Your website is your shop window on the world, it’s how potential customers or clients can find out more about what you do.
But how do you get that all-important information over, when you’re not a copywriter? The obvious answer would be to get in touch with us, but we know that’s not always possible! So in this blog, we’ll give you some tips on how to create better website copy.
Three simple steps to better copy
We know this may sound a bit crazy, but there really are three simple steps that you can follow to get you started. There are slightly different variations you can do with this, but this is the easiest way we’ve found.
Are you ready?
Step 1 – The preparation
First of all, get a big piece of paper (that’s not the first step by the way!) and then the first step is to draw three boxes. Now you can get as creative as you want with this. You could decide not to use paper, you could do it on the computer if you wanted too – the idea is to get three spaces where you can start to craft your message!
Step 2 – The prompts
Next label the boxes with What, Why and How. These are the main things that anyone is going to want to know who is visiting your website. You want to add a who in if you’re feeling super positive but start with three.
What – This is what you are selling as a service, or what product you’re offering.
Why – Why should your potential client buy? What is the benefit to them?
How – This is where you can tell your potential customer how you’re different!
Step 3 – The important bit
This is the step where you can really go to town!
In this stage, you also add the words around what you’re trying to explain. You may also find that it’s easier to start with just a few short words before you launch into full paragraphs. The joy of this is that it should work for you no matter how you get your inspiration.
In each column, you could also add images that help you (and your potential clients) visualise what you’re talking about.
Don’t be afraid to get super descriptive at this stage – there may be lots of phrases and words that you write that do not end up being used – but that is fine!
Just remember to edit it down to what you want to say on your website!
The example below is what we did for our site. You can see that it’s pretty easy, but also a powerful way to get your pages written.
Some extra thoughts
There are going to be many of you that say ‘but I have more than one service or product’ and yes, we understand that. We’ve got lots of them! Depending on where you want the copy for, you can repeat this for different services. It would equally work well if you have more than one service or product on a page too.
Just break each one into the What, Why and How.
This can even work for a page that is all about you too. What are you doing, why are you doing it and how…It’s magic isn’t it?
If you want to read a little more about this, we really love this article about writing better copy from Entrepreneur.com
Of course, this will get you quite a way into writing your copy for your site. If you need extra help, either by getting someone to write it for you or just need someone to bounce ideas off; then please get in touch using the form below.
