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Nick Usborne hit the head on the nail.

On the back cover of Usborne's 2002 book, 'Net Words', he said, 'bells and whistles may grab a customer's attention, but words make the sale.' We'll repeat: words make the sale.

Say you have a laptop to peddle online. You'll take good care of it, no doubt, so that it reaches the buyer's hands in excellent condition. But wait. Before you can even sell it, you must tell cyberspace about it. Gigabyte hard disk and random access memory are attractive features. Fine, that's a lot of processing power. You do have a hot item there.

Fact: most online shoppers have a short attention span. The idea is to make them read YOUR ad among the 25 others on that page.

Taking this fact and Nick Usborne's wisdom, how does one grab a customer's attention with the properly-crafted ad? Better yet, how do you make him click the BUY button?

Before tackling the fundamentals of effective ad writing, Usborne cited a statistic worth remembering: the average American is bombarded with about 3,000 separate advertising messages a day. Multiplying that by 365, that's over a million messages a year.

Writing that ad -

' Match your words to the product. Not every Tom, Dick and Harry is familiar with all the technicalities of a laptop, but it is safe to conclude that those who are looking to buy a laptop would be curious about '

- software, - hard disk memory and RAM (most laptop buyers have already used desk top computers so they're coming into the laptop universe already aware of what constitutes processing power), - weight (lugging 7 pounds across the Pacific is no laughing matter) - years used

' Attitude - give the reader the impression that you're smiling. A frown or a grunt is 'felt' in the wording. It's like saying, 'just want to get rid of this laptop, ok?'

' Brevity, essential specs, price (and if negotiable)

' Freight/payment arrangements/contact details (let the customer know you'll be glad to send it free, that he has a few payment options to choose from ' in fact the more, the better) and if he's not happy with the goods, where he can reach you).

Applying theory into practice, two examples are given below. Guess which one is likely to be read twice?

Example 1: Top brand laptop, slightly used. 1 Gig memory, 256 RAM. Software included. Bought $2,300, sacrifice $1,500. PayPal only. No credit cards. Call XXX 7-9 pm Wednesday and Thursday only.

Example 2: Download your biggest files and watch DVDs on the plane ' even without power! Three-hour battery integrated. Sharp monitor. Five pounder. IBM R51, 1 Gig, 256 RAM. 2 years old. Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access. $2,000, negotiable. Freight free. All credit cards + pay pal and bank transfer. Call XXXX anytime. Leave message, I'll call back!

Brevity does count, sure, but example 1 had 'vague' written all over it. What does 'slightly used' mean ' how many years has it been 'pounded' on? What software is included? Hasn't he heard of credit cards? He won't be home when I call to ask questions.

Copyright 2006 Jason Seib