Patrick Bateman’s Morning Routine and Your Blog

December 28, 2009 by

Yesterday, I was watching American Psycho – a movie about a young, wealthy investment banker who has a psychotic alter-ego – on Blu-Ray, mostly because it was either that or watch the Redskins lose yet another game.

Because the movie is about a businessman – albeit, a psychotic businessman – I wanted to see how it might relate to us smalltime online entrepreneurs. What I came up with was appearance.

Bateman spends a lot of time talking about how important it is to always look your best. In many cases, he is correct. His picture-perfect looks help him to skate by and hide the fact that he’s actually a raving lunatic. For example:

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old.

I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now.

After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine.

I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

Yep, that’s just his morning routine.

So, what am I getting at? Take the time to make your writings orderly. Add pictures, give your writings a nice flow, make things look pretty.

You could have the greatest post in the world, but if it’s not broken up the way your readers want to see it – if you use weird font or an ugly background color – your post is going to automatically be dismissed. If the post is presented to look crisp and clean, you’re going to keep your readers on your site, and possibly turn them into loyal, credit-card-in-hand buyers.

It’s ok to be a little neurotic about making your posts look nice. Just don’t turn into Patrick Bateman along the way!

Per the new FTC regulations, the above links are affiliate links, and should you buy any product after clicking on the links, I will receive a small commission from the seller.

Filed Under: Entrepreneurship, Miscellaneous Tagged With: , , , , ,

Write Less to Get More Out of Your Readers

December 22, 2009 by

In order to illustrate a point, this post is going to be incredibly short. It’ll also be one of the most important posts you’ll read with regard to copywriting and getting more out of your readers.

As a writer, you need to remember that your readers have a limited attention span, and will not read every word on your page.

In fact, I’ll bet that right now, you’re just skimming through this article, looking for something to grab your attention.

If you do it, you must assume that your readers are doing it, too.

As you are writing, remember that any long paragraph will be skimmed through, and in many cases, glanced over completely. Be sure to break your writing up into smaller chunks.

One way you can help to cut down on your writing is to frequently use lists. Your readers love them and they force you to cut down on the amount of words you use.

Another trick you can use to make your writing stand out is bold your important points, since your readers’ eyes are naturally drawn to print that stands out.

Last but not least, make your point quickly. Don’t wait until the fifth paragraph to start making your move.

What are your copywriting tricks? Leave a comment below.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous, Traffic Tagged With: , , , ,

Tweets That Get You Clicks

December 20, 2009 by

I’ve been experimenting with Twitter over the past few months, and have come to find that if you know what you’re doing, it can be a fantastic way to get tons of targeted traffic to your websites.

Obviously, the key phrase from what I just wrote is “if you know what you’re doing.”  During the first month I used Twitter, I wasted countless hours and got very little traffic to my websites.  It was an incredibly frustrating situation.

Then, I came up with the following three Twitter rules, which I’ve since shared in previous posts:

  1. Tweet in blocks of 10 to 12
  2. Hide your links among your other Tweets
  3. Tweet during actionable times

These rules helped to increase my Twitter traffic exponentially, which has helped to bump up my Adsense, affiliate and marketing revenue.  Needless to say, I was pretty pleased with the above rules.

However, I still felt like I could get more out of Twitter, so I started to experiment the actual words in my Tweets.  After playing around for the past month or so, I’ve come up with the following headlines as the most likely to get your links clicked:

  • Who else…
  • How to…
  • Top (insert number here)…

Who else tends to promote a sense of community, and also can promote you as an authority source.  For example, I recently promoted a link to Life Lock on one of my Twitter accounts using the Tweet: “Who else wants to avoid becoming a victim of identity theft?”

In one day I had over 100 clicks, which is much better than the 10 clicks I got from using the “Visit Life Lock to learn about staying safe from identity theft.”

Obviously, everyone would like to avoid becoming a victim of identity theft, but by posing the question using a “who else,” I was able to get a ton more clicks.

How to is great because you’re basically telling anyone reading your Tweet, “If you have this problem, I can solve it.”  This promotes you as an authority, and will get almost anyone looking for your solution to click on your link.

Top (insert number) is great because everybody loves lists.  Really, it’s true.

So, if you’re interested in generating more traffic from Twitter, follow the three rules I posted previously, and follow my headline advice.  I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how much your traffic increases.

Filed Under: Social Traffic Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,