Welcome!
Planning your website copy
How to write your homepage
7 Seconds to Attract Attention
When someone lands on your website, you have somewhere between 3 and 7 seconds to attract their attention before they decide to keep scrolling or go back to Google!
Your homepage is not always the first page people land on when they visit your website, but more often that not it is. So as the cliché goes, first impressions last and this is where you need to shine.
Quick Tips Before You Get Writing
Who is your target audience? Who are you trying to attract into your business and importantly, who are you not trying to attract?
What one thing do you want your website visitors to do? Call? Fill out a contact form? Something else?
What makes your company unique? Why should your audience choose you?
How do you want your writing on your website to sound? Formal? Funny?
My recommendation is to define your brand tone of voice but to also use the language of your customer. Good content and copywriting is rooted in a clear understanding of your audience and their motivations for needing a service such as yours.
If you don't have clarity on your positioning, it is vital to do this work before embarking on a new site. Get in touch with us to discuss how we can help.
Or check out this page on our website.
Less is absolutely more. Short copy makes more of an impact.
How short is short? You can make the copy on your website as long as you want, assuming it’s still interesting. Get to the point!
Feel free to use bullet points and sentence fragments.
Spelling errors and bad grammar are serious trust-killers on websites.
Once you’re done writing, get another set of eyes or two to read over your work.
Ensuring you include your keywords
Make a list of SEO keywords (contact me if you want help with this).
Intentionally write the keywords into your headings copy.
Google takes whatever copy is a heading as indicative of what the page and therefore site is about, so intentionally sprinkle your keywords in headings.
Also include your keywords and variants of them throughout the copy on the page.
Don’t keyword stuff, however. Keyword stuffing is intentionally inserting certain words and phrases onto a webpage in a way that does not actually make sense to the reader (because they are repeated so often!) Google does NOT like keyword stuffing!
Write for humans, not for search engines.
Homepage tagline, the first thing we see
Example:
Professional Coach & Trainer
Helping you get unstuck in your personal and professional life.
For high-achieving professionals who are ready to live the life of their dreams. Details this way.
How to write your tagline
What you do | How you’re different | Who you serve | Location serviced (if relevant) | Call to Action
In his book Zag, marketeer Marty Neuemier coined the phrase Onliness Statement to describe your tagline. Marty says “Onliness is by far the most powerful test of a strategic position. Brands need strong positioning because customers have choices—if you don’t stand out, you lose.”
To win the positioning game, you have to answer one simple question: What makes you the “only?”
How to write your Onliness Statement
Fill in the blanks:
My brand is the only _________(category)
that_______(differentiation)
for_______(customer)
in_______(location)
who______(need)
during ______ (underlying trend).
Calls to Action on your homepage
You can have up to 3 Calls To Action (CTA) on your homepage - but less is more.
You’ll likely link to your services on your homepage, or wherever gets people to the next page(s) in your site journey game plan. If your goal is to demonstrate expertise, linking to your blog would make sense. If you want to build a community, make a CTA to join your Facebook group.
A Bit About You
The bottom of your homepage is a good place to introduce your readers to a little bit of your story, with a Call to Action button to read more about you.
TIP! Your About page isn’t really about you, it too should be mainly about how you can help your audience and how your story relates to theirs.
How to write your About Page
Cardinal rule - it’s not about you!
This page is really about connecting with your ideal clients and making them feel that you’ get’ them, know them and can help them.
Most of this page will address your ideal clients needs. Share how you can help your ideal audience - who you serve best and what topics or products you can offer them. Identify who your ideal client is so they know they are in the right place.
Possible Elements for your About page
a good quality headshot where you are looking at the camera
your name
optional: other casual photos of you
copy that addresses their struggles - use their language
copy that includes connection points with your ideal audience
share your story
a call to action - what action do you want them to take from here? View your services? Contact you?
show how you have helped others - testimonials - these are good to have throughout your site , particularly if you can include headshots of the testimonial-givers.
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Examples:
‘You are a (type of person/in a certain field) and right now you’re struggling with (problem).’
‘I totally get it. You are in the right place!’
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People buy from people - show your face and infuse your personality. Find some connection points with them and break down the barriers. Use words that show you understand what your readers are going through and that target your ideal customer. Include some facts about yourself, but don’t go overboard here!
Talk about how you got into your business and what excites you. Try to talk about yourself in relation to your business.
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What qualifies you to help your visitors? How are you different? How have you helped others and how can you relate with their struggles and help them over- come it. Show past results with other customers.
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Example:
‘I’m (name) and I work with/help/teach/empower (these type of people) with (describe their problem) or to (achieve this type of result that they’re really longing for).
Share how you got into what you’re doing now. Tell it ‘story style’. People like stories.
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Example: ‘I know that I/they weren’t the only ones struggling with this (problem). That’s why I decided to (create this service/change careers/share how I achieved success on my blog, etc.) Now, I do X and (social proof - have helped X many clients, have created the go-to podcast on X topic which has thousands of downloads, work with clients all over the world changing their life for the better, etc.)
Ready to finally (solve X problem)?
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Make sure you direct your readers to take an action of some sort from your About page.
If your priority is newsletter subscribers, include a free opt-in at the bottom of the About page. If you want them to check out your services or products, include a link to that on this page.
The About page is one of the most read pages on a website so you definitely want to optimise it as much as possible to convert your readers to subscribers or clients.
Services Page - often called a Work With Us page
If you offer several services, you will most likely have a services page for each. It depends on how you are stacking your products and services.
What’s the purpose of a services page?
Explain what your services are, make them feel like they are exactly what your ideal client is looking for
Get them to inquire or book a free consultation call
Attention-grabbing headline
Think truly about the ‘why’ of your ideal clients wanting to solve their current problem. I’ll give you an example here.
You’re a copywriter and someone wants you to write their email welcome series. Why? Because an email welcome series is good for warming up leads and getting them to truly understand you and your business. But, why does that really matter? Because that ideal client wants to build a relationship with their subscribers before they try to sell.
Describe the pain-points
Take whatever your clients’ pain point is and describe it, and then go further talk about what could happen in the future if their problem goes on unchanged in the future.
Before and after
Describe what their life is currently like and what the ideal situation would be like after they choose to work with you.
Optional - where they’re at and where they want to be
Go into more depth about how they’re currently feeling, what they really want, what their life would look like once their problem is solved by your service, and the one thing they really want in your service.
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If you have different pricing tiers, put them side-by-side.
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Make it so that your ideal client can visualise working together with you. What’s the process of the project like? What happens first, second, third?
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You’ve given them all the important details, now give them the opportunity to take the next step, inquiring about booking.
Examples: Let’s start! I’m ready! Book now!
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Put a form to collect all the info you need to get started.
Also mention in this area what happens after they submit the booking inquiry form. Do you send them a contract? Is there a consultation phone call?
Suggested fields for the form:
- Name
- Email
- Phone number
- Package they’re interested in with the price listed! (You get less people who can’t
afford you getting in touch if you do this.)
- Link to their business site or social media
- Message or questions
- How they found you (+ optional, if they found you through Google, what they typed
into Google)
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If the next step after they inquire is to set up a time to get on the phone with them, I suggest putting in an area for them to book a call time right there and then on your services page.
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If they’re not convinced yet to get in touch. Maybe they just want to get to know who exactly they’re going to be working with. Give a short version of your about page here.
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What’s the point of these FAQ? To quash their worries and fears! Here’s some suggested questions to put here.
• Is this right for me?
• Answer with the types of people you tend to work with, detail someone who fits
the profile of your ideal client.
• How much time will this take?
• Answer with an honest estimate here.
• What exactly do I get?
• Answer with the deliverables your clients walk away with.
• Do you outsource any work?
• Again, answer honestly here.
• If I book today, how much do I pay?
• What happens after I book?
• Anything else specific to your industry.
• Say you’re a graphic designer, people might want to know what file types they get
of their new branding items in.
• If you’re a photographer they might wonder how long until they get their photos.
• If you sell something where a license is involved, explain in stupid-simple terms what exactly they can do with the work you produce.
• If you do anything where there’s ongoing costs (example, as a web designer, do people need to continue paying Squarespace after I build their site?), answer what their long-term costs will be.
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In case your little extra info after the last Call To Action convinced them, give them another opportunity to click to inquire about booking.
Examples: Let’s start! I want that! I’m ready! Book now!
How to write your Contact Page
What’s the Purpose of a Contact Page?
Answer questions before they even land in your inbox - this is a great place to put a FAQ
Get the right people to get in touch
Make it easy for people to contact you
I don’t believe people want to fill out extensive forms any more, or even super-simple ones. An online scheduler is a great way to make it easy for people to book a consultation call with you, if that’s relevant to your business, or a simple hyperlinked email address and/or phone number for everyone else.
If you do want people to give you a minimum of info before you speak to them, think about what is the minimum information you require and include these fields in your contact form. Which of these fields will be required and which are optional?
Answer any questions they may have
An FAQ section or page is really good for your readers and also Google. It’s also a time-save for you as it’s going to answer a lot of the common questions that you’d otherwise end up giving individual responses to, meaning you get to spend a lot less time in your inbox or on the phone.
Example FAQ:
Are you free for coffee so I can pick your brain?
Do you offer X type of service? (Consulting, hourly work, coaching etc.)
How much are are your services?
Are you booking new clients? (Yes! And then link them to your services page.)
Do you have any advice for people in X field? (Write a blog post and then link them to it.)
Do you work with X type of person/business?
Whatever else people ask you a lot
Contact Page Checklist
a form that has the information you need in order to respond to them, but not too much so you don’t overwhelm them
FAQ section
copy stating what services you offer, what your availability is
a photo of you looking at the camera
optional link to an online calendar to book a call with you
instructions on your working hours or how often you check your email
testimonials a video of yourself welcoming them
add a thank you message when they fill out your contact form that includes an estimate of when you will reply
links to your social media accounts
include your phone number, email address, name and business name
for service providers, show when your next availability is
We hope you found this guide helpful!
We’ve tried to cover the main pages most service providers need for their website - home, about, services pages, faq and contact. You must also have a blog, to share your expertise with your readers and Google.
You will also need those pesky legal pages - T&Cs, Privacy Statement and Cookies. We can put you in contact with someone who knows about these much more than we do. Drop us an email and we’ll make the intro.
If you’re still struggling with where to start with your website copy, there might be a couple of reasons for this:
you don’t have clarity on your positioning (what you do, who you do it for and what makes your different)
you don’t know how to organise your services
you don’t know what tone of voice your brand should have
you find writing difficult - web copy is notoriously hard to get right, which is why we recommend working with one of our copywriters
you realise you’ve no images to go with your copy!
We can help with all of the above, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can also check out our strategic positioning page and brand identity pages as these are usually the two steps we recommend before getting into a new website design.