Are you frustrated because your website is just not giving you the results you deserve? Does it feel like you’ve worked so tirelessly on it, but you’re just not getting customers? I have a simple solution for you – and it doesn’t require hiring an expensive developer, designer, or freelancer.
CHANGE YOUR COPY.
Sounds hard – or like a huge time suck. But this doesn’t have to be a nightmare for you. In this post, I’m sharing my top 5 tips that can help you up my copy game and grab the attention of the leads I wanted!
But, before we start, what exactly is copy? When I say copy, I’m referring to the messaging and the words you’re using around your product, service, or business idea. And when I say WEB copy – I’m referring to the language you use on your website. Pretty simple, right?
Now that that’s out of the way…
5 Simple Secrets To Amazing Website Copy
TIP 1: Make Sure Your Site Communicates Who You Are
Make sure your site communicates who you are. Include things like what your business is, who you help, and what you do in your business. Express it on EVERY PAGE!
The truth is users that visit your website don’t know where they’re going to land and you don’t always know where they’re coming from – that’s why it’s important to make sure your message is conveyed on every page. Think about it like your street address – You want to make sure it’s clearly visible to people who have never visited before so it’s easier to see and find!
TIP 2: Don’t Talk Big
A very common mistake I see – especially on About Pages – is that businesses write their history in a 3rd person. You might be tempted to do this because maybe you heard it’s more “professional.” Or, maybe you want to seem more like a firm or an agency instead of like a person. But, the moment you stop being like a person, you also stop sounding like a person! Hello! You sound boring!
Talking big = talking boring. Your About Page should not sound like Ben Stein doing a dramatic reading of an encyclopedia article. (Sorry, Ben Stein!)
If you ARE an agency owner or owner of a large corporation and you feel strongly about keeping things in the third person, an easy way to make your writing instantly more impactful is to use the word “YOU” wherever and whenever you can! A phrase like, “like you” can help you build that relationship between you and your reader.
If you CAN use the first person, do that right now and start rewriting your copy! If you’ve ever wanted to write how you talk, this is the moment you’ve been waiting for!
Related: How to Book More Clients with Clear Brand Identity
TIP 3: Put Your Menu On A Diet
Little known fact – if you have more than 5 or 6 menu items, you already have too many menu items. Yes, really. You don’t need to have as many options as a Cheesecake Factory menu, so you don’t want a menu that goes on forever on your actual website. You actually want to have as few things as possible.
So take a good, hard look at your menu. I want you to decide what should stay and what should go. Of the menu items you do have, you’ll most likely need your about page since that is the number one most clicked page on average after your homepage (little known fact!) – followed by a services or shop page. Everything else is pretty much up to you, but you need to include those two foundational ones!
The reason why fewer menu items is actually more beneficial in this scenario is because if you present people with too many options, they end up choosing nothing and leaving. The “leaving” is a tragedy because it balloons your “bounce rate” (ie. the percentage of people who come to your site and leave immediately.) Having too many menu items is going to make that number a lot higher than it needs to be.
So try and keep your top menu as minimalistic as possible. And don’t go too crazy with those drop-down menus!
TIP 4: Call To Attention To Your Call To Action
Ask yourself this: “What’s the number one thing you want people to do when they get to your website?” Just pick one. Of course, you can have second and third calls to action, but I want you to choose just ONE primary call to action. Now that you’ve picked it out, make sure it’s a very obvious and easy thing for people to do. It should be on every single page. Usually, it’s a button.
If it is a button on your site, make sure it’s a REALLY “out there” color. You want it to be IMPOSSIBLE for people to miss this! Then, make sure that the words on your button are using a verb to communicate the action you’d like the person to take.
Let’s say your call to action is for people to opt-in to your mailing list to download your free book or your free gift – your call to action button should say “DOWNLOAD”.
If your call to action is to have people schedule a consultation, the button should say “BOOK NOW.”
Sometimes people have an itch to get SUPER creative with their call to action buttons, but to be heard, it’s better to say what you mean.
Related: How to Make a Lead-Generating Quiz for Free
TIP 5: Keep It Simple!
I’d like you to go through all of the words on your website and make sure they’re all simplified. Even if you ignore every other tip I told you, please do this one!
I want you to look for words that you stumble over. The best way to do this is to read your website out loud and notice where you’re having trouble speaking.
A simple example of this would be words like “momentarily” could be substituted for “shortly.” The words you’re tripping over are usually big, red flags telling you, “Please, SIMPLIFY ME!” Once you stop trying to impress people, your copy will actually start doing what it’s supposed to be doing – clearly communicating your idea.
BOOM! That’s 5 ways to simply improve your website copy! I hope this has helped you understand how important an improved copy can be. Now, all that’s left for you to do is to start implementing these tips onto your websites! The best time to start is NOW! Go! Do it! And for more copy tips, you can download my free video training at freecopyvideo.com.
