Start by asking yourself the following questions and write down your answers.

1: What is the main focus of your eBook. What do you want the reader to learn from reading it?

2: What kind of research do you need to do to find a quality solution to this?

3: What is the best order to present your information so that the reader is taken step by step to a logical solution?

Now, as you answer these questions you will build the outline of your eBook.

Next, I always do the following:

4: Write a mission statement of why you are writing the eBook.

5: Write out what makes your eBook different from all the rest. Do you have new or exclusive information that solve a problem? Is your format of the information better and easier to read? Are you offering some type of special offer?

6: Using all the information above and your research, write out a table of contents so you have a picture in your mind and on paper the flow the book will take.

7: Once the table of contents is completed, look for ways to make the chapter titles into interest catching headlines. For example: instead of Chapter 1: Selling your eBook. Use: 7 Secrets To Explode Your eBook Sales!

8: Write your eBook introduction.  Include a brief description of who the eBook is for and what they will learn from it.

9: Write the forward to your eBook. Explain why you are writing the Ebook and how you used the information to solve a problem you were having.  Include a personal story as this helps the reader connect with you and draws them into the material.

10: Write out the closing statement to your eBook.  When you know how your eBook will start and end, it is easier to fill in the material that takes you from start to finish.

11: Create a plan of action to finish writing your eBook. Make the commitment to put aside time each day to work exclusively on your eBook.  Build a schedule and a timeline for each step.  The more detailed you are and document the process, the more likely you are to follow through and finishing a quality product.

12: Reread your eBook and correct grammar, punctuation and typographical errors. Have someone that you trust, but will also be honest with you read and comment on your eBook.

1) Be reader-centered, not writer-centered.
Many ads, brochures, and Web sites we see talk endlessly on and on about how great their products and companies are. Hello? Customer, anyone? Think of your reader thinking, “What’s in it for me?” If you can, talk with some of your current customers and ask them 1) why they chose you, and 2) what they get out of your product or service. TIP: To instantly make your copy more reader-focused, insert the word “you” often.

2) Focus on the benefits – not just the features.
The fact that your product or service offers a lot of neat features is great, but what do they DO for your customer? Do they save her time or money? Give her peace of mind? Raise her image to a certain status? Here’s an example: If you go buy a pair of Gucci sunglasses, you’re not just looking for good UV protection. You’re buying the sleek, stylish Gucci look. So that’s what Gucci sells. You don’t see their ads talk about how well made their sunglasses are. Think end results. Now, what does an insurance broker sell? Policies? No – peace of mind. (See? You’ve got it.)

3) Draw them in with a killer headline.
The first thing your reader sees can mean the difference between success and failure. Today’s ads are chock full of clever headlines that play on words. They’re cute, but most of them aren’t effective. There are many ways to get attention in a headline, but it’s safest to appeal to your reader’s interests and concerns. And again, remember to make it reader centered – no one gives a hoot about your company.
Bad: “SuccessCorp Creates Amazing New Financial Program”
Better: “Turn Your Finances Around in 30 Days!”

4) Use engaging subheads.
Like mini-headlines, subheads help readers quickly understand your main points by making the copy “skimmable.” Because subheads catch readers” eyes, you should use them to your benefit! Read through your copy for your main promotional points, then summarize the ideas as subheads. To make your subheads engaging, it’s important to include action or selling elements. Bad: “Our Department’s Successes.” Better: “Meet Five Clients Who Saved $10K With Us.”

5) Be conversational.Write to your customers like you’d talk to them. Don’t be afraid of using conversational phrases such as “So what’s next?” or “Here’s how do we do this.” Avoid formality and use short, easy words. Why? Even if you think it can’t possibly be misunderstood, a few people still won’t get it.

6) Nix the jargon.
Avoid industry jargon and buzzwords – stick to the facts and the benefits. An easy way to weed out jargon is to think of dear old Mom reading your copy. Would she get it? If not, clarify and simplify. (This rule, of course, varies, depending on who your target audience is. For a business audience, you should upscale your words to what they’re used to. In these cases buzzwords are often crucial. Just make sure your points don’t get muddled in them!)

7) Keep it brief and digestible.
No one has time to weed through lengthy prose these days. The faster you convey your product or service’s benefits to the reader, the more likely you’ll keep her reading. Fire your “biggest gun” first by beginning with your biggest benefit – if you put it toward the end of your copy, you risk losing the reader before she gets to it. Aim for sentence lengths of less than 20 words. When possible, break up copy with subheads (see no. 4), bullets, numbers, or em dashes (like the one following this phrase) – these make your points easy to digest.

Smile, your alsmot at the end! – Use testimonials when possible.
Let your prospects know they won’t be the first to try you. Give results-oriented testimonials from customers who have benefited immensely from your product or service. Oh, and never give people’s initials only – it reminds me of those ads in the back of magazines with headlines like “Lose 50 Pounds in Three Days!” Give people’s full names with their titles and companies (or towns and states of residence) – and be sure to get their permission first.

9) Ask for the order!
Tell your reader what you want her to do – don’t leave her hanging. Do you want her to call you or e-mail you for more information? Order now? Call to schedule a free consultation? Complete a brief survey? Think about what you’d most like her to do, and then ask her. It’s amazing how many marketing materials I come across every day that don’t make it clear what the reader should do. If you wrote interesting copy, your reader may forget you’re trying to sell something. Tell her what to do, and she’ll be more likely to do it.

10) Have your copy proofread!
Good. Now have it proofread again. Don’t risk printing any typos, misspellings, or grammatical mistakes that will represent your company as amateurish. Hire a professional editor/proofreader to clean up your work and double-check your grammar. Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impession! Oops – *impression*.

In this article I’m going to take a look at just one of those similarities: both direct mail packages and web sites lose almost all of their readers before the ‘task’ is completed. Both media struggle with conversion rates that typically hover around the 2% rate.

Most of us throw out or recycle direct mail pieces almost every day. And most of us know how many of our site visitors leave before buying, signing up, registering or completing some other task.

Now for the difference. Direct mail copywriters work extremely hard to minimize the number of readers they lose, at every stage.

How hard do you work to keep and convert your readers?

Here are three tips taken from the world of direct marketing:

Make a promise

First, your homepage should make it very clear what you do. As in the statement, “We sell printer cartridges”.

But also make a promise. As in, “You’ll never run out of printer cartridges again”.

The statement is about you. And it’s useful in letting people know they are in the ‘right place’.

The promise is about them. And there is a real benefit stated there. This may be copywriting 101, to lead with a benefit, but it’s surprising how many sites don’t follow this simple and proven principle.

Make an offer

This is standard in just about every direct mail package. This isn’t the same as a promise. An offer is when you give someone something extra, at no cost to the buyer. Maybe it’s a free calculator. Or a better price if you subscribe for longer. Or 30 days free. Even a free serving of garlic bread with your pizza.

Try to do the same with your web site. With a free report. Free shipping. A free download. A free consultation. A free gift. Or free gift wrapping.

Guarantee it

Direct marketers know that buyers are often nervous about buying over the phone or by mailing an envelope. So they wrap everything up in a guarantee. Be delighted or get your money back.

Online we also know that many people feel nervous about parting with their money over the Internet, particularly if it is the first time they have bought something at our site. But where are our guarantees? Too often they are found in the small print somewhere, qualified with all sorts of legal nonsense.

If you want to make your prospects and buyers feel secure, make the guarantee bold. Say it loud. Have it jump out at people. Let them know that they are protected if they choose to buy.

These are just three of the ways direct marketers try to increase conversion rates. They keep people reading with a strong promise, an attractive offer and a cast-iron guarantee.

Do you?

If you’re writing a headline or heading for a site page, here are four things you need to keep in mind, four elements that demand your attention, four separate ‘audiences’ you need to satisfy.

1. Make the reader feel he or she is in the right place

Every time someone clicks on a link and a new page begins to open, the reader is thinking, in one way or another, “Is this page going to give me what I’m looking for?” This is particularly true of first-time visitors. It is also true of any visitor on any page in your site, even a repeat visitor who is accessing a page for the first.

Matching the headline to the reader’s expectations is central to holding their attention and giving them a high level of confidence.

If the heading doesn’t match the reader’s hopes and expectations, their confidence in finding what they want will fall and your conversion rates will decline.

2. Make the reader feel good and want to continue

This is where a page heading takes on the characteristics of a print advertisement headline. The heading not only has to satisfy point number one, but also has to make a ‘sale’. That is to say, it has to sell the reader on the benefits of reading the page. Just as an ad headline sells the reader on the benefits of reading the body text.

By way of illustration, if I were selling my search engine copywriting skills, I might write a heading that says:

“Yes, I write copy for search engines.”

That might satisfy my point number one, but it doesn’t cut the mustard with point number two.

I’d be better off saying something like:
“Ask me to make your Web copy irresistible to search engines.”

Doubtless I could improve on that headline with a few rewrites, but as it is, it contains a benefit and a promise. It still covers point number one, but also goes further – it gives the reader more of an incentive to actually read the page.

3. Appeal to the search engines

To ignore the needs of the search engines on any page is foolishness. You need to work with your page title, meta tags and headline to ensure that you are covering the most relevant and profitable key words and phrases. If you don’t, you are losing traffic and losing potential readers and customers.

While some writers find it frustrating to have to accommodate the needs of SEO, doing so will actually help you with point number one. The better you know and understand what people are entering into the search box, the easier it will be for you to write text that is relevant to their expectations and needs.

4. Satisfy the needs of the company or organization

This is the tough one. This is where your not-very-net-savvy manager or client pressures you to make the heading more company centric, about the company or organization, and not about the needs of the reader.

At this point you have to fight the best fight you can. Gather together the best evidence you can find and persuade the manager of the errors of his or her ways. If all else fails, you can always suggest a test…testing your heading against theirs…and then measure the search engine traffic, and the conversion rate of the page.

You’re writing a heading, the first sentence of an email, the introduction to a newsletter, a short description on a homepage.

But what should you say? When you have just a few words, what’s the best message?

One of the ways I employ to help me with this task is to first weed out what I DON’T want to say.

I’ll write a number of different opening sentences for an email, for instance. Then I’ll start hacking away at the ones that don’t carry the right message, or that carry the right message badly.

Knowing you’re going to cut away the bad versions, it’s easy to start a flow of different lines. You’re not under pressure to make every line brilliant, because you know that most will be discarded.

This process also applies a very useful discipline; it makes you write down a large number of different lines, different options.

This, in itself, is a good thing.

Far too often, particularly when under the pressure of deadlines, we make do with the first opening that jumps to mind. Unless you are a full-time genius, that first thought is unlikely to be the best one.

Listing, and then eliminating copy lines makes you think. It makes you stop and really consider what it is you really should be saying.

Better still, it makes you self-critical and more determined to deliver the best line possible.

So what do you do?

Sure, if you have some cash you can get one of those pieces of software that will start you off, or you can use this handy technique to provide quick results.

1) Find a quiet place that you will not be disturbed.

2) Have a piece of paper and a pencil within easy reach.

3) Close your eyes for a minute of so and think about a keyword that is something you might want to write about.

4) Now, write you subject keyword at the top of the page and then just start writing single words below it in a column that comes to you when you think about the keyword.

5) Don’t worry about spelling, connections or even how appropriate they are, just keep writing.

6) Go until you have maybe a list of 20.

7) Don’t stop, don’t think, just look at the main keyword and write.

Here is a sample list:

HAPPINESS

water

kids

sunshine

walking

forests

birds flying

frisbee

rain

comedy shows

family

wood

nature

meditation

friends

jokes

health

alternative

Now you have something to spark your brain. Look at your list and combine words, maybe take one and make a new list. Read the list and see what pops into your head.

Every word in the list can provide you with a different angle to the main keyword. You can use this to generate different ideas about the same keywords.

If you practice this, you will find that you can come up with lists fairly quick and that you can kick strat your creative writing juices.

And then something happened.

Big money from venture capitalists burst onto the scene. Suddenly nobody was talking about content. (Where’s the big investment return on ‘content’?) Instead the attention went to businesses that came up with some kind of unique ‘technology solution’.

Then the dotcom bubble burst.

And here we are.

Is content still important? I think so. People don’t talk about it as earnestly as they once did, but I think that original thinking was very sound.

Here are three reasons why you should be creating more content on your site:

1. Content increases conversion rates by keeping prospects on your site.

When people arrive at your site, they want to see something fresh when they drop by. If you page is static and never changes, they will stop showing up. To day’s web sites are about people. What they are interested in and what they can learn and do. Adding content to your site keep the visitors interested.

If you don’t give them the information they need, they’ll find someone else who does.

The point is, if they can’t find something worhtwhile on your site, why would they even want to come back again?

And that’s very bad news for you.

2. Content allows what makes you you shine through

What makes your noodle site from every other noodle site? Most businesses have a number of direct competitors and all too often there is very little to truly make your products or services stand out. You may think you have something unique but at the end of the day, a noodle is a noodle.

So how do you differentiate your site? You do it with content. You make your site an absolute magnet for anyone who is serious about cooking pasta. You provide the best recipes, you deliver the best advice, you seek out the most interesting and useful facts about noodles.

When you do that, your products may not be that different from anyone else’s, but your site is. It has become different because it becomes known for being the number one resource for cooking great pasta. And when people come for the content, they see everything else on your site!

3. Content is great for search engines and inbound links

Here’s something we already know. The search engines love content, especially when it is substantial, updated and relevant.

So do your homework and make sure your content pages have SEO-friendly titles, headlines and body text.

In addition to being attractive to search engines, great content also attracts inbound links. The better the information, the more the number of sites that will want to link to you.

In conclusion…

Creating great content for your site, and newsletters, is still a very smart thing to do. It’s good for your customers, good for your conversion rates, perfect for search engines and does a great job of separating your site from the herd.