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Copywriting Tips – What’s Above The Fold

When you create your sales page, what do you put above the fold? Does it matter? If you’re not sure, you might want to read this article. It will explain why what’s above the fold matters, maybe more than any other part of your copy, and also how to get the most out of that area. Some of these ideas might seem contradictory to some of what you’ve heard.
Okay, let’s start with why what’s above the fold is so important. It all goes to the attention span of your prospect. When somebody goes to a sales page, or any web page for that matter, they’re going to spend about five seconds tops looking at the first thing that they say, which is what’s above the fold. If they don’t find what they’re looking for, or don’t find something that at least captures their attention, they’re gone. That’s why when I see these sales pages that have some stupid looking header taking up about three inches of space with nothing on it but a domain name, I cringe. No way on God’s green earth is that going to catch anybody’s attention. Okay, so that’s why what’s above the fold is so important.
So, the $64,000 question is, how do we capture our prospect’s attention so that they will want to read our sales letter? Well, the most common way, and maybe the most effective, is with a text headline. It is said that 80% of your sales come from your headline. It’s true. If the prospect doesn’t like that very first thing they read, they’re gone. So you want to make sure you write a headline that really grabs them. This is one way of taking advantage of the area above the fold.
Another way is a little more tricky and could backfire on you if you’re not careful. Remember that boring graphical header I talked about earlier in this article. Well, imagine you put something really outrageous, or even comical above the fold. A lot of copywriters will tell you that this is a bad idea. I don’t agree. My first sales letter had such a header and it sold me a steady 200 copies a month of my first product. Know what it was? A stop sign. That’s right…a stop sign. It made people do just that…stop and take notice. Of course the caption under it didn’t hurt any. Oh how I wish that page was still up there.
Point is, you have about five seconds and three inches of space to get somebody’s attention. If you don’t, they’re gone faster than you can say “Bob’s your uncle.”

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