Website copy is the job people put off longest and the one that shows most when it’s missing. If you’re not a writer, you don’t need to become one: you need to know what you want to say and in what order. The rest is craft, and it’s quickly learned.
Start with a clear message, not a first sentence
Before writing a line, answer three questions on paper. If you can’t answer each in two sentences, the problem isn’t the writing.
- What you do, put the way you’d explain it to someone outside your industry.
- Who it’s for, with a specific profile. “Everyone” is not a profile.
- What the visitor should do after reading: call, ask for a quote, book.
Those three answers give you the skeleton of your home page. Everything else is elaboration.
A simple test
Sum up your business in one sentence without adjectives such as “innovative”, “comprehensive” or “high-quality”. If the sentence collapses, you don’t have a message yet. If it holds, you’ve just written your headline.
Structure by page: what each one needs
There’s nothing to invent here. Every page has a job, and the copy is arranged around it.
Home
A headline saying what you do and for whom, a short paragraph that expands on it, three or four services or benefits, one piece of proof (a client, a result, a real project) and a call to action. Nothing else. The home page is not the place for your life story.
Services
One block per service: what it includes, who it suits and how you work. Anyone landing here is already comparing, so help them decide. If you can give a guide price or timeframe, do; if not, explain what it depends on.
About me
Write it in the first person and cover what matters to the client: your experience, how you work and why there’s a real person behind the site. It isn’t a biography, it’s a reason to trust you.
Contact
Tell visitors what happens when they get in touch: how long you take to reply and what information helps you most. The less they have to guess, the easier it is to take the step.
Tone: write as you’d speak to a good client
Tone is not decoration. It’s what lets someone recognise you on the site and later on a call. A useful reference: imagine explaining your work to a client you respect. Neither solemn nor overly chatty.
- Short sentences. If one doesn’t fit in a single breath, split it.
- Concrete verbs instead of abstract nouns: “I’ll hand over your site” sounds better than “the provision of website delivery”.
- One grammatical voice: either I or we, not both at once.
- Formal or informal, depending on your client. What matters is deciding once and sticking to it.
An example: instead of “we offer comprehensive design solutions”, try “I design your site and make sure you can edit it yourself”. It says the same thing, but it’s understood at first read and sounds like a person.
Typical mistakes when writing your own site
- Starting with yourself instead of the client’s problem. Your story matters, but after they understand you can help.
- Empty phrases. “Tailored solutions” or “passion for what we do” fit any business, so they say nothing about yours.
- Trying to say everything on every page. One page, one goal.
- Leaving AI-generated text untouched. As a draft it’s useful. Published as it is, it sounds like nobody.
- Forgetting the call to action. If visitors reach the end and don’t know what to do, the copy has failed.
- Walls of text. On a screen, three or four lines per paragraph is plenty.
None of these mistakes is serious on its own. The trouble is that they pile up, and visitors decide within seconds whether to keep reading or leave.
Read it aloud before you publish
It’s the cheapest trick and the one that works best. Read the text aloud, slowly, as if dictating it to someone. Wherever you stumble, the reader will stumble too.
Watch for three signals:
- You run out of breath mid-sentence: it’s too long.
- You feel embarrassed saying it: it’s probably a cliché.
- You wouldn’t use that word in conversation: swap it for the one you would.
If you can, leave the text overnight and read it again. And if someone you trust reads it with no explanation from you and can tell you what you do and for whom, the message works.
When you’d rather not write it all yourself
Some people enjoy writing and some treat it as paperwork. Both are reasonable. In my web projects I sort out the copy with you before designing, because a site with a clear message is designed faster and ages better. If you’re at that point, write to me via the contact page and we’ll see what you have and what’s missing.
