By Terry Dean

The most important skill you can learn for making good money on the Internet is copywriting. Yes, that's right.

If you create a web site that pulls in orders like crazy, then getting traffic is pretty easy. All you have to do is tell people the conversion numbers of you site and they'll jump at the chance to partner with you in promoting it (if you make them a good deal).

So this is where I suggest webmasters spend a lot of their time starting out. Learning how to write ad copy will help you create high converting web sites, order producing emails, and traffic generating ads.

You can have two web sites competing with each other in the same market. Both might be selling the same product.

But if web site "A" converts 0.5% of visitors into buying a $50 product and web site "B" converts 3%, then the second site will win over time.

Think about it.

If 1,000 visitors go to each site, then web site "A" will sell 5 products for $250 in sales. Web Site "B" will sell 30 products for $1,500 in sales.

Both of those numbers are common conversion rates. One is "average" and the other is an extremely well written site.

This means that if they both spent $1,000 getting the visitors there, site "A" lost $750. Site "B" did the exact same thing and made $500.

Ever wonder why some Internet marketing techniques seem to work for certain people, but others can't get anything to work for them?

There's your answer.

It's in the conversion rates.

I have a massive library of copywriting courses, marketing courses, and sales letter packages. It's one of the subjects I've spent the most time studying, but I've picked out my ten favorites below for you.

You can get these books at any bookstore or through Amazon.

1. Advertising Secrets of the Written Word by Joe Sugarman

This hard cover book will teach you the 24 psychological triggers that cause people to buy and the secrets of persuasion Joe used to build his multi-million dollar empire.

2. Method Marketing by by Denny Hatch

This is one of my favorites even though it isn't mentioned very often in copywriting circles. It's premise is that you must get inside the heads of your customers and understand how they think to write powerful effective advertising to them.

3. The Online Copywriter's Handbook by Robert Bly

Robert Bly writes a lot of books about copywriting...and this one is his Internet version. He teaches about writing ad copy for web sites, email, banner ads, and more.

4. The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy

This is Dan Kennedy's simple easy to understand copywriting book. He has some great courses that cost $495 or more, but this book is the best place to start to ground you in his copywriting principles.

5. Internet Direct Mail by Roberts, Feit, and Bly

This is all about writing effective email advertising and how to use opt-in email marketing effectively. This book has been written for larger companies, but it still has a lot of valuable info for smaller businesses as well.

6. Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples

This is a classic and it was often considered the "bible" of effective advertising techniques. Everybody who wants to write any type of advertising should have this book in their library.

7. Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got by Jay Abraham

This book really isn't a copywriting book. It is more of a marketing "thinking" book. It covers the basics of Jay Abraham's marketing strategies for maximizing the profits of your business. The Internet section isn't all that good, but the rest of the book is great.

8. Psychology of Influence by Robert Cialdini

This is considered one of the most important books on persuasion ever written. It covers the six psychological reasons that motivate people to take any action, and how you can use them to persuade people to taking the right action.

9. World's Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters by Lewis and Nelson

This huge hardcover book is a collection of sales letters which have been proven to bring in responses. It is a great start to your copywriting "swipe file" of powerful ad copy samples.

10. Million Dollar Mailings by Denison Hatch

This is another massive hardcover book like the one above. It shows you multiple sales letter packages which have been tested and used by large mailing companies. It's another "swipe file" book (a swipe file is a copywriter's term for their collection of proven sales letters which they use for idea generation in their own ads).