Johnny’s Copyblogger Wrap-Up: Week of April 5, 2010

If you’re like me, you may have missed a lot of this week’s Copyblogger content because you ate so much Easter chocolate last weekend that you:

• passed out in the center aisle at Wal-Mart
• were declared dead by Mort, the acting manager
• were incorrectly tagged at the morgue due to budget cuts
• were shipped off to a medical school as an indigent cadaver

and then woke up in front of visiting pre-med students who were just about to remove and dissect your kidney.

So this week’s review couldn’t possibly be more timely. You know, if you’re like me.

Anyway, here’s what happened this week on Copyblogger:

Monday:

Landing Page Makeover Clinic #24: NannySoft.com

With the newest installment in the Landing Page Makeover series, Roberta Rosenberg has proven without question that landing page copy and layout actually matter. If it were just a question of the product being sold, NannySoft (which promises to monitor your kids’ activities on the internet) should have a slam dunk.

My five-year old, for instance, won’t stop funding Nicaraguan rebels online. Software like this pays for itself based on misappropriated gun money alone. Think about it.

Check out what The Maven has to say about how NannySoft can increase its landing page conversion. The fate of many puppet governments may hinge upon their success.

Read the full post here.

Tuesday:

5 Things Depeche Mode Can Teach You About Effective Online Marketing

I think it’s kind of dangerous that this article was written on a dare from someone who was really interested in an oboe-playing guy in a dress. What kind of precedent does that set?

It suffices to say that new wave electronica can indeed teach you about internet marketing. The next time you’re in your room dying your hair black and reveling in your depressed self-loathing and your mom comes to your door and is like, “Hey! Turn off that Depeche Mode noise!”, you can be like, “But Ma, I’m learning about marketing!”

Bonus: Find out what being someone’s own Personal Jesus has to do with Priscilla Presley’s book Elvis and Me.

Read the full post here.

Wednesday:

11 Smart Tips for Brilliant Writing

I was so pleased with this post that when I was done reading it, I stood up and cheered, then high-fived the people around me, and then Tweeted my appreciation to Dean Rieck. But then this bus full of nuns cut me off and made me drop back into the slow lane, so I had to switch over to rancorously texting my friends about that instead.

Dean wrote, “To sound smart, you must stop trying to sound smart.” So to make you sound your best, he has 11 tips for writing brilliant copy without looking like you’re trying too hard.

At this juncture, kindly peruse the entirety of the erudite exposé forthwith by impacting the toggle on your input device in the general proximity of these characters.

Thursday:

Six Questions to Ask for Powerful Testimonials

Last week we ran The Secret Life of Testimonials, all about why your testimonials should contain some of your clients’ doubts and problems instead of being all airy fairy. A modest dose of uncomfortableness will make your testimonials more real and believable.

In this post, which is the sequel to that one, Sean D’Souza goes on to say that really, you want your testimonials to tell a story. A rags-to-riches story, maybe. A gripping story that makes them want to act. But if you don’t guide your clients in writing that story, you end up with a limp story that seems good in theory but that never actually goes anywhere, like The English Patient.

To generate the kind of testimonials that will make new prospects take notice, all you need to do is to ask the people giving them six little questions.

Read the full post here.

Friday:

Are You Burning Your Most Important Writing Client?

I made a mistake a while back. I asked my buddy Charlie Gilkey to pester me about some new copy I need to write for my website. Up until now, I’ve kept telling him I’m too busy writing guest posts to write my own stuff, but then this post by Sean Platt ran and there’s virtually no chance that Charlie will leave me alone now.

It’s the adage about the cobbler whose kids go shoeless: If you’re a writer, you need to avoid burnout and make sure you have enough words and cobbler left for both yourself and Shoeless Joe Jackson. Or something.

Anyway, Sean has tips to keep Charlie from bothering you about your own writing. Check them out.

Read the full post here.

About the Author: Johnny B. Truant writes at JohnnyBTruant.com and is one of the creators of Question the Rules: The nonconformist’s punk rock, DIY, nuts-and-bolts guide to creating the business and life you really want, starting with what you already have, an awesome new course which will launch later this month.