Sales copy should be like a ladies skirt: Short enough to be interesting yet long enough to cover the essentials.

Each method offers its own unique advantage to the website owner. Ultimately, the decision on whether to use long or short copy as a marketing tool will depend on your product or service.

Your research may determine that long copy satisfies a particular segment of your business, while other divisions will benefit more from brevity.

Long and interesting, keyword-rich copy not only works well in natural search engines, it can offer certain advantages such as allowing your visitors to readily obtain answers to their questions while alleviating some of their anxieties about ordering your product or service. In addition, long copy, utilizing bolded or emphasized points, will give a visitor more options - allowing them the choice of just skimming the page or obtaining more detailed, specific information.

Short copy, on the other hand, provides its own distinct advantages. It is well recognized in the Internet world that the majority of people who surf the web have a very short attention span; therefore, short, sweet and to the point sales copy often far outweighs voluminous text. Moreover, short copy is more receptive to sleeker page presentation. With a few well-placed links, your page may have more impact, thus serving to weaken the perception that your pages are little more than hype-ridden sales letters.

Because there are no universal conventions regarding the ideal length of a promotional message, testing must be a vital component of your marketing strategy. Testing is really the only way to know for sure what works in your specific niche market.

Many Internet Marketers simply choose their own favourite copy format... short copy or long copy. And that's a huge mistake! The only people who are qualified to choose the format of your asles copy are your customers. And the only way of determining which they prefer is to test your copy on a live website.

When testing site copy you must take into consideration variables such as page design, color, layout, and graphics, etc. Each of these components can and do influence the performance of a page. Therefore, when testing short or long copy, it is essential that all the other page elements remain the same.

A tried and true method of tracking the success of your page is to utilize an A-B or Multivariate Test, which can ascertain that factors such as time and traffic source do not distort the results.

Don't take any chances with your copy... test everything!