You're not the only one who goes in search of things on the net, and not finding them immediately, moves on. Your prospects are doing the same thing.

In fact, studies show that you have an average of 5 seconds to capture a visitor's attention. If your visitors are women, they'll stay a couple seconds longer. If they're men, a couple seconds less.

That means the headline has to grab them. Your name, or a "Welcome to my website" message won't do the job. Instead, the headline has to instantly convey the message that they've come to the right place and are likely to find what they're searching for.

Once the headline does it's job, your first few paragraphs - the lead - has to lure them into the rest of your copy. It has to get right to the point - not beat around the bush. That seems to be one of the biggest weaknesses that amateur writers suffer from - a desire to talk about something for a while before they say anything.

Even seasoned copywriters suffer from that weakness, but we have a little trick that solves the problem. It's called "highlight and delete." Those first few sentences serve as a warm-up to get our creative juices flowing, but once they've done their job, it's time to politely tell them good-bye and get on with selling the product or service.

Sometimes it isn't easy. You think you've said something important. The next trick, then, is to leave it there for a day and just keep moving forward. When you come back tomorrow and look at the copy with fresh eyes, you can delete it.

Your web copy must show the benefits of choosing you or your product. NOT just the features. Remember that people buy from emotion and justify the decision with logic. So you must have both - but the emotion comes first.

The next important thing to watch for as you construct your web copy is the tendancy to either talk too formally, or talk in your own jargon.

For instance, I recently consulted with a firm who sells IT solutions to small businesses. They offer the technical help that boggles the minds of most small business people, me included.

But instead of saying something like "We'll set up all your computers so you can share files either in the office or when you're on the road," they described that function in terms that only another techie would recognize.

When I said "If your customers already knew all this stuff, they probably wouldn't need your assistance," they finally "got it."

So - plain English please. And don't get bogged down in big words that attempt to make you sound academic. Your readers aren't interested. They want to read the same kind of words that they use every day.

Next, don't get excited over the finer points of grammar. If you don't clearly know the difference between "there" and "their" or "your" and "you're," then you do need to hire a writer, but no one (except an English professor) will fault you if you leave a dangling participle or begin a sentence with "And."

If you've ever struggled to make a sentence hold it's meaning while obeying all the "rules" of grammar, you know just how pompous your words can become.

And by the way - there is no shame in not being an able writer. If you're good at what you do and you serve your customers well, that's enough. There's no reason for you to assume that you should also be a writer.

I don't pretend to be a car mechanic, and I wouldn't dream of trying to fill my own teeth. I don't even try to arrange a beautiful boquet of flowers - that's for the talented to do, not me.

To write good copy you must first love writing and love words. Then you have to have a strong interest in human psychology and the underlying wants and desires that drive us to buy a product or hire a particular professional.

If those aren't your areas of interest, then hire a writer and spend your time getting better and better at what you really do love. Your copy will be stronger and you'll be happier - and more wealthy!