When you want to create action, the right words, in the right place, are ultra important.

Here's some interesting information excerpted from a sharp post on Copyblogger written by Paras Chopra, creator of Visual Website Optimizer (a handy dandy tool that makes online copy testing a snap). Not surprisingly, these are the same guidelines, in almost every instance, that are tried and true for direct response marketing too... 

"The right question is: What should I test first?

You have to prioritize the most influential aspects of a landing page, the elements that tend to produce the biggest changes.

I am the founder of a split testing product called Visual Website Optimizer with thousands of users, which gave me the privilege of observing thousands of split tests and their results from a front-row seat.

That experience showed me some of the key elements (in order of importance) that you should test on your landing page:

• Headline (if you can test only one thing on your page, test your headline first)
• Call to action (should you have Buy Now or Add to Cart … or offer a free trial instead?)
• The product’s positioning
• Highlighting different benefits and features
• Length of copy (surprisingly, sometimes removing information on a page increases conversions)
• Video vs. text (for some sites text works better, for some video prompts action)
• Screenshots and other images (I can’t stress enough how important is it to split test different kinds of visuals you use on a landing page)
• Freebies (visitors may respond better to one kind of bonus or free offer when compared to others)"

You might want to read the whole post too -- there's a neat test you can take to see if you can guess which copy works best.