One of the small handful of blogs I read on a regular basis is www.StephensBlog.com. It’s run by USA based web copywriting expert Stephen Dean, who writes sales copy for some of the most prominent figures on the Internet today.

Stephen recently offered to field questions from other blogs. So, not wanting to miss the chance to pick the brains of an expert, here are 5 questions I fired at Stephen for the benefit of us all.

[Ed] What single copy tweak have you found to consistently produce the greatest lift in response to web pages?

[Stephen] Surprise, surprise, it’s the headline. A headline is sort of like a book cover. People say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, but they do anyway. An attention getting book cover can go a long way. Likewise it’s essential to GET THEIR ATTENTION with the headline.

That’s not news, but people who are trying to write copy for the first time need to think about it. Beginning copywriters often don’t know how to get attention. So they do the equivalent of kicking and screaming.

They try to fit all the benefits in their headline which makes it a paragraph long. (Longer headlines can work but it gives a rookie more chances to make a mistake.)

And a beginner often uses overdone phrases that are easy to ignore… which is the exact opposite of getting their attention.

So if you’re trying to lift response, you should start split testing your headlines first. My split tester is at Free Split Test.

I wouldn’t suggest split testing headlines like…

Discover How To Make A Million Dollars In The Stock Market…

vs.

How To Make A Million Dollars In The Stock Market…

Instead, test wildly different headlines that spark different emotions or come from a different angle. This would be a better test…

Discover How To Make A Million Dollars In The Stock Market…

vs.

This Million Dollar Secret Almost Cost Me My Life…

[Ed] What have you found to be the most powerful type of headline… does one style of headline stand out above all others?

[Stephen] My best converting headline correlates with James Brausch’s Glyphius software. Headlines that start with “Discover” consistently rank at the top in my testing. In fact, you can even make it longer and go with, “Discover The Simple Solution For…”

That’s going to end up being a benefit headline, which are the easiest to write. Some of my favorite copywriters have taught a lot about going with less benefit oriented headlines. This often means using a headline that doesn’t tell you what the product is about, but merely tries to tease you into the copy.

“This Million Dollar Secret Almost Cost Me My Life…” would be an example. It’s a curiousity headline. A curiousity headline can win BIG, but they also are the most likely to bomb. So you have to be careful.

For beginners, I always suggest going with a simple benefit headline.
And starting with “Discover” or “How To” is a good idea as well.

[Ed] The PayPal order buttons on your products sales pages like ‘Copyboosters’ and ‘Tapping M. Fortin’s Brain’ are custom designed to look like plain text links (blue underlined) even though they’re actually graphics. It’s quite an unusual approach. Is that style the result of split-testing, multi-variate testing, statistical analysis… or are tests still in progress?

[Stephen] Well really what you’re seeing is me trying to get Paypal to let me use a text link instead of an image. If there’s an easier way to do it, I didn’t find it. And I never got test results for a plain text link because I found Eric Graham’s posts on the Ultimate Submit Button.

I’ve started using this on my clients’ pages with good results. But my sales pages are usually the last to get help.

[Ed] I know you use multi-variate testing to scientifically optimize your clients sales letters. As a professional copywriter, roughly how many variables do you provide for each factor? (How many headlines for example?)

[Stephen] That’s really not important. Really, you should never stop adding variables. That’ll only lead to your conversion plateauing. So add as many headlines as you want.

How many do I start a test with? For a headline, at least 2 just to get the test going. Then I’ll start adding more.

For many other variables, I’ll often start with just 2 variables. But one of those is a blank. So you’re testing to see if that variable is even necessary. If it’s not, you can either throw it out or try to beat the blank variable.

[Ed] Finally, what’s the most powerful piece of advice you can give to anyone who wants to quickly improve their copywriting skills?

[Stephen] Of course, I recommend my courses. They’re designed for people who are not copywriters, but want to write their own sales copy quick. The 2 Hour Sales Letter is a complete introduction to the copywriting process, because you get to watch me write a sales letter from beginning to end.

Note from Ed: I’ve seen this product first hand. It’s a video-based home-study programme showing live brainstorming, methodology and actual technique Stephen uses to create high performance web sales letters. If you want to quickly improve your web sales letters then I strongly recommend you check it out.

Then 7 Copy Sins is the follow up, and it attempts to pre-empt the mistakes amateurs or newbies are very likely to make.

Add in Copyboosters and you’ll find yourself continually improving your copy, and your skills at the same time.

That’s the fastest way to get started that I know of.

Other than that, just start spending time with copy everyday. Each day, either read something about copy, read a sales letter, or write some copy for yourself. Soon it will become much more natural, and you’ll find your skills advancing rapidly.

Stephen, thank you very much from me and on behalf of my readers. Powerful advice. I know anyone who embraces and implements this will see their web results improve.

-Ed.