Ever sat down to write your website and just… stared at the screen?
You know your business inside out. You can talk about it for hours over a coffee. But translating that into words on a page that make a stranger pick up the phone? That’s a completely different skill — and it’s one most business owners (and a fair few designers) get wrong.
Here’s the good news: there’s no magic to it. You don’t need to be a copywriter. You just need to stop talking about yourself and start talking to your customer.
Talk to your customer, not at them
Open the homepage of almost any small business website and you’ll see the same pattern: “We are a leading provider of…”, “Established in 2008…”, “Our team of dedicated professionals…”.
The problem is none of that answers the question every visitor is silently asking: what’s in it for me?
People don’t visit your website to learn your origin story. They visit because they have a problem they want solving. The job of your copy is to show them, quickly, that you can solve it.
A simple test: read each paragraph and ask, “would a stranger care?”. If the answer is no, rewrite it from their point of view.
- Before: “We have over 15 years of experience in WordPress development.”
- After: “Get a website that brings in enquiries while you focus on running your business.”
Same business. Completely different message.
Lead with the outcome, not the process
Most people don’t want to know how you do something. They want to know what they get when you’ve done it.
Plumbers don’t sell pipework — they sell a kitchen that doesn’t flood. Accountants don’t sell spreadsheets — they sell fewer sleepless nights. Web designers don’t sell websites — they sell phone calls, enquiries and bookings.
When you’re writing about your services, lead with the outcome and let the detail follow:
- What changes for the customer once they’ve worked with you?
- What problem disappears?
- What do they get to stop worrying about?
If you can answer those three questions clearly on every service page, you’re already ahead of most of your competition.
Use the words your customers actually use
It’s tempting to reach for industry language to sound professional. Resist it.
Your customers don’t search for “responsive UI implementations” — they search for “website that works on phones”. They don’t ask for “managed hosting solutions” — they ask for “someone to look after my website so it doesn’t break”.
Pay attention to the questions you get on the phone, in emails, even at networking events. Those exact phrases are what your website should be using. Plain words win every time.
A good shortcut: write the way you’d explain it to a friend in a pub. Then tighten it up. That’s almost always better than starting with “professional” copy and trying to make it human.
Make the next step obvious
You’d be amazed how many websites we audit where it isn’t clear what a visitor is supposed to do next.
Every page should have one clear action. Get a quote. Book a call. Download a guide. Call us. Whatever it is, make it impossible to miss — and don’t bury it three scrolls down the page.
A few rules of thumb:
- One main call-to-action per page. If you ask for everything, you get nothing.
- Repeat it. Top of the page, middle, bottom. People scroll, then forget where the button was.
- Make it specific. “Get in touch” is weak. “Book a free 15-minute call” tells someone exactly what they’re getting.
Keep it short, then make it shorter
Nobody is sitting down to read your website like it’s a novel. They’re skim-reading on a phone, on a lunch break, with the kettle on.
Short sentences. Short paragraphs. Headings that make sense even if you only read the headings. Bullets where they help. White space everywhere.
If a paragraph is over four lines on a phone, it’s too long. If a sentence has two ideas in it, split it. Cutting words almost always makes copy stronger — never weaker.
Your website’s words are the hardest-working part of it
You can spend thousands on a beautiful design, but if the words don’t land, visitors will quietly close the tab and go to a competitor whose copy spoke to them. Conversely, a plain-looking website with sharp, customer-focused copy can outperform something that won design awards.
The good news: this is the part of your website you can keep improving forever. Tweak a headline. Rewrite a service page. Test a new call-to-action. Small changes to copy often produce bigger results than a full redesign.
We’re here if you need us
At Red Web, we build websites for small businesses across Cambridge and beyond, and we spend just as much time on the words as we do on the design. If your current site looks fine but isn’t bringing in the enquiries you’d like, the answer is usually in the copy — not the colour scheme.
Happy to take a look and tell you straight what we’d change. No jargon, no hard sell.