If you run a forum you will know how bad forum spam is. Hundreds of spam users signing up and posting with very unsavoury content. This often leaves forums unmanageable unless you can spend all day on it.
I have just found the phpBB AntiSpam Project that gives a good list of usernames and ip addresses to ban from you forum, hopefully reducing your spam.
Alot of clients tell us they are going to just rewrite their competitors copy and send that to us.
Some don't even rewrite it, obviously we don't allow that - another topic.
If you want to engage your visitors and persuade them to contact you rather than a competitor you must be different. Otherwise based on copy you aren't giving youself any more than a 50:50 chance.
So as you are writing your copy consider things that your competitors can't say about themselves. Write about what is unique to you and your business.
What value can you possibly add to a visitor's experience by simply repeating everything they have read elsewhere? Your visitors will respond.
It is important to stay in the mix once a potential customer has left your website. When I am looking for a product or service online I often just collect information before I make my decision. The easiest companies to do this with are those who send a brochure direct to my e-mail's inbox. No saving, no hassle, it is there when I pick up my e-mail.
We have added to our website this feature and the response to this has been brilliant.
We keep it short and to the point with just the necessary information. Potential clients can still be thinking about us once they have long left our website.
If you are receiving an error similar to "ERROR 550 Rejected at zen.spamhaus.org" when sending e-mail, this is an issue with your ISP (BT, Demon, Orange, etc.). Our mail servers check IP addresses that are attempting to send email against a database of known email spammers.
Don't worry this doesn't mean you are accused of spamming, your current IP address, used many times by other customers of you ISP, may have been in the past used for sending unsolicited email.
Two Solutions
Disconnect your modem or broadband router and reconnect you will probably receive a different IP address that isn't listed.
A good place to start your copy writing is by creating a list of everything you want to communicate on your web page. These list items will become the subjects of your web page's paragraphs. Now lets make another list of everything your website's visitors will want to know. Some of these will be duplicates of the previous list.
Now combine both lists, the items on your visitors list should take priority over items on your list and therefore should be at the top of the list.
For each item add sub items of the main points your paragraph will cover.
Taking the list flesh out each of the points into sentences. This is now the basis of your web page's copy.
From this process you will ensure that you have properly thought out what your visitor wants to know and it is in a stuctured form. Remember the most important points should always be at the top of the page.
I'm just taking some time out of my usual work to let you know of this incredible resource on the web which I'm currently finding indispensable. It's the French Ecole(www.thefrenchecole.com) website....
As one of the first and probably the most successful e-commerce websites, Amazon.com knows just how to maximise sales when Christmas comes around. Lets see what they are doing this year on their UK website.
