Persuasive Online Copywriting: How to Take Your Words to the Bank

Persuasive Online Copywriting isn't a very big book (176 pages) and it's not a very new book (first printed in 2002) but the fact that it remains one of the standards of online copywriting speaks to its enduring value. That and the fact that copies on Amazon begin at $79. (Is that a misprint? $79? The cover price on my paperback from the second printing was only $18. Who knew it was an investment opportunity?)

Upside
* It's as relevant now as when it was first written.
* It has value for online copywriters, web and product managers.
* It's short, concise, and readable.
* It provides a starting point for AB and multivariate testing of your content. If that sounds completely foreign to you, read Landing Page Optimization by Tim Ash.

Downside
* There's no index. Really, every technical book should have a competent index.
* Unless you can remember Iron Butterfly's 17 minute drum solo from In-A-Gada-Da-Vida, you're probably not going to grok as much as the authors might like.

The book is an excellent example of its own advice. It's short but long enough, engaging, and moves the reader effortlessly from one page to the next - exactly like a website. Its message can be encapsulated in a single word: relevance.

"Speak to the dog, in the language of the dog, about what matters to the heart of a dog." Amazon missed identifying that quotation as a statistically improbably phrase but it's one of the most memorable from the book. It's a graphic metaphor for relevance.

The success of online marketing is driven by relevance. Relevance depends upon delivering the right content to the right customer at the right time. It depends upon recognizing your customers goals, fears, foibles, and conceits. You can't begin to write relevant content until you know your audience. This book won't tell you how to acquire customer intelligence but it will tell you what to do with the intelligence once acquired.

The Brothers Eisenberg know their stuff. They've been around just short of forever, at least since the 60's if their fondness for the word "grok" is an indication. I daresay many of the current generation have never read Robert Heinlein's Stanger in a Strange Land. I may be wrong. Heinlein's book has 538 reviews on Amazon; King James' translation of the Bible has only 255. Back in the day, however, it was highly relevant.

This book scores a triple play! Its three authors unite to create a book that will help anyone turn their writing and Web site into a winner. It is packed full of valuable information that is presented in an easy to read fashion. The authors have a unique writing style that is witty and humorous and keeps you entertained even when explaining about something as boring as online conversions. This book would be great for students in a Web site writing class or for someone who wants to make a Web site that is more user and reader friendly. I personally did know anything about Web writing before reading the book, but it has really inspired me to learn more and improve my skills. I have definitely been persuaded!

I found this book by browsing on Amazon, and it has been an incredible find. I am currently developing a website from scratch. I have bought all kinds of books to help me with this and this one is probably THE most useful. It contains many, many key ideas regarding what most matters in the content of a website. This is a book I keep reading and re-reading - A big thanks to the authors!

Persuasive Copywriting is a great companion to Call to Action, also by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg. Portions of the information in this book were repeated in Action, but that does not make Persuasive any less valuable to web site owners and online marketers alike.

Much like my reading of Call, I have exhausted a highlighter underscoring important sections of information throughout the book. With sections covering writing considerations, techniques and writing for the web medium, Persuasive provides substantial tips and recommendations to make your copy stand out above the rest, and more importantly, be an effective sales tool.

As a bonus, there is an entire 50 page "afterword" all about understanding online conversion, which will help you better understand the conversion process, while providing useful tips on how to improve your site's conversion rates.

Anyone responsible for the content of their website should read this book and keep it close by. As the author's state, writing for your website is not a one-time process, but is all about tweaking and testing different formulas. Persuasive makes a great reference manual for the process of getting the most out of your web page content and squeezing out higher conversion rates from your visitors.

Before reading this book I considered myself a decent copyrighter, not excellent by any means, but decent. After reading this book (and their other book: Call to Action) I realized that I have no idea what I'm doing. Now I refer to each book on a weekly basis to be sure that I'm getting it right as I build websites for my clients. Reading these books has opened my eyes; referencing them keeps them open. Using just a few examples in these books I have been able to increase my registrations on several websites in just a few weeks.