If there is any skill that is indispensable to the web marketer it is copywriting. Regardless of how much traffic you can bring to your site, if the words on the page do not convince your prospects to buy your product, or sign up for your mailing list, it all means nothing.

So many webmasters overlook this critical component of a successful site. However, it is one that is easily corrected. A complete course in copywriting is outside the scope of this article, but to point you in the right direction, I would suggest that you start with "Tested Advertising Methods" by John Caples, followed by "Web Copy That Sells" by Maria Veloso.

Once you are comfortable with the fundamentals of copywriting, it's time to test your new skill. I have discovered a simple, yet brutally accurate way to measure your progress.

Go to the ClickBank marketplace at marketplace.clickbank.net and choose a product you'd like to promote. Then, if you haven't already done so, go ahead and sign up for a ClickBank Affiliate ID.

Next, create your landing page somewhere on your site, and write your sales letter. If you really want to get creative, write two versions of your sales letter and use your tracking software to conduct an A/B split-test between the two.

In order to test the effectiveness of your letter, you'll need to send people directly to ClickBank's purchase page. Although it isn't advertised, ClickBank has provided a way for you to do this. Your purchase page link will look like this:
ITEM.AFFILIATE_VENDOR.pay.clickbank.net

Where the item is the item number of the product that you are promoting. Find this number by clicking on the vendor's purchase link, landing on the ClickBank purchase page and viewing the source code in your browser. You are looking for a line that says:
(input type=hidden name=item value="item#") where item# is a number.

So, to recap, you've got the Item number, your affiliate ID, and the vendor ID (if you don't know the vendor id, go back the the source code above and look two lines up from the item number for the vendor ID). Now put them all together to create the purchase link above.

There is a caveat here you must be aware of; this method does not embed your affiliate commission, so if the purchase is not made right there, you will not get the credit.

Track the number of visitors to your sales page, and the number of sales that you get credit for. In this manner, you'll be able to judge the effectiveness of your copywriting skills.