A Glimpse into the Meticulous Ballet of Tech and Opulence.

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Your Manuscript Guiding the Grand Performance of Luxury Creation.

Reading time: 4 minutes

Master the art and science of creating beautiful websites.

Attention is the reader’s gift to you. That gift is precious. And finite. And should you fail to be a respectful steward of that gift—most commonly, by being boring or exasperating your reader with poor Typography—it will be promptly revoked.

Therefore I believe that most readers are looking for reasons to stop reading.

Not because they’re malicious or aloof.

They’re just being rational.

Readers have other demands on their time.

Why would they pay more attention than they must?

Readers are always looking for the exit. So the first thing to consider is that everybody skims the page before their brain commits to reading it!

That’s totally normal.

And what’s the main thing that jumps out at the “scanning brain”?

It’s the headline and the sub head.

What’s really going on is this:

These sub-heads are “Selling” the brain on the idea of reading the whole page.

They first ask how easy this is to read?

The goal of most professional writing is persuasion, and attention is a prerequisite for persuasion.

Once the reader’s attention expires, you have no chance to persuade.

After all, if they don’t actually read what you’re putting out there, how can they learn about all the benefits you have to offer?

Secondly, the copy needs to be about them, not you.

So here my six ways to influence your readers while helping them out.

First, make sure everything is about …THE READER!

As much as we want them to be fascinated by us, our story, and our “stuff”, the fact is they don’t care about that.

They care about THEMSELVES so everything you write needs to always “tie in” to how it can help THEM.

Even more important than “THEM” is their RESULTS.

For example, if this guide was all about ME and how great of a writer I am, you’d leave, right?

And if I made it all about YOU and how YOU need to write good articles, you might read some of it …but you’d ultimately leave because you know that already.

But you’re still here and you’re still here for one reason:

We’re talking about the RESULTS YOU WANT.

In this case, we’re talking about how to influence people with content.

Use the magic words ‚“so you can”.

Everybody’s going to tell you that when it comes to talking about your services, you need to make it all about features and benefits.

Don’t listen to them.

If you want to actually sell, you need to explain how the benefit directly relates to the results your readers want to get.

The “so you can” language pattern is perfect for this.

Address skepticism head on.

Most people try to gloss over this.

That’s a surefire way to decrease response and obliterate trust because it’s like trying to ignore a giant elephant in the room.

You both know it’s there and if you pretend it’s invisible, you’ll lose.

The best approach is the “you might be wondering” language pattern.

It works like this:

First, you identify the main area of skepticism.

In this example, let’s say you’re selling a course on list-building …and the prospect’s main area of skepticism is that he thinks it will be too hard from a “tech” perspective.

The next step is to address this objection by framing it as a question he might be having.

Like this:

"You might be wondering how you’re going to survive the brutal paces of having to figure out complicated internet software."

Now it’s time to answer that question.

Tell them what to do next.

Everything you write or publish should have a desired end result that benefits you and the reader.

It could be to make a sale. It could be to get an opt-in.

Or maybe you just want them to leave a comment, “like” something on social media, or refer a friend.

Whatever it is, you need to explicitly tell them to do it, and why.

Summarise the end benefits.

Lots of people scroll down to the end of the article before reading the whole thing.

This is a great place to restate your main point, or cliff hanger to read another article, or subscribe to get a valuable extension to the article (such as a complimentary lead magnet).

For example, if you wanted to reinstate the benefits you could do include a P.S section like this:

P.S

In case you’re one of the people (like me) who skim to the end before you read the page, here’s what this is about:
How to make sure people read your copy and write content that SELLS!
Six ways to influence your readers while helping them out.