This fall I found out that I have scoliosis.

You’re probably thinking “Hey Courtney – what on earth does this have to do with sales pages?” and I get that. But I promise that I have a point.

I’m not looking for pity, what I want to do is illustrate a point 😉

For the past few years I’ve had chronic upper back pain. Honestly, I thought I was just being a baby. As a figure skater, I grew up with the “no pain no gain” mentality. Seriously, you cannot be a figure skater without pain. You literally fall on cold, hard ice dozens of times per day.

The thing is, my back pain felt very unique to me. I turned myself into a special snowflake about my back pain thinking that I was the only person in the world with this specific type of back pain and no one would be able to help me.

And then the back pain got frustrating enough that I schedule an appointment with a chiropractor. She took X-Rays and made her diagnosis: Scoliosis.

Here’s my point:

My back pain is unique to me. I wanted to feel like the chiropractor really heard my specific symptoms.

But ultimately, everything has a diagnosis.

The chiropractor? She’s seen it all. She knew instinctively what the problem was. It was easy for her to categorize because she’s an expert.

For me, my back pain was unique. For her, it’s a problem she already knows how to solve.

Here’s my next point:

Your clients and my clients both experience the same “special snowflake” kind of thought process when they experience the problem that you know how to solve.

This is so true when I work with clients on sales pages.

Everyone worries that they have the one and only sales page that won’t fit my system. Everyone worries that they have special problems writing sales pages that no one else has. Everyone thinks that they’re alone on an island struggling and no one can help them.

I can say, as an expert who has worked on HUNDREDS of sales pages that you are wrong.

But this is good news!

You’re not alone. I promise you that I have seen EVERY sales page frustration, problem, mistake possible. The big ones fall into a few categories which I want to address in today’s “Sales Page Dos and Don’ts!”

Let’s play a little game of “Sales Page Dos and Don’ts”:

Last week, I gave you 3 strategies for performing your own Sales Page CPR.

This week, I want to take things to the next level and give you some common “don’ts” that I see on sales pages and the “do’s” that you, well, want to do instead 😉

I’ve dug back into the Sales Page CPR archives of dozens and dozens of client sales pages that I’ve rewritten over the past couple of years and found the most common “dos and don’ts” of sales pages.

I’ve dug back into the Sales Page CPR archives of dozens and dozens of client sales pages that I’ve rewritten over the past couple of years and found the most common “dos and don’ts” of sales pages.

In other words, here are the most common things that I change and edit on my clients’ sales pages:

#1 – VAGUE HEADLINES

DON’T WRITE VAGUE HEADLINES

It’s tempting to use headlines on your sales page that say things like, “Here’s what’s included” or “Our Refund Policy” and then expand on the details afterwards.

Here’s why you don’t want to do this:

• People are scanning your sales page
• If I ONLY scan the headlines on your sales page, I should have enough info to say “yes” or “no” to your offer.

DO WRITE HEADLINES THAT CONTAIN CONTENT

For example, instead of “Here’s what’s included” you could say, “The {NAME OF OFFER} includes 6 weekly modules to help you {INSERT RESULT}”

#2 – TESTIMONIALS

DON’T SKIP THE TESTIMONIALS!

I often speak with entrepreneurs worried about getting testimonials for their offer.

There’s a huge misconception out there that you have to use testimonials for the EXACT offer that you’re selling.

Because of this, many people skip adding testimonials to their sales pages.

Here’s why you don’t want to do this:

• Testimonials carry huge weight in the sales page department — this is something you’ll have to make up for.

DO GET TESTIMONIALS FOR YOUR NEW OFFER

Here are a few ways you can grab testimonials even if you’re creating a brand new offer:

• Have you done similar work in the past? Use testimonials from that work!
• Do you have testimonials that attest to specific qualities that are relevant to your offer? Your skills? Your teaching style? The results you help people to create?
• If you are brand spankin’ new to business, consider working with 2-3 people for free at first so that you can get some testimonials from them.

Little caveat: I am not, under any circumstances, tell you to try to pretend that a testimonial is about your offer that isn’t actually about your offer.

#3 – THE GIST

DON’T MAKE ME DIG TO GET THE GIST

You’d be amazed by how many times I read a sales page and I have to dig and dig and dig to “get the gist” of what the offer is.

I chalk it up to the “curse of knowledge” — you know, that annoying psychological phenomenon that makes it reeeaally tricky for you to remember what it’s like to not know things that you already know?

Basically, YOU forget to put a “hey, this is my offer” headline on your page because, well…you already know it. It’s so obvious to you that you forget that it’s not obvious to everyone else.

DO WRITE A BIG HEADLINE THAT INTRODUCES YOUR OFFER

All you have to do is have a big headline within the first 20% of your sales page that says something like this:

“Introducing [Name of Offer]: A [What it Is] that will help you to [What it Will Help You Do]”

Tell me in the comments: Which one of the “don’ts” do you want to work on first?!