Write for the Buyer, Not the Board

Read your website out loud. All of it. Preferably to someone.

The sentences that make you slightly uncomfortable to say are the sentences to cut.

Websites start with a particular kind of language, called the tone of voice for your brand. But over time this drifts off track. Copy gets written by committee, founders, and long standing staff. Every round of review tends to have a new tone or removes specific claims. Repeat that over and over, and you arrive at content that is perhaps technically true, entirely unobjectionable, and completely inert.

Where you know you've got a problem is when you take a step back, and swap your own logo for your competitor's. Would the website still read fine as if your competitor could own those statements and claims? If yes, well, you've just made a generic website!

Vague language protects you from being wrong in a meeting. It makes you part of a crowded market. Specific language will win you work.

Don't get us wrong, there are times where it is very hard to differentiate between say two competing firms offering the same services. But here's an example of what we see in market, and you decide which one resonates with you most (and ask yourself why):

Example Law Firm 1: We are one of the most trusted employment law firms. We are passionate about ensuring workplaces are safe and fair.

Example Law Firm 2: Award-winning employment lawyers advising employees and employers on workplace disputes, contracts, termination, bullying and discrimination.

What this looks like for you:

Name the thing, not the category. "We help businesses improve their operations" is a category. "We build quoting tools for equipment hire companies so a quote takes four minutes instead of an afternoon" is a thing. The second one is riskier. You must be confident that you have occupied your own place in the market. This is what makes somebody pick up the phone.

Use numbers where you have them, and say nothing where you do not. A real number is the fastest trust you can buy. An invented or rounded-up one is the fastest way to lose it, because the person reading it works in the industry and knows what is plausible. If you do not yet have the number, describe the mechanism instead.

Say the price, or say something honest about the price. Often professional service sites say nothing, which readers interpret, correctly, as expensive and negotiable. If you cannot publish fixed pricing, publish the range, or the starting point, or what determines it.

Cut the words that carry no information. Every industry has them. Ours is full of them. If a word appears on the site of every competitor you have, it is not doing any work for you. You could try own or trademark terms that differentiate your offering, for example by bundling or unbundling services your competitors offer, but don't do that if it confuses your visitors even more.

Answer the objection instead of avoiding it. Every buyer has a reason not to proceed, and they have it whether or not your site mentions it. Too expensive. Too slow. We tried this before and it failed. A page that names the objection and answers it plainly outperforms a page that pretends nobody has it. You want a reader to know you have met people like them before and addressed their problems.

One caution. Directness is not bluntness, and confidence is not swagger. The goal is the tone of a good practitioner explaining something to a client they respect: clear, unhurried, willing to say what they do not do.

If you want a single edit that improves most business websites, it is this. Delete every sentence that describes how you feel about your work, and keep every sentence that describes what happens when someone hires you.