First of all if you don’t have a lead capture mechanism on your site you’re missing out on potential sales and leads.  A lead capture mechanism can be as simple as an opt-in box to your mailing list.

Now for the technique.  Let’s assume you created an opt-in box to get people on your mailing list.  Why would I want to sign up for your mailing list?  Normal reasons are coupons, exclusive discounts, more information, etc…

In addition to that we can also give out a free report or ebook.  I know you don’t want to write an ebook.  I don’t either.  That’s why I’m going to tell you how to create an ebook in 5 – 10 minutes.

First things first.  Fire up Word or any word processing program you might have installed.

Second go to article directories.  There are tons of them, but here are a few to get you started:

Ezine Articles

Go Articles

Article Dashboard

Third:  Search for your topic.  For example you do plumbing in Wall, NJ, so you search for plumbing.

Here are some of the great articles I’ve found:

Plumbing Basics

A Short Guide for Plumbing Emergencies

Plumbing Tips – From Thawing Frozen Pipes to General Pipe Repairs

Plumbing Problems and Solutions

Inexpensive Bathroom Remodeling Secrets

Electric showers: Making your bath economical

Emergency Plumbing Service: How To Choose The Best

Plus there are literally hundreds of other articles.  I found these articles in literally two minutes.

The good thing about these article directories is you can use their articles, all you have to do is leave the author information in.

Fourth: Create a cover page in Word (make sure to include your contact information).

Fifth: Pick your favorite articles and copy and paste them into Word, right after your cover page.

Sixth: Use a PDF converter to convert your document into PDF format.  Here are a few free PDF converters:

PDF 995

Primo PDF

Open Office

Seventh: Relax and take a nap.  You’re done.  You’ve created a good ebook with tips you can give your future clients in literally five minutes.

You don’t have to use this technique to create ebooks and reports, if you get stuck on what to write to your mailing list or are in a rush to get a mailing out you can do the same thing for your mailing list.

You can also use the articles on your sites for fast, keyword rich, free content.

Some people think long sales letters and hype pages are the best way to get sales and convert visitors.  While it can be true and it can help, the arguably most important part of your page are bullet points.

I skip through long sales pages and I know a lot of others that do this and go straight to the bullet points after reading a little bit from the first couple of paragraphs.  I don’t have time to spend an hour reading a page.

Bullet points are bold, easy to distinguish from the rest of the content and should have the most important and relevant information in them.

If you aren’t using bullet points in your sales copy you better start now.  Sales pages aren’t one size fits all.  For some demographics they’ll want a long sales letter, others a short sales letter, others prefer video.  The good thing is you can create your page however you want, but don’t forget those bullet points.  Even if someone decides to skip your sales letter or video they will know the main benefits of your product.  If they see a compelling reason within your bullet points they might just read the rest of the page or order.

Don’t skimp on the bullet points and make sure the top reasons to purchase your product are in there.

A swipe file is basically a sales letter you found that you thought was great.  To start using swipe files find several sales letters that you know were successful and that you think are well written.  Then save them to your computer.

Have a look at each sales letter and notice the way it was written; the headlines, the bolded print, the bullet points, the P.S., the images, etc…

Now that you have your swipe files you can take bits and pieces of each letter (not copying it word for word) and you can use that style within your sales letter.  You can even make the format look similar to your favorite letters.  This way you don’t have to brainstorm everything, all you’re really doing is re-writing sales letters and of course customizing it to your product.

Instead of spending days writing great copy, you will only spend minutes or hours.

You don’t need to do all the hard work someone else has already done the hard part for you.  You’ll find your sales letters are better and flow more fluidly if you model yours off of already successful sales letters.

A good resource to use when you’re copywriting is using a thesaurus.  There are tons of online thesauruses that are free to use.  If you see you’re using the same word too many time or even want ideas for what words to use these can be a very valuable resource in conjunction with your swipe files.  Synonyms help keep your written copy less redundant.

A lot of people think that if you use a pen name you have something to hide.  That’s actually the farthest thing from the truth.  There are several valid reasons why you would want to use a pen name.

The first is that one person can’t be an expert in several niches or topics.  Of course that’s not true, but if someone sees you giving out home foot fungus remedies, online money making tips, how to get any woman you want, and advice on how to improve your golf swing, people will start to wonder if you’re actually doing your own writing and they’ll also question the effectiveness of your techniques.

Now if John Bigtoe wrote about home foot fungus remedies, Tim Moneybags wrote about online money making tips, Alberto Lovedoctor wrote about how to get any woman you want, and Frank Caddy wrote about your golf swing, than their information must be good, because that’s all they do.

Everything is about perception.  If people perceive you to be an expert in one area, let them think that’s all you know, or slowly expand into other topics or areas of interest.

Some people are very prolific writers and can write about anything at the drop of a hat.  Don’t let your great writing skills be held back.  Just invent a pen name and start writing.

Remember all backlinks and information all points back to you, so no matter how you look at it you’re not losing anything by having pen name.

Here are some people that have used pen names:

Samuel Langhorne Clemens = Mark Twain = Sieur Louis de Conte

Stephen King = Richard Bachman

Joanne Rowling = J.K. Rowling

Isaac Asimov = Paul French

Robert Beck = Iceberg Slim

Theodor Seuss Giesel = Theo LeSeig = Dr. Seuss

Pauline Phillips and Jeanne Phillips = Abigail Van Buren = Dear Abby

Agatha Christie = Mary Westmacott

For more information on pen names and the reasons others use pen names you can read more here.  For more famous pen names you can find some here.