How to Write Website Copy That Sounds Like You
Most business websites are written in a corporate dialect nobody speaks out loud. Writing like a person is a competitive advantage, and it is free.
Read the first paragraph of your website out loud. If you would never say those words to a customer standing in front of you, that is the problem.
Somewhere along the way businesses learned to write in a dialect nobody speaks. We are a leading provider of innovative solutions. We leverage synergies to deliver value. Every company says it, which means it distinguishes nobody.
The fix is not clever writing. It is honest writing. Say what you do, who it is for, and what happens next. A hotel in Elmina does not need to be a premier hospitality destination. It needs to be a hotel in Elmina with a good beach and clean rooms.
Write the way you would answer a customer on the phone. If somebody asked what your company does, you would not say we are a leading provider. You would say we fix industrial generators, usually within a day. That second sentence is your headline.
Cut every word that does not carry weight. Very, really, extremely and in order to can almost always go. Read the sentence again afterwards and it will be sharper, not thinner.
Use numbers wherever you honestly have them. Fast is a claim. Under three seconds is a fact. Experienced is a claim. Fourteen years and two hundred installations is a fact. Facts survive scrutiny, and claims invite it.
Then give it to somebody outside your business and watch them read it. Not their opinion, their behaviour. Where do they slow down, where do they scroll past, where do they ask a question the page should already have answered. That is your edit list.
Good copy is not decoration applied at the end. It is the clearest possible statement of what you actually do, and most businesses are one honest rewrite away from it.