Web Writing: The Good, Bad and Ugly

By Rick Sloboda (@webcopyplus) Jan 7, 2009

4 comments

How do you get online visitors to take interest in your products or services? Write about things they care about.

Most would say that’s brain-dead obvious. Yet, it seems 90% of websites miss the mark completely.

The problem: self-absorbed web content. The cause: self-absorbed copywriters and business owners.

To engage prospects and turn them into customers, you need to appeal to the visitor’s self-interest — not yours.

Is your web copy written for the right audience?

Who is your website written for — your audience, your business, or your writer?

The following insight will help you answer this critical question, and guide you toward higher online engagement and conversion rates.

The ugly: Writing for the writer

This is where you hire a copywriter for your website and he or she fills the pages with cleverly crafted, delightfully delectable prose that oh-so-playfully sing and dance.

An example from a training company’s website: “When You succeed we succeed with You. When You dazzle Your CLIENTS, we dazzle ours.”

The writer is screaming: “Look at me! I’m brilliant!” The online visitor is screaming: “What the hell do these guys do? Can they help me!?”

Another snippet from a florist’s website: “Pinkly pulchritudinous and amazingly delightful, infinitely charming and sensationally fascinating.”

They’re selling pink roses, and it’s probably safe to say words like pulchritudinous alienate most of their market. Beautiful or lovely would work just fine, forget about the fact that freshness isn’t even mentioned, likely one of the consumer’s key concerns.

Web content riddled with fancy abstract language and clichés might inflate a writer’s pride or score a marketing agency awards, but it’ll do little for your business.

Even if your copywriter does induce a few “ooohs” and “ahhhs,” a website that doesn’t convey the right key messages provides you little or no value. Consider those witty TV commercials that get discussed the next day at the office – but no one has any idea what the costly 30-second spot was promoting.

The bad: Writing for the business owner

Company-centric content is rampant on the Web. Whether a copywriter is forced down this path, or a business owner prefers to focus on what he or she wants to say versus what the audience needs to know, the results are the same: low engagement and poor conversion rates.

An example of company-centric content from an IT website: “There are about a million IT companies floating around, then why us? Reasonable question! The answer is simple… because, WE ARE THE BEST! Best in Quality, Service and Post Service Relations…”

Self-absorbed and indistinguishable. Web copywriting would be easy if your prospects and customers thought the way you do. But they don’t. Consumers are not necessarily interested in your business. They are, however, definitely interested in what you can do for them.

Common issues with internally developed web content also include:

Expert Paralysis

When a business owner gains considerable knowledge and experience on a specific area, it’s difficult to recreate a prospect’s less informed state of mind. Consequently, it makes it difficult to effectively introduce this knowledge to others.

Information Overload

Business owners have a knack for wanting to share everything. But just because you’re passionate about something, it doesn’t mean your audience is. You end up with information creep, where the web content gets progressively complicated, to the point the important and relevant information gets lost in the mix. Three compelling, relevant points are better than 10 that prospects don’t really care about.