Want People To Read Your Sales Page? Make It Scannable

[snakeair]

Very good blog post over on the copyblogger blog. I'll admit right now that when i am looking at sales pages, i scan it to see if i like what i am reading already. If the sales page got my attention, i will then take the time to read all of it. Some sales pages look like a 12 year old created it and that will not get to many people to read it. This just my opinion.

Ok, enough of my talking here and to the good stuff.

There are two types of sales page readers: those who faithfully read every word, and those who skim until they get to the end.

Since you want to sell to both of these groups, you have to know exactly how to capture and hold the attention of each — and doing so in the same sales page is no small feat.

The good news is, you can use the same writing strategy to get each group to engage with what you’re reading … and ultimately to buy what you’re selling.

One very simple way you can increase the “scannability” of your sales page is by making....

Continued at: Make Your Sales Page Scannable

Your thoughts on this blog post?

[Mark Andrews]

Just read the blog post, very good points raised.

As copywriters, we all have our various and different mechanisms to enable the sales letter to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

We'll all use different tricks and mechanisms to get into the mindset of the target audience, whilst also catering to the needs of different kinds of readers.

Obviously the preheaders main purpose is simply to get the reader / recipient to read the main headline.

The purpose of the main headline is of course to get the reader to read the first sentence.

And the purpose of the first sentence is to obviously get the reader to read the second sentence and so on and so forth, all the way down to the direct course of action we want the reader/s to take.

At the start of the sales letter it's all about setting up the buyers environment, putting the reader into the right frame of mind to get them to do what we want them to do.

A good way of doing this is to seed a story throughout the sales copy, starting near the beginning a story which the reader will find irresistible.

If you don't tell the story as it relates to the offer all in one go, seed it through the sales letter in intervals - you can bet your bottom dollar that this approach will stop most speed scanners in their tracks, pushing them psychologically into paying closer and more careful attention to the points being raised.

Another simple tip is to break up your sentence structure. Use very short sentences interspersed with a few longer sentences and use plenty of white space to your advantage.

Benefit focused subheadings will also draw the readers attention into that particular part of the offer, which will appeal most strongly to their individual emotions, their frustration and pain.

Done properly it is a relatively simple task to turn any readers emotion from frustration and pain into pleasure.

Through your words, get your readers to feed from the palm of your hand and you will be halfway there towards getting the product or service in their possession.

Best,


Mark Andrews...

[devonshire]

I had really never given this subject any thought and I never used subheaders, which is something I am going to try on my site. also check out what is popular on digg and copyblogger.

[nicolebeckett]

Thanks, Snake. This is a really important tip that many people overlook. Most internet searchers have the attention span of a 2-year-old -- they want what they want, and they want it now. They don't want to take the time to read something top to bottom. That's why bullet points or numbered points are so popular.

[monkeynuts]

Think about the 'F'. The human eye scans a page across and down, across and down, etc. Bold the key lines of text and have targeted, relevant words near the left hand side of the text.