Rating: 
Summary: Great book with content that will add to your bottom line...
Review: This book was a great read and quite informative. It'll help you increase your sales by talking to the user at a level that makes your company feel personal, and show to the user that you care. I'd recommend another book with this one... Net Words by Nick Usborne. I bought both books using a coupon from UnderTag.com, so it was a real bargain for me.
Rating: 
Summary: Will Open (and Blow) Your Mind - A Must Read
Review: This gem of a book offers the most comprehensive (and immediately useable) information on "how to make your website profitable" in the fewest amount of pages that I have yet seen.As a bonus, it is priced a fraction of most of the available information on this subject. I've paid hundreds of dollars for information that was not nearly as useable as this. (OK I admit I'm a marketing information junkie) I have purchased dozens of products (printed and ebooks) within the last year alone on this subject. Most of the others talk about search engine tricks, pop-ups, hard sell copy, and basically manipulating your site visitor into doing what you want. Manipulation may work a little in the short run, but is self defeating in the long run. This book is much smarter than that. It is in a whole different league. This book teaches what is really important to long term profits. That is, engaging your visitors and making sure your site is offering them exactly what THEY want. It shows you how to write extremely effective copy. It also tells you how to discover exactly what your customers are asking you to provide them by watching your stats and web logs. The basic premise of this book is that without a high conversion ratio, there is no point in buying more traffic. It is much more cost effective to use the techniques contained in this book to increase your conversions than to chase traffic. That comes later. They make a valid point that most folks are doing this backwards. This book is about way more than just copywriting, by the way. It does an excellent job of enlightening you to many useability factors that may be hurting your sales. I can't imagine anyone who manages a website and uses even a small percentage of the wisdom contained within not getting a hundred times their investment back. In conclusion, just buy it and read it. You can not go wrong with this book.
Rating:
Summary: Helpful --- But Don't Expect Results.
Review: This is a well written book and it is one that I recommend to folks who want the basics of writing for the web. Writing Web site copy is hard work and anything that gives you any help at all is welcome. But I noticed that some of the people mentioned in the book as being helped by the authors or being in some way associated with the authors had sites that didn't apply the rules and tips and teachings that are offered in this book. Yet they have reviews here and in the book. Or some do. I also ran the "we we test" on their sites that is on the author's site and all scored very low. So it appears that the authors were able to get some good recommendations and reviews but not necessarily by people who adhere to their philosophy. Having said that, I think this is well worth the read. Don't expect the conversions that the authors seem to think their suggestions will provide. Unfortunately, conversions are much more difficult to get than by applying the advice in this book. I also found it amusing that the author adheres to the concept of using lots of hyperlinks in the main part of your site (the center) and in his book, Net Words by Nick Usborne, Nice says that's not a good idea at all; that it causes you to lose people. Why is this amusing? Nick works with Future Now as a strategic partner. (Future Now is the site associated with the author of this book.) Future Now does, at least, follow it's own rules. It has lots of hyperlinks on it's page. It has useful tools and a high ranking in the search engines. So I'm not sure how much stock you can put in either theory or in either book. The information in the book will, however, be very helpful to those who are writing copy for their own sites or that of others. I just don't think you should believe everything you will read in the book as it all simply doesn't work. Some of it does and for that information, the book is useful. When copywriters, or for that matter anyone in business, writes a book, it is with the intention of building their credibility and getting more business. And that's fine. But the advice they give sometimes has to be taken with a grain of salt. And the people who recommend the book on the back cover are often folks who write books for the same reason. So you might say they're doing each other a favor. The proof is in whether or not what you read in a book works. I tested the advice in this book and find it lacking. But I'm in need of more in-depth and realistic offerings. To someone who simply wants help writing their Web site, this is an excellent book. Just don't expect the results that the book, reviewers and those who recommend it seem to think you'll get.
Rating:
Summary: The GROK knows all
Review: This was my third of three copywriting books I read. While actually being the smallest, this book probably had the most content. The beautiful thing is that each topic is in its own small 2-3 page chapter which is very convincing, logical, and easily accesable for further usage. One of the better internet books on the market.
Rating: 
Summary: Sorry doesn't cut it...
Review: While this book talks about marketing principles.... most are basic...and can be found almost anywhere. Including their own free articles. If you are looking for a good copywritIng book, look elsewhere. I like some of their online articles... and with all these "glowing" five star reviews this one looks good. But not so fast my friends. This book's copywriting material is like reading a re-hash... without the venom. It's like being in the race car with an unconsciously competent driver. "So how do you do that? You tell me to do this...but how?" They may be good salesmen... but in this book they certainly can't explain it, maybe the GROK came down with flu or something. Anyways...I'd say stick to the classics ...Dan Kennedy, Gary Halbert, John Carlton, David Ogilvy, Joe Sugerman, and For online Marlon Sanders... Ken Evoy's make your words sell. I realize that different copy sells to different personalites and markets.And SOME of the masters that I just listed are kind of hypey, but it works. And in some markets where you have to tone it down, this book still won't help you it's just too general. For more professional business to business go for all the ones I listed and Robert Bly.Also... read and print out tons of online copy. Plus... get the Denny Hatch book "Millioon Dollar Mailings". It's big...it's expensive... but it has control tested actual winners.
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Summary: Consultants making more $$$ from your website than you?
Review: You want to or are being pressured to get "more" out of your website. You've got the latest technology, super smooth graphics and Flash that make the CEO giddy with glee, maybe even a CRM system to handle all the customer inquiries. Does it seem that no matter what technology or feature is incorporated into the site it, doesn't make much difference? If you represent a small company, you may be buying lots of traffic from Overture and Google but not ringing up many sales. Technology and marketing budgets don't close sales. Words close sales. What does this have to do with "Persuasive Online Copywriting"? Everything. Website copy provides the facts your customers are looking for (often in the form of search engine queries). It also touches their emotions, makes them feel safe, secure, and confident the right decision has been made to do business with you. That is, if you take the time and effort to do it right. "Persuasive Online Copywriting" is your guide to improving the copy on your site. It provides expert advice on: * Specific Web Writing Techniques
* Writing For Search Engines (Tackling that mysterious SEO thing)
* Improving Conversion Rates
* Putting Offline Ad Copy On Your Website
* The Length of Copy On Your Pages
* The Way People Will Scan and Skim Your Copy and How You Can Take Advantage of It It takes effort, a customer centric view, and may entail some internal political battles to get it right, but with this book as your guide, you'll be able to step ahead of the competition in stealth mode. Most any competitive move you make on the web can be immediately detected and copied by your competitors. You buy something; your competitor buys the same thing. Winner: The vendor that sold you both on it. Improving your copy may even enable you to cut your marketing expenses and customer service inquiries. When you make the shopping and buying experience safe, secure, and easy it's amazing how much more people will buy. Isn't it about time you learned how to put words to work for you? If you are making a serious push to enhance copy and its presentation on your website you might also consider picking up a copy of Net Words by Nick Usborne and Designing CSS Web Pages by Christopher Schmitt.
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