There is only one thing that significantly affects the conversion rate of visitors into customers. No, it is not the layout or a design or cool graphics or awe-inspiring animation. It is the website copy that makes the conversion rate surge up or dive down. High-converting website copy follows a set of principles which I am going to share here.

Secret of high-converting website copy

Magic Headline

Some headlines work better than others. Most of the people err here. When it comes to writing headline for a post, all they do is write whatever first comes to their mind and use it as title. What possibly could be worse than this — not writing the copy at all?

Do not commit this mistake. Think hard before writing a headline. I will suggest you to write 10-15 versions of a headline before choosing any one.

USP

USP stands for Unique selling proposition. In the beginning, you would like to know what is that one thing that you would want to talk on a webpage. Do not build too many selling propositions in a web page. This will confuse your audience. Yes, even two is too many in this context.

Focus

Your copy should not waver. It should be laser focused on the promise it is attempting to deliver on. Do not let is waver even for one word. Keep your audience and its needs in mind when writing copy. Use your audience’s language to communicate.

Descriptive copy

Copy that builds on the promise made by the headline converts better. Do not just write anything on your web page — you can do that but you should not — as it will dilute the effect of the proposition made in the headline.

Tell story

People do not care about data and stats as much as they care about story. Tell them anecdotal tales and they will believe you. Give them data and they will yawn.

These are some of the principles of copy writing, which you should include in your writing to make your web page convert like crazy.

So the best way to approach improving your PageRank, is simply by getting your website out there.  Network and exchange links with as many like minded sites and businesses as possible.  Try to search out sites with higher traffic volumes, and higher PageRanks, as these are the more likely to increase your individual PageRank.  The more quality websites that link back to yours, the better Google will view your site.  The importance of networking just can’t be overstated.  That’s your internet bread and butter, and the better networked you are, the better your website is going to perform.

Remember to use SEO (search engine optimization) for everything you write, as this helps with all things regarding Google.  Your PageRank is also more likely to be higher if you make effective use of SEO.  It will increase search engine success, and the popularity of your site.  Both of which you need to build your Google presence, and therefore your website’s overall presence.

But also remember that improving your Google PageRank isn’t as likely to increase traffic as SEO.  Just because your site has a higher PageRank, does not mean that you’re the most likely to pop up first with a given keyword.  The only way to make that work is SEO and linking to as many other popular websites as possible.  These will also build your PageRank, and should remain your focus for building website traffic.

Shorter and not-too-frequent breaks revive our senses and boost up our productivity, but when breaks tend to get longer and more frequent, we start losing focus.

Why does it happen?

To understand this let’s ask ourselves why we take breaks during the days. We take break to free up our mind from the task at hand so that we can relax and get more fresh idea when we return back to working. A break helps us focus our mind on seeing forest instead of focusing on trees, which helps us complete our work quickly.

But,

When the breaks get longer, we lose the momentum, and ideas that were building up while working on the project slips put of our mind, which means poor incoherent output. The longer breaks clear up information related to the problems from our mind, and when we return we need to rethink on where we were and at what point we took break. Most of the time, after loss of some quality time, things starts coming to us, but there is no guarantee that everything will return back. Longer breaks take us out of the zone.

How many and how long?

Do not take more than 2-3 breaks during the work hour, you can stretch the limit to 4, but not even a single break more than that. And the duration of the break should depend upon the time of the day. If you are taking a break in the morning, which I do not recommend, then the break should not be 2-3 minutes long, but when the break is coming towards the end of the day when you are exhausted with the day’s work, you can make the break a little longer. 8-10 minutes will be good enough for the last break.

Taking breaks during the work is important, but taking too many and too long breaks throw us out of the productivity zone.

Fundamental

The first thing that should come after design, navigation, content, and focus elements in a website review is the fundamental check. You need to find out the following in a fundamental check:

• Is the navigation intuitive?
• Are the hyperlinks working properly?
• Is there any broken link?
• Does the website have a site map?
• Are the internal pages properly links with the home page and among themselves?

Effectiveness

Once you have verified the fundamentals of the website, you need to find out how effective website will be, and in order to do that try finding answers to the following questions:

• How difficult or easy it will be for a visitor to understand the purpose of the website?
• Will the visitors easily accomplish the goal the webmaster has in mind while creating the website?
• How much time will it take for the visitors to find out the core of the website?
• What element or elements will create hurdle in visitors’ mind?

Credentials

Almost all the websites has a about us page talking about what is the purpose of the website, who is running the show, what affiliations it got, etc. You need to find out that the credentials are properly laid or not, and in order to do that, you may need to answer the following:

• Can visitors easily find out who is running the show?
• Is the website written by one or multiple writers?
• Are the facts presented on the website right, and are they verifiable?
• Are the writers qualified to write on the topics website covers?
• Has the website got some industry affiliation or accreditation?
• Does it have Https (secure server)?

Advance elements

There are some more advance elements that you may care to find out for your review. You may want to find out the following:

• Color scheme (advanced design)
• Marketing and branding capability (branding and monetization)
• How quickly it loads (development issue)
• Are the widgets, forms, etc., working properly (development issue)
• What resolutions it supports (design element)

One task at a time

Multi-tasking is not always good. Not at least when you are trying to write something. You should de-clutter your surrounding and focus on one thing at a time. This way you will be able to produce a quality work. Mono-tasking is what you should be aspiring for. Set some time aside to write without interruption.

Recognize your fear and overcome it

We all have fear of failure, but at the same time we can even give credit to these unwarranted fears for some of our big successes; still I will not suggest harboring any fear. You should know what you are scared of, and work on eliminating those objects or subjects. If the problem is skill related then you should take a course or undergo a training that will help you overcome that fear, and if it is attitude related then make yourself strong and ward the fear off.

Wake and write

The very first thing that you do in the morning should be writing. This is the hour of the day when you will have very little on the mind, so you can focus more at that time. Try doing it tomorrow, and see the difference.

Do not wait for the deadline

You cannot produce a world class article, news, or story when a sword of deadline is hanging over your head. You should start writing days in advance, do not wait for the deadline to show its ugly face before you write for a client.

Introduce yourself as a writer

Tell people that you are a writer. This will be a good confidence booster. Whenever you meet people, do not beat around the bushes, come straight forward, shake their hands and say you write.  Isn’t it a very simple way to boost your morale?

If you find yourself waiting till the last minute to accomplish tasks, working from home may not be for you.  You need to effectively manage your time.  The last thing you’d want is to be up against a deadline that looms ever closer, that you shouldn’t have to worry about.   If you don’t think you’ll be able to manage your time without a boss checking in every once in a while, this may not be the career for you.

Make sure that you have the space in your home to create an adequate working environment.  You don’t want to be converting an area like your living room, or bedroom.  Both are full of distractions and can lead you to unintentionally losing focus when working.  You  have to ensure that you have the room to make your own office.  A place where you can be free from non-work related distractions.  A sanctuary of at home production to where you can always accomplish your goals.

Also, you need to be a very self motivated person.  You have to make a lot of decisions for yourself when you work at home.  You only have yourself to fall back on, which means you have to keep yourself positive and goal focused.  Part of that is avoiding the temptation to get personal tasks done when you’re supposed to be working.  Try to avoid household chores or things you wanted to get done while you’re working.  This will lead to longer term distractions which can lead to major procrastination on your part.  That is absolutely always bad.

Know that writing an article will give you an opportunity to showcase your expertise in your chosen industry.  This will allow you to gain recognition from sources that you otherwise may have been unavailable to, and it’s a fantastic way to get your name out there.  But make sure you know your stuff, because writing an article will also expose any lacking knowledge that you just don’t have.  Nothing looks worse than when you’re supposed to be writing an informative article when you’re not an expert in the points you’re trying to get across.

So first choose a concept that you want to focus on for an article.  Just one, so that you’ll find it easy to stay on topic and not get away from the point of the piece.  Then focus on writing an informative article, in your unique voice, displaying your unique expertise.  Remember that you have something worthwhile to say, that’s why you’re writing in the first place.  Carry through that confidence into your words and formulate something you would want to read.

From there, just use the typical writing guidelines to improve your article.  In editing ensure that all of your sentences are concise and make a good point.  Make sure you stay on topic, and make sure your article isn’t too long.  You want people to be able to take something from what you’ve written.  The only way to do that is to edit your piece successfully so that the end product is a concise informative article.

Good writing should be as concise and always to the point as possible.  When you write too much fluff your readers tend to shut off their brains, or worse, get bored and stop reading altogether.  You first edit should focus on how you can take what you’ve written, and formulate it into a shorter piece of work that tells the same story.  Nobody wants to read over inflated paragraphs or multiple sentences that make the same point.

After that, learn your strengths and weaknesses.  If you’re not very descriptive, make sure you spend extra editing time ensuring that your moments of description are fleshed out well enough.  You can’t be too vague, but you also don’t want to over describe to make up for your weakness.  Also learning the areas that you tend to need work on will allow you to target where you should go first when editing a piece.

Get as much feedback from third party sources as possible.  Get a friend to read what you’ve written, or a coworker, or even a family member.  Someone that will provide you with good honest criticism.  We all need honest criticism so that we can grow as people, and writing is no different.  In fact writing ability hinges on your ability to get effective criticism, and incorporate it into your style to become a better writer on the whole.

Finally, always give your piece a read through backwards.  This is especially helpful for noticing little grammatical errors, or punctuation mistakes.  By reading backwards your brain doesn’t concentrate on what the writing means, but just on the words and characters themselves.  This affords you the opportunity to avoid being engaged in what your writing says, instead focusing on how you’ve written each individual portion.

Now that you know positive thinking is the way to go in your work life, how do you manage to stay positive, even when you may already be grooming a fairly negative attitude?  Well first off, just practice.  Everything takes practice if you want to do whatever it is you’re attempting well.  Positive thinking is no different in that way.

Try to focus on positive things.  Keep a list of motivational quotes near your workspace, something you can turn to every day for your daily inspiration.  Which is exactly why something like a motivational calendar, or even finding a few motivational posters and posting them around your work area can really make a difference in your outlook.  Plus these will slowly but surely help change your attitude into a more positive one, also helping you evolve into a more positive person.

When something goes bad at work, instead of focusing on what happened badly and the negative effects that you could suffer as a consequence, try instead to focus on a solution.  Thinking positive means turning a problem into a challenge, the sort that makes you strive to find your solution.  Positive people look to solutions, opposed to focusing on the negative consequences of when things don’t go quite as planned.  So the next time you’re faced with some adversity, try to focus on what you’re going to do to get beyond, opposed to how it’s negatively effecting you at work.

1. Know your audience
2. Avoid common grammatical errors
3. Focus on your readers
4. Chop off useless sentences
5. Don’t preach

Know your intended audience, as you will be writing for them.  So if you’re writing a piece of information about cycling for example, you would want to include some insider knowledge involving the latest bicycle tech or other equipment.  Showing that you are in the know regarding your topics validates your opinions to your readers, and keeps them coming back for more info.

Avoid commonly made grammatical mistakes.  Nothing frustrates a reader like their inability to quickly skim through your writing because of grammatical errors that should have been caught before the final draft.

Put your focus to your audience.  If you are trying to demonstrate a point, or act as a guide for any topic stay away from using the word “I” in favor of “you”.  For example, you wouldn’t want to write “I do this, so you should too.”.  You want to gravitate towards more of a “you should do this, and here’s why” to create a dialogue with the reader, and show them why what you’re writing is important to them.

Never rephrase the same sentence a few times in one of your works just to act as filler.  That’s repetitive and will put your reader to sleep.  You want a short concise, well edited, grammatically correct piece of work.  Get to the point, but make sure the road to that point is engaging.

Never preach that your method is the best because it’s your method.  That will turn off a reader faster than you would think.  Nobody wants to read a self inflating brag fest that does little more than bloat your own ego.  People want to read how what you have to say applies to them, not that they should follow your example because you’re so awesome.