You use opt-in boxes and pop-ups to grow your list. But are you missing out on converting more visitors to subscribers by focusing entirely on the opt-in? Have you considered testing pop-ups featuring opt-out buttons as well? If not, read this to see why every lead-capture pop-up box needs an opt-in and opt-out button.

You want to measure the success – or failure – of your copy. But how the hell do you know how to measure it? Do you call all the copy on a page “bad” if the page isn’t converting? Or is only one element of your copy to blame? In this post, we’ll introduce you to the You Had One Job rule of conversion copywriting.

Your About page is one of the most visited pages on your site. But is it a dead end? Do you have a clue what visitors go there to do… or why… or how you can help them do that? Check out this post by copywriter Henneke Duistermaat to see the 7 sins of About pages.

Trying to get backed on Kickstarter? You’ll need a pitch page – and a damn good one at that. But where do you even start? And how long does it need to be? And what’s your story? And should you demonstrate your product? And what if your product doesn’t lend itself well to demonstration?!!?! There are tons of questions that Kickstarter’s handbook doesn’t help with. So we analyzed top-performing Kickstarter pitches, which we present to you today. (Beware: it’s a meaty post.)

You’re busy. Your business is doing pretty well. So why should you care enough about SEO to spend time on it? The main reason is that you probably already see around 30-60% of your website traffic come from the search engines. That might make you think that you don’t need to bother, because you’re already doing so well. But you’re almost certainly wrong. Read this to get the whole picture…

Reciprocity is the persuasion principle at play in most of our content marketing efforts and when we give out free trials. We’re banking on the idea that, if we do something generous for someone – such as giving them a free whitepaper, letting them try our software without entering their CC or writing super-helpful posts (ahem) – they will give back to us in kind. But if reciprocity is so powerful, why don’t more trial users convert? Why don’t more leads open our emails? And why don’t more readers comment on our posts?

Decent copy takes time & skill. Consistently high-converting copy takes time, skill, research, and statistical validation. If you’re outsourcing the job, this will cost you money — often quite a bit more than you might expect for what appear to be, you know, just words. So what should you expect to pay for stellar web or email copy? Use these calculations to find out.

You can make yourself comfortable at home. When you’re trying to grow your business, you’ve gotta make yourself uncomfortable. That’s what we’re challenging ourselves to do in 2015, as effing painful as it sounds. Check out how – and why – we’re going to make ourselves uncomfortable by clicking to read this.

We watch enough Shark Tank and Dragon’s Den to know that a ton of products just aren’t meant to be. The timing isn’t right. Or the audience isn’t there. Or the product is just a product, not a solution – not a painkiller, vitamin or addictive drug. In this challenge, we do the extremely difficult… and ask you to think about what in your life needs to go but hasn’t yet.

As our second challenge of 2015, we’re launching a brand new business called Snap. It’s a spin-off of Copy Hackers – but more of a Laverne and Shirley to Happy Days than a Joanie Loves Chachi to Happy Days. A good spin-off. Check it out and see how to put Snap to work for you as you build your own product that solves a problem for people you know.

In the first of this 4-part series on the challenges we’re posing for ourselves – challenges we hope you accept with us – we discuss our desire to start having fun as bloggers again. If you’ve been frustrated by the pressures you put on yourself to be a certain way as a business owner, share your experiences here.

Tens of thousands of freelance copywriters, designers and developers are on Elance.com and Freelancer.com. But how many of them are making real money? If you’ve struggled to figure out how to earn on Elance, read this post by freelance copywriter Danny Margulies, who earned more than $110,000 in 12 months on Elance – without running himself ragged.

Workers switch task as often as every 3 minutes, and they can take as long as 30 minutes to settle into a task. What does that mean? We’re unfocused at best – and it’s the marketer and copywriter’s job to engage in a little attention management to focus us, something magicians do exceptionally well.

Jobs to Be Done is the secret behind many a great new product. But have you thought of using JTBD interviews to write copy? In this post, Alan of The Rewired Group teaches how to listen to your interviewees – and find stickier phrases that are more likely to convert.

After hearing Jay Abraham give this useful tip – to find great copy in Amazon reviews – we put it to the test… and we haven’t stopped using it since. Read this post (and watch the demo video!) to see how you can find sticky copy in the words people just like your prospects are using online.

The promise of A/B testing is so enticing… but is the reality anywhere close to the promise? In this guest post by Jen Havice, see just how hard it is to reconcile the idea of running A/B tests with the actual work of doing it.

Ogilvy said, “When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” But what about buttons? Unfortunately, Mr. Ogilvy wasn’t around when buttons began to dominate the web, email and mobile. In this post, you’ll see why it’s time to update our marketing books and blogs to focus less on headlines, as Ogilvy said, and more on buttons + headlines.

How long should your pages be? People talk a lot about the power of long copy… but, from time to time, you hear a story about long pages failing vs short pages. So what should you do? What do you need to think of when writing any landing page? And why don’t conversion copywriters always recommend long pages?

The road to naming your product or business is not unlike the road to Hell – paved with good intentions, and sure to ruin everything that’s good inside you. Avoid total heartache and woes – or commiserate with us – by checking out the tragic tale of naming Disco incentivized surveys.

Most startups pay less than $3995/mo to lease office space. But new B2B SaaS solutions targeted at online marketers are able to charge 10x more than their competitors – up to and including $3995/mo for the starter plan! Curious about this dramatic upswing in pricing, Lance takes a look at 3 competitors in an increasingly pricey space… assesses their copy… and gives his POV on whether the copy effectively sells high-priced software or not. Want to charge 10x more? Read this.