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Your website is a powerful sales tool. A tool that should be working for you round the clock. 24/7. While you're sleeping, in a meeting, and yes, even while you're enjoying dinner with the family.

Sadly, many companies are unaware their website content is driving customers away--both new and repeat business. Most sites are well designed and have a professional appearance, but the copy is . . . well, it's terrible. And poorly written, ineffective chunks of copy leave potential customers disenchanted, and it encourages them to search another site.

Here are 4 website copy mistakes and how to prevent them:

“We’re so great at this, so great at that. Want to see all the awards we’ve won? No? Well we’re going to tell you about them anyway.”

This might seem over-the-top, but too many business websites do just this. I’m sure businesses that do this haven’t stopped caring about the prospective customers and started caring only about how they look to others—it’s human nature to want to showcase strengths and people are attracted to it—but it won’t work on a website.

The key to influencing your market and attracting clients is all in how your website copy speaks to your customers and how it illustrates your company’s goals, values, and, obviously, products and services. Your web copy should work to build relationships with your prospective customers and illustrate a transparent business message.

How many times have you stumbled across a website that describes the services / products and you have no clue what they’re talking about? While many businesses have the intention of trying to stand out and be completely unique from the competition, all they end up doing is stringing together a bunch of fancy words that have no meaning. It’s nearly impossible to express your uniqueness when you say that your “creative planning services are unique.” (What does that even mean?)

The key is not about saying you’re different from the competition, but rather, it’s about showing your prospective clients that you offer something different from the competition. This is expressed in a clear, result-driven brand message. When you become clear on your brand message, your target audience becomes clear on what you sell.

3) Do you even know what products / services you offer and to whom?

You may think you know what products / services you offer, but how clear are you? Businesses evolve. Services change. And so does the market. Often, what happens is companies add information to their website over a period of time. The result is a smorgasbord of information that can easily confuse prospects.

If you aren’t specific about the product / services you offer and how they benefit your target market, it is extremely difficult for you to convert prospects into customers. Similarly, if you don’t follow shifting markets, how can you expect to sell products to a customer you no longer know?

Your business is unique, and this uniqueness sets it apart from the competition. But, there’s a difference between expressing that uniqueness in industry terms, and illustrating it in layman terms.

You understand the industry jargon, but do your prospective customers? Probably not, which is why you need to understand who your target market is and how your brand message and language can be written to connect with them. Remember, it’s important to speak to your prospects and not at them because, many times, they are your peers, not others in your industry.

About Michelle:

Michelle Salater is an award-winning writer and president of Sūmèr, LLC, a company which specializes in web copy writing, SEO copywriting, and the promotion and marketing of websites after they launch. Michelle is the author of Sūmèr's Secrets , a bi-weekly ezine that shows small business owners how to market and promote online. Get your F*REE report: 5 Secrets for Creating Web Copy That Will Increase Sales and Double Profits for Your Business. www.writtenbysumer.com

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Sales letters. They can be difficult to write, especially when you are so close to your product or service. Because readers scan first and read the details later, sales letters are even more challenging to write.

A sales letter can be found on a website, a landing page, a blog, or an email. It simply acknowledges and talks about the pain or problem your prospects have, then positions and presents a product or service as the solution . There is no limit to what you can use a sales letter to accomplish. You can use a sales letter for something such as a free report, or to sell a product or service. You could even use a minisales letter to ask readers to take a survey if you wanted to.

Sales letters need to engage the reader and really speak to him or her on an emotional level– a good sales letter will get inside your readers’ heads and hearts and make them believe what you offer is going to make things better.

Below are a few tips to remember when writing a sales letter:

1. Create a swipe file. Find at least three sales letters that intrigue you and make you want to buy. Preferably, those that actually made you take action. Before you begin writing, read through them to get a feel for what they say and how they say it. You’ll start to see a bit of a pattern that you can use to create your own letters. Do this step each time you write a sales letter–it warms up your brain.

2. Know everything you can about your readers. Ask and answer as many questions as you can. What keeps them up at night? What kind of car do they drive? Where do they live? What do they do for a living? Post your answers for easy reference as you are writing your copy.

3. Decide what you want the reader to do. Are you trying to sell something straight from the page? Are you trying to get the reader to sign up for a free teleseminar? You need to know your call to action before you start to write. Jot it down, and keep it next to you for reference.

Quick Tip: Be sure your call to action is clear. Tell the reader exactly what you want him or her to do.

4. Fast draft a few working headlines. Your sales copy headlines and subheadlines needs to grab and never let go. Your main headline needs to promise at least one major benefit the reader will get if he buys your product. Now, some writers think you should wait until you’ve written the letter to come up with the headline. My suggestion is to come up with “working” headlines you can use to keep yourself on track. If you can come up with three or four, you’ve got the beginning of your sales letter.

Quick Tip: It is very easy to go off on a tangent when you are writing a sales letter. The call to action and the headlines will keep you focused.

5. Ask compelling questions. Grab your reader’s attention by asking a question that hooks the reader and refers to at least one benefit of your product or service. It should be a question that gets his or her mind racing, not one that could be answered with one word.

For example, if you are selling face cream, you might ask, “Would you like to look five to ten years younger and have smoother skin?” Then you answer that question.

6. Show, don’t tell, readers how your product / service is the answer. Tell a story. Give examples. You need to build credibility as soon as possible. Tell them who you are and why they need to listen to you. You want to tell them all about the special features and benefits of your product and make them visualize how it will help them with their problem or relieve their pain. Tell them if you’ve been there and how you fixed it.

7. Know the usual objections and weave answers to them throughout the letter. Relieve doubts and suspicion as you write. This is where your testimonials will be valuable. Let the readers know you understand their doubts and fears and show them why they don’t need to doubt or fear anymore.

8. Show the reader how your product is better than the competition’s. Believe me, if the reader has been trying to solve this problem for any length of time, he knows what’s out there and will be asking himself that very question. You need to make sure you answer it fully, to his or her satisfaction. Be as specific as possible about the differences, if you know them. If you don’t, you need to do the research and find out.

9. Provide a list of everything the reader gets, including bonuses and your guarantee. Remember, the reader’s concern is, “What’s in it for me?” Remember, readers scan first and read later. Listing what they get in a bulleted list is the best way to spark interest and provide all the information they are looking for in one spot.

Quick Tip: Adding monetary values to each item of the list can “wow” the reader into realizing what a great deal you are offering today.

10. Make the offer. You cannot close a sale if you don’t ask for it. Present the offer with the price tag and a plain, clear call to action.

About the author:

Michelle Salater, owner of Sumer, LLC, is an award-winning copywriter based in the Charleston area. Sumer, LLC specializes in web copywriting , and marketing and promoting websites after they launch.

I’m sure clients, colleagues, and you, Dear Reader, are sick of hearing me harp on how critical it is for companies to really understand their target market. Call me a broken record. I don’t mind.

Before I take on a new copywriting project, one of the first questions I ask a prospective client is, “Who is your target market and how do you serve them?”

Not having a clear idea of whom you’re selling to or who your prospective clients are is the number one marketing mistake you can make—online or offline. If you don’t know whom you are speaking to, you won’t know the right message to communicate.

Identifying and knowing your target market—inside and out—requires you to look at yourself, at your company, and look into whom you serve and why. Too many companies have a general idea.

Some have no idea at all.

Stating a target as “anybody who needs my product” won’t cut it (believe it or not, I hear this answer all the time). Defining your target as “people in the medical field” won’t help much either. Trying to be everything to everyone isn’t going to get you the sales you want.

If you want more customers, you have to know whom you are selling to. And you should know as much about them as you can.

Let’s say you own a high-end clothing boutique. You sell products to women, but identifying your target as “all women” is much too vague because most of your inventory is designed for a younger crowd. Look closely at your clientele, and you may find most of your patrons are between 32 and 45. Look even closer, and you may uncover a majority of your clients are young professionals who make

over $80,000 a year.

Keeping with this example, now that you’ve identified your target, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and brainstorm. Make a list of questions you’d like to know about your target, then answer the questions to the best of your ability. You want to define their lifestyle, hobbies, profession, anything you can that will help you speak to their needs and wants.

Be specific. Where do they shop, dine, drink? What do they read? Did they graduate from college, have a bachelor or master’s? Are they active in their community? Do they bike on weekends, or do they spend time with family? Don’t limit yourself. Keep asking questions until you feel you know these people.

It’s important to note that it doesn’t matter if this is business to consumer or business to business, you are still dealing with people at the end of the day. So, if you are business to business and your target is a CEO, you need to know everything about who that CEO is so you can connect.

The more you know, the better you can target the group, speak their language, and give them what they want. And if you know all the above, it will help you further define the business message you want—a message that will attract your target audience to you.

Once you start mining to find out who your target market is, it has been my experience that many businesses find that their message isn’t clear, effective, or targeted to the correct market. It can be extremely difficult for businesses to project an accurate message, one that encompasses a combination of their company’s products, beliefs, mission, and goals if they don’t have a clear vision of their target market.

If you’re uncomfortable with the message you’re sending potential customers online, it’s time to change this message and solidify a strong brand image.

Just remember, speak to everyone, and you’re likely to get no one.

About the author:

Michelle Salater, owner of Sumer, LLC, is an award-winning copywriter based in the Charleston area. Sumer, LLC specializes in web copywriting, and marketing and promoting websites after they launch.