Let’s talk about Web sites. Your Web site. Does it do a good job of selling your product? Chances are it does not. Most Web sites are terrible. They have uninspired sections like “Products,” “About Us” and “Contact Information.”

Granted, you have an image to maintain and prevailing norms force you to set up this kind of Web site. Also, you do indeed have to have all that information on your site. In a later column I will discuss why most corporate Web sites are awful. Here I want to focus on one aspect of the problem only — the lack of any strong selling pitch. Even if you have a plain vanilla website there is nothing to preclude you having a real selling pitch on your site and directing visitors to it after you do some screening along the lines discussed in the last three columns.

Do you understand what a “real selling pitch” means? The best way to explain it is to show you one. Go to www.freemarketingadvice.com/cashflow.htm and read the copy on the site before returning to this column.

What was your reaction?

This site sells a package of marketing information that is designed to help you — no matter what business you are in — greatly increase your sales and profits. Let me take you through what is good about the site and what can be improved. Then you figure out how you can do something similar for your site.

First the layout. This is excellent. No dancing pictures or other distractions. Such extraneous material diverts attention and also takes forever to download if you are using a phone modem. The text is laid out cleanly in a serif font, black text on white background with headlines and emphasis in blue or red. You wouldn’t believe the number of companies that pay idiot designers who set up sites with white print on black backgrounds. This colossal mistake happens in print as well. Get this straight. Reading advertisements is not anybody’s favorite pastime. Reading on a monitor is inherently strenuous on your eyes. White on black is difficult to read by more than a factor of two. Try to be “arty” and put your copy in white print on black ground and it won’t be read. Get it? If you absolutely want to be different, go for a pastel background — light yellow or ivory is fine (with a dark text) deep blue works, but black is best.

Next, a headline that actually says something. A visitor to your site is like a hovering butterfly, ready to leave in an instant. You have to give him a powerful reason to stay. And you have about five seconds in which to do so, maybe less. The biggest mistake companies make — I wager you make it too — is to have no headline or a weak headline such as “We are the leading maker of agorascopic widgets.” No good. The visitor does not care about you. Your well being is of no concern to him. He cares about himself and what he wants. Let him know what you have to offer that will benefit him. Don’t be coy. Lay it on the line and do it immediately.

How do you do this? Simple. You use a hard-hitting headline, such as the one that this guy uses (“How To Get Proven Marketing Secrets and Software That Will Attract A Flood Of Enthusiastic Cash Paying Customers!”). Headlines are so important that I will devote an entire set of columns to the topic soon. This headline tells you what the benefit is and qualifies you at the same time. If your problem is that you have so many customers you cannot keep up with the demand you will move on.

What should you have next? A second headline or a sub-head. You can also profitably use a third headline. The Wall Street Journal, the eminently readable newspaper that dominates its category, uses four headlines for each of its feature stories in columns 1 and 6 on the front page. You simply cannot go wrong imitating this approach. What should the second and later headlines say? They should be equally hard-hitting but stress different benefits.

Our guy does not use multiple headlines. He should, and you should too.

Your lead paragraph is almost as important as your headline. You get another 10 seconds or so to keep your visitor with you. Give him a good reason, several good reasons, to stay with you. Our guy does a reasonable job of this. He could do a lot better. He gives you a series of bullet points each of which lists a benefit. There aren’t enough bullet points and some of these are redundant. “At least double your sales” and “Get more business than you’ll know what to do with” are essentially the same benefit.

Don’t make this mistake. If you begin with a listing of benefits, make sure that you have a dozen or more of them, that each is powerful in its own right and don’t repeat yourself.

Testimonials. These are wonderful to establish credibility. Our guy uses them well. He has testimonials about each of the products in the packet he is pitching. Remember, testimonials that are specific are much, much more believable than ones that are not. Thus “My sales zoomed after I implemented the techniques in this package” is nowhere near as strong as “My sales went up from $3,000 per day to $5000 per day within three weeks of implementing the techniques in this package.” Testimonials should be from identifiable individuals. Some of our guy’s testimonials are from identifiable individuals but many are not. “P. K., Madison, Wisconsin” is not an identifiable individual. Neither is “Paul Kramer, Wisconsin.” Better is “Paul Kramer, Madison, Wisconsin.” Still better is “Paul Kramer, President, ABC Manufacturing, Madison, Wi.”

Finally, build-up. You have to take your visitor by the hand, explain your offering to him and convince him of its value. Then you have to reinforce it. If you do not convince your visitor to “buy” immediately, if you permit him to leave your site, the odds are good that you have lost him. Remember, if the visitor reads your copy, he is interested in what you have to offer. Your job is to spur him to action. The best way to do this is to pile it on. Notice how our guy gives you bonus after bonus. He carefully lists the price you would have to pay to get each of the items in his package and the total is far more than what he is asking for. He then hits you with the multiple “free” bonuses he provides.

This is an incredibly effective technique. Here is how to improve on it if you use it. List the actual price of each of the bonuses and make sure that the total value of the bonuses is greater than the sum you are asking. You now have a double whammy. You are offering a package that is far more valuable than the price you are charging AND you are giving away “free bonuses” worth more than the price you are charging. Then pile on a few more gifts for good measure. Our guy does this part beautifully.

Finally, you have to give a guarantee. If what you sell is not what you say it is, the customer has a right to get his money back. Re-emphasize this and also let him keep the bonuses for taking the trouble to check you out. Don’t be scared of fraud. Few customers will actually rip you off. If what you offer is valuable, and your description is honest, your customers will be happy to keep their purchases. And you will keep coming up with new values for them.

That’s what makes for a successful business.

Srikumar S. Rao is Louis and Johanna Vorzimer Professor of Marketing at the C. W. Post campus of New York’s Long Island University.