Web copy tips to avoid driving clients away

There are many ways you can drive web visitors away with awful web copy, here are just three of the most common, as well as web copy tips to help avoid then.

Three important web copy tips:

1. Your website is all about YOU!

You’ve got a swag of credentials and experience and know exactly how to fix your ideal clients’ problems. Your products and services are brilliant. They’re innovative. They get results.

Clients should be queuing at your door… but they’re not.

Web copy tips to fix your copy

Before you tell your clients how you can help, you need to show them you understand. While they’re reading your words, they need to be thinking, “This is so me!” Every sentence ought to draw them further into the belief that you understand their particular challenges.

Be clear about who you are writing for and why they might have landed on your site. What were they feeling or needing or missing before they found you?

Tell them what the problem is. Describe it.

Once they’re convinced that you ‘get it’, they’ll be intrigued enough to find out how you might ‘fix it’.

2. Keyword-driven copy

SEO keywords are important and can vastly improve your Google ranking. Sprinkling your site with keywords can make a difference, but only if the resulting sentences appeal on a very personal level. There’s no sense sitting at #1 on Google if your page reads like a personals ad for a search engine.

Web copy tips to fix your copy

Find a balance between clever use of keywords and copy that will lure the humans who are consuming it. Overuse of keywords is like leaving the house wearing too many accessories. All the sparkles and jangles are distracting – we want future clients seeing you. 

Want more articles like this? Check out the business writing section.

3. Unclear or boring copy

Web copy can be fun to read. It can be clever and witty and interesting – and should be. On one condition: It MUST get the point across. Clearly.

The words on your web page should reach out of the screen and wrap themselves around your reader’s imagination like the opening of a good novel. Not in the style of a novel but with as much punch, or more.

Web copy tips to fix your copy

It takes a long time to convey something complex in a simple way. Invest the time. If you’re not confident in your business writing skills, hire a copywriter – and I don’t say that just because I am one. I’m appealing to you as a consumer of websites, with the attention span of a gnat. 

Beautiful writing is minimalist. Beautiful sentences do all the work so the reader won’t have to. Beautiful websites aren’t skin-deep gorgeous – they’re the ones with something powerful to say.

Choose your words carefully.

Writing engaging copy that grabs attention and speaks to people’s problems will inspire them to stay on your website for longer.

Have you been driven away by web copy in the past? What are your top web copy tips?