• Write about benefits, not features
• Include a direct call to action throughout your copy
• Pepper in solid user testimonials to help boost credibility

These are all great copywriting tips – but there’s often one that gets overlooked in the rush to focus only on the positive points of your product…

Its weaknesses.

What?!  I Can’t Tell People About That!

The truth is – you can’t afford NOT to – because soon enough, they’ll find out anyway, and you’ve got one unhappy customer who tells a friend who tells a friend and spreads the word.  There’s a certain way to go about it though, which can actually increase your sales, and that’s by pre-qualifying your visitors.

I talk about this extensively in my book Get Niche Quick, but the idea is that you can qualify visitors through your copy alone – right up-front so that neither you nor they waste any time looking at a product that might not be right for them.  Here are a few examples of how you do that:

The “If…But” Strategy

The “if…but” strategy works to clear out things people might be looking for when they click your ad or visit your site, but recommits to your own product’s benefits once the comparison is done.

If you’re looking for widgets that do everything from keep time to chop your salad for you, you don’t want XYZ widgets.  BUT if you want a widget that works flawlessly 50 years from now as it did today, you’ll want to take a closer look at our custom-crafted widget selection…

Admitting the Difference

Let’s say your product is quite a bit more expensive than your competitors, and you don’t want to compete on price alone (and risk damaging the quality of your product as a result). You can admit it right from the start by writing something like:

Most widget stores sell widgets for $99 or less.  So why are our widgets almost twice as much?  Because we don’t compromise on quality.  From the moment you walk out of the store with your new widget, you’ll get unwavering support with any questions you may have about setting up and using your widget…

Just the Facts

If your competition has several major differences, no matter what they are (higher price, better support, etc.) you can always find areas where your product or service does a better job.  For example:

Why buy widgets from XYZ company?  For one thing, we’re more affordable.  At half the price, you’ll save both time and money.  Plus, with our easy instructional video, you’ll be up and running in minutes, right out of the box.  Why waste time phoning support and being on hold for hours?

At this point, if the customer is considering the two options, they might decide to go for the lower price and less support because your product’s user friendly design means they can experience the benefits sooner.

Try one on your next blog post and link to it in the comments! I’d love to see what you come up with

1. X Things You Didn’t Know Were Wrong With (Popular Online Service)

I’m betting you could come up with 10 things wrong with Twitter, or 7 things you feel are terrible about Facebook.  When everybody’s jumping the bandwagon proclaiming how great something is, writing a controversial point of view is a good way to stand out and get noticed.  Just make sure you stand behind what you write and invite comments because you’re sure to get plenty of them.

2. Share a Personal Experience Related to Your Topic

Some of the best posts written by bloggers are personal experiences relating to how they got to where they are now.  Sharing one’s struggles and triumphs helps you connect with others like nothing else.  Likewise, you can share something that happened to you that could be the spark for a new blog entry.

3. Review Others’ Work

No blogger is an island, so reach out and review other books/blogs/products in your niche.  Interviewing an up-and-coming blogger is also a great way to build your network and help both of you get more traffic.

4. Simplify Something Difficult

What can you show others how to do that’s easy for you, but seems challenging to them?

5. Create Posts that Leave ‘em Hanging

You don’t have to end every post with the full story.  Make it the sort of cliff-hanger people will want to tune into the following day or week.  This is a guaranteed way to get repeat traffic time and time again with your blog. Just be sure to keep all the articles in your series organized (the Organize Series plugin for WordPress is a great way to do this automatically!)

6. Write About a Certain Theme

It could be a week-long set of posts around a certain topic, or you could choose to focus on one particular theme one day a week, such as “Social Media Saturdays”.

7. Share the Most Common Problems in Your Niche

And what you’d do or have done to overcome them.  Many people, myself included, like to sidestep pitfalls whenever possible.  That’s why, if you’ve experienced a particular issue relating to your blog’s topic, we want to know how you fixed it!

8. Add to or Update Someone Else’s Work

If another blogger has prepared a list, but it’s been awhile since it was updated, here’s your time to shine.  Add to or update their list with your own points (be sure to link back to the original author – it’s just good netiquette) and create a fresher, newer version.

9. Check Out the Latest Trends

Use Google News, Twitter Search and Keyword Alerts to stay on top of news that’s relevant and late-breaking in your industry.  Check out Digg’s top rated for today, all week and all year to discover popular headlines that you can revise and tailor to your niche.

10.  When All Else Fails, Check the Dictionary

This is a strange one, but I swear by it when I’m feeling stuck.  Open up a dictionary and turn to a random word.  It may be something like “bandage”.  Could you turn that word into the basis for a blog post?  For example “ 5 Website Problems a Simple ‘Bandage’ Won’t Fix”

That’s why keeping your content fresh and “evergreen” is not only a great way to highlight old posts whose tips still ring true, but it’s also the perfect way to attract new visitors and subscribers to your blog.  Here are six great ways to do just that.

Refresh an Old Post with New Information

Remember those old social marketing posts you made in 2009and 2010? How have things changed since then?  Purge old posts of stale news and give them a fresh new update with new strategies, tips or ideas.   Once that’s done, announce it through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for some shiny new comments and feedback.  You don’t want to overdo this, but at the same time, it’s all too easy to forget to tweet/post some older content to social networks.  That’s why I like using the  Sendible service to schedule posts and tweets to no more than 2 per week.

Put Your Best Content into a New Format

You could take an old series and combine posts into a free ebook that you give away on your site.   PDF sharing sites like DocStoc and Scribd are a great way to get your free content out to a new audience.  Plus PDFs are very mobile-friendly and great for people to read on-the-go who ordinarily might not have time to fully read your blog.

Sound, Video and Slideshows

E-Books are just one way to spread the word.  You can also turn it into an audio recording using free audio software like Audacity or free video recording software like Camstudio.  Take the main points of an article, overlay it with your audio “tour” and turn it into a PowerPoint slideshow.  Then share that via sites like Slideshare or add it to YouTube.   Don’t have PowerPoint? There are plenty of free slideshow creators online.

Share a Previous Post in Your Comment

Here’s another tactic you don’t want to overdo simply because it makes you sound like a spammer, but if you’ve read an article on another blog and genuinely feel that you could add to it with some more information THAT blog’s readers would find helpful, you can always leave a link to your older post, such as “Excellent advice!  I also highlighted X more ways of using Widgets in a blog post at…” Chances are, the author won’t mind approving the comment if it truly contains useful information for their own readers.

Turn It Into a Guest Post

Many of my previous posts have reincarnated as very popular guest posts.  To do this successfully, you’ll need to rework your blog post to make it mesh with your guest blog’s audience, but it’s a great way to get more traffic, comments and exposure without wracking your brain trying to come up with new ideas to write about!  Keep in mind that you’ll only want to do this with some of your best work – particularly posts you’re proud of which didn’t seem to get much exposure on your own blog.

Write a “Best Of” Post that References Previous Articles

This is a great way to bring your content back to the forefront of your blog.  For example, a gardening blog may have “Best Flowers to Create a Butterfly Garden”, a dog training blog might feature “Best Training Tools for Puppies 6 Months or Younger”. In this Best Of post, you can freely link to existing content elsewhere on your blog.

BONUS – Here’s a free WordPress plugin designed to promote old posts back to the front page of your blog. It selects a post to be featured randomly, and won’t work on WordPress blogs that use dates in their permalink structure (like example.com/blog/07/10/whatever-post-name) but if you’re looking for a simple way to show off your best posts, you might want to check it out.