate, then change the layout, color scheme, or copy and see which does better.

Some markets respond differently to wording or call to action placement. Internet marketing isn’t an exact science. It takes time to learn what works best for your target audience.

Author Bio: Daniel Cassady is an experienced freelancer, guest blogger, and frequent contributor to a blog hosted by Benchmark Email, one of the world’s global email marketing providers.

One of the major problems that new writers encounter when trying to produce a blog is that they are trying to figure out how to do it.

True, writers already know basic rules of copywriting but they think that blogging follows a different set of rules, and have different goals which will require them to have writing skills that is totally different from copywriting. However, they are absolutely wrong.

No matter what the topics you are going to discuss in your blog, the writing methods and styles that you should follow is absolutely the same with copywriting articles. Your goal is to communicate with the readers and make your content appealing and easy to understand.

You also need to be persuasive and that’s why your articles should be very convincing and will provoke the readers to do a specific action. To do this, you need to write an article that involves the reader or in short words an interactive one.

Copywriting Principles You Should Always Follow when Writing an Article

1. Be Brief:  You should never forget that your article should be brief and direct to the point. In this fast-paced world where time is very valuable, people will never find time to complete reading a lengthy article. Furthermore, having a short content will enable you to focus on the topic itself. On the other hand including a lot of details and using too many words in your article will drive the readers away from the topic and will make your content very confusing.
2. Be Clear:   You should make your article is easy to understand. Although you want to make your article appealing, you should refrain from using high sounding words. People will never be impressed reading articles that they can’t understand. So, be clear and use words that are usually used in every day conversation.
3. Use Strong Titles:  No matter how good the content of your article is, people will never be interested on it if the title is lame. You should always choose a title that will easily catch the attention of the readers or arouse their curiosity. For example, you are writing an article with a topic about cats, your title should not be “The Cat”. You should make it more specific and make sure that the title will tell the readers what to expect from your article. To make your title strong you can make it something like this “The Cats – Are You Feeding Them Properly?” In this way, the readers will be curious about your article and check it out because they want to know whether they are feeding their cats properly or not.
4. Make an Informative Content: You should always remember that blogs is not for entertainment because that area is for novels and storybooks. Although you still need to make it entertaining because you don’t want your readers to be bored, you need to make sure that your content is informative and will provide useful information to the viewers of your blog.

Many people are going to blog sites because they are looking for information that will help them solve an issue that they are having a hard time dealing with. If they see that your blog don’t have any use to them, they will simply click the back button and look for another blog that will give them the information they need.

5. Convince Your Reader to Do a Specific Action: After you have done the four steps mentioned above and have created a satisfying blog, the next thing you should do is to end your article in a way that it will convince readers to perform a specific action. After all, you are promoting your blog to them and if you want to make your blog marketable you can ask the readers to post their reviews on the comment section of your blog. You can also ask them to subscribe on the RSS feed of your site. In this way you will get a lot of traffic on your site.

These are some of the copywriting rules that you should follow when writing contents for your blog. In doing so, you will be able to produce a successful and marketable blog.

Author Bio: Guest post contributed by Kerby Smith, on behalf of Thinkkeno.com – a web design multimedia provider which focuses on Raleigh web design.