Business Website Content Writing ⌨️

Business, website, content and copywriting.

Hello, this is Darren. When you commission someone to build you a website, the chances are you see this as a one-time project and a technical undertaking that simply requires a techie programmer or a geek, a clever clogs coder, someone who's good with computers.

That's what you think is involved in the building of a website. Now, assuming that's the view you have taken, the problem you've run into is imagining that websites are entirely technical. Well, they're not.

The bit everyone misses, with rare exception, is the content itself. Your website's not much good if you're not selling your stuff. Believe me when I tell you that the average small business website – at least from a content point of view – even though it might look very nice, is absolutely bloody awful.

And this applies to larger established businesses too. Don't just think it's the little businesses that don't know any better or it's because they don't have any budget. Plenty of businesses with the resources and staff fall into this trap of talking about themselves or not doing much talking at all because they haven't created the content in the first place.

But what they don't usually do is lead with the problem they're supposedly solving for their customers.

Why can't businesses sell?

Well, graphic designers and web developers are often expected to come up with content themselves as an afterthought. There's no one else to do it and the business owners can't or won't.

So the graphic designer, the developer, the whoever-did-the-website is expected to throw something together. So they'll spend months on the website design but just a few hours on the content.

I, by comparison, take both aspects seriously and that is really my point of differentiation. I'm unusual in that I occupy the entire gamut of creativity but always, at least when I partner with a small business, I have their commercial outcome in mind because your website could and should be serving as part of your sales enablement whether that's inbound or outbound.

Your sales force can effectively be your website, especially if you go on to record videos where it's you talking. Someone once said to me, "are you left-brained or right-brained?" And my reply was, "well, I use the whole thing". I was being a bit frothy when I said that but I hope that demonstrates what I'm actually trying to tell you here!

The typical content production process.

Well, okay... well, businesses with no experience in writing or selling often supply written content themselves when they're pushed. They'll agree to do it and they'll say, "okay, leave it with me. I'll knock something together." And I think, oh, bloody hell.

So what happens? Well, your average web designer, graphic designer, developer, whoever built the website, they'll accept this content that has been supplied to them at face value and without resistance. They've got no view on it. They're not writers themselves and frankly, they don't care. They just wanna sell the website, get paid and move on. They're not particularly interested if the business succeeds or not.

They just wanna get paid. They'll just do as they're told. They're an order taker in most cases.

Now, the exception is the business that's supplying the content and saying, "yes, we'll put something together." They may have hired a copywriter or a content writer or they may have background in that themselves so they can do that.

Usually, and in the worst cases, clients just don't see the value of content and copywriting. They just don't care. And they're actually actively hostile.

I mean, I had one guy who said to me, "but marketing's all bullshit, ain't it? It's just, it's all rubbish. You know, well, I'll leave that to you, Darren. You come up with something.

"You're a clever bloke. You do that. Just, you know, you come up with something.

"I mean, testimonials, when we see it, I mean, we all know it's all made up anyway."

And he was quite sincere in this belief. He's right that a lot of content is bullshit, I mean, that's just bad content, you know, likewise, there are a lot of bad drivers on the road, but it doesn't mean that driving is inherently a bad thing. So the fact that he takes this view that it's just bullshit, and therefore we shouldn't really spend more than 10 minutes thinking about it, says everything about him and his business.

I mean, I haven't worked with him, by the way. I refused. Don't want to work with this guy.

But you can ignore this if you want to, but do so at your peril.

Writing actually underpins everything. It's not just the words that you can read on the website. It's for video or podcast scripts, ad reads, pitches, sales call frameworks, public relations, social media.

Writing is the foundation for everything. "Writing", said Stephen King in his book On Writing (that's the name of the book) "is refined thinking". Writing is refined thinking.

If you choose to ignore this part of the process, and you can't come up with a basic business message aimed at people that you want to sell to, then it's not going to be clear what you do. In which case, prospects may either ignore you, or they will treat you like a commodity, which among other things involves beating you up on price, or treating you like the hired help, or generally treating you with disrespect, because they couldn't see the value of what you offer.

You didn't stand out. You didn't make an impression on them. Marketing basically is communication.

Language and writing are a huge part of communication. I know body language accounts for the majority of communication, but language and writing certainly plays its part. Writing has an impact.

And writing, like most things, is a learnable skill. I should say, if you can't or won't learn, that's fine. I'm not trying to force you to become something you're fundamentally not, in which case, get someone to help you.

Right, so what's the real problem?

Well, let's just get this down pat, first of all. You're in business to make money, unless you're subsidised by the government, or maybe you're one of these PICs, that's a Public Interest Company, where profit might not be the main motivation.

Usually, we're in business to solve problems. In fact, if you get philosophical about it, when you boil it all down, all of it comes down to solving a problem. So other people giving you money because they want something in exchange for it, comes down to the fact that there's something in their life that they want to be different.

Could be anything. Could be a pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen, and subsequently, a lack of washing up liquid because they've run out, and they need to go out and get some so they can wash the dishes. Or it could be some vexing, frustrating, costly, civil engineering challenge that is going to take six months to put right, and involves the government and a lot of headaches.

So whenever money is being spent, there's usually a problem.

So assuming the problem has been identified, you'd need to lead with that problem in your marketing efforts. And obviously, that includes the website, because I build websites. That's what we're talking about.

The problem on most businesses' websites is the inability to identify the problem for their own customers or clients, or at least the inability to make enough of a hoo-ha about it. Said another way: stick the knife in and twist it a little bit.

Now, there's nothing wrong with clearly reminding people of their problems, but instead, this half-measures attitude or this attitude of playing it cool, not wanting to be too salesy, whatever the hell that means, prevails. Now, I'm not saying you need to be some greedy, self-interested, commission-breath idiot that works for the Yellow Pages. I'm just saying you need to remind people what their problem is so that they can recognise the symptoms and actually want to at least talk to you about that.

So this whole playing it cool thing and trying to not come across as desperate – that's one I've heard before – that might be a British thing, but somehow I think it's probably universal.

What is content?

Well, let's get to the meat then, right? So there's different types of writing for different situations.

For one thing, "content writing" is not the same as "sales copywriting". And in between content writing and sales copywriting, you've got UI, that's user interface copywriting, which is seen on email forms, buttons, search engines, website checkout pages, etc. And the other thing that exists in between content writing and sales copywriting is SEO writing, which involves keyword research data... on page optimization of content.

And those blue links that you see in Google, those are SEO titles and SEO descriptions, which need to be crafted and written in a certain way and at a certain length and involve certain terms and phrases that people are searching for in the search engines.

But let's have a high level look at content versus copywriting, okay?

Content writing.

Content writing could be an informative article written in a journalistic style as a straightforward report or an investigative story or as a basic bread and butter press release.

And if it is the latter, a press release, that would normally serve as just a bunch of facts or data for someone else who would write their own piece around that... like a journalist.

And content writing might not, nor does it have to be an outright attempt to sell. It could just be to educate and inform or it could just be for part of the onboarding process iIf you're taking on a client. Some of the stuff I send to people is hidden from the website and they get that particular bit of information at the right time to match wherever they're at when they're coming on board with me, to work with me.

And some content can be part of an FAQ section or help center. Or it could be an instructional guide where the writing style is factual, clear and technical. Or it might be a verbatim transcript for something that was said in a video and then put onto the website. So content writing doesn't have to be salesy and rhetorical. It doesn't have to be pushing a point of view or trying to persuade or influence.

Sales copywriting on the other hand is more in line with a white paper, meaning you have a point of view, an opinion, a product or a service to sell. In a sales letter, you can actually get pretty creative with the format and break some or all of the rules of spelling and grammar you were taught at school, college, university or in books that you've read.

Copywriting is salesmanship in print and it normally follows a formula or a framework. And what is the purpose of sales? It's to move someone from logic to emotion so they'll make a decision because as you and I both know, people buy based on emotion and back it up with logic. And even people who claim to be entirely logical are in fact getting their emotional needs met by being entirely logical.

You can be playful with formatting here in sales copywriting. There's more freedom. Sentences could be short – abrupt – or they could run on at a length in a style that conveys feelings of frustration.

But there's a musicality and a rhythm to copywriting. I personally enjoy the push-pull, staccato-legato approach. That can be exciting for a reader.

Let me give you an example.

So what I'm about to tell you is something that I've written in a previous article. It goes like this.

"Let's get a few things straight. Selling isn't about pushing, pressuring, persuading, badgering, browbeating or sucking up like a slimy little sycophant. Nor is it about sitting back, playing it cool, creating a website that's about as compelling as a pizza menu and expecting potential customers to beat a path to your door, clutching a suitcase full of cash.

"It's about good communication to facilitate the right decision without compromise for either party. Many of us forget the key principles, but it's more likely no one knows what their principles are in the first place. What do we get instead? Self-aggrandising nonsense such as: company awards, growth and expansion plans, time served, boring press releases, new hires, etc.

This is completely and utterly looking down the wrong end of the telescope."

All right, so that's an example. I used longer sentences and I used shorter sentences.

Style, tone and voice.

So at this point, I've been demonstrating my own writing style. I know that.

It's direct, it's provocative, it's irreverent. Sometimes there's profanity and a display of emotion and that's because what you're hearing right now is a sales letter. Yes, this video has been scripted. It is a sales letter.

In speech, there are inflections and ways of delivering words that would otherwise get given emphasis: capital letters, bold, italics, ellipses, etc.

But when I write for other people, it's my job to get inside that person's head and become them. The goal is to bring out the best of that person in their voice and in their style to best represent their business and without ever sounding overly corporate and certainly not like AI.

Not everyone is a raconteur, of course. So if someone's a bit of a wallflower in real life, I don't want to dress them up as something they're not in the written format, you know? There's going to be a mismatch when people meet this person, you know. If they're a complete arsehole, I would try and do my best to paper over the cracks, pun intended.

But when in doubt, just fall back to being helpful or useful because the goal, really, is to communicate with the customer about their problems as part of helping them realise what the solution actually is. So it's always got to be about the reader and their problems and compelling reasons for them to give you money to solve it.

Writing on behalf of someone else... it's a bit like method acting.

I find the best approach is to get online or in person and record a conversation. So I interview them, bit like, you know, those programmes when Louis Theroux met such and such, you'll meet celebrities and you'll ask some questions.

I mean, I'm not going to necessarily try to skewer them. I'm not trying to give the Jeremy Paxman treatment here, but I'll ask questions, perhaps in the way a therapist would to help people to feel comfortable, open up and tell me the truth. And I will therefore get the best out of them. And they really tell me their knowledge, their expertise, their wisdom, everything.

That's raw material that I can work with.

So I record those conversations just for private use. This is not going to be released to the wider world and once I've done with it, I'll delete it. But before I do that, before I delete it, I will transcribe this conversation – I'll use AI to transcribe it actually – and then I'll follow up on some of the details: "What did you mean when you said that? When you said such and such, did you mean blah, blah, blah, or duh, duh, duh? All right. OK, interesting."

So I keep that stuff as my notes and it helps me to write on behalf of this person for their customers.

For example, I'll become Bill the beekeeper, knowing that his customers, his audience, are interested in organic, local Manuka honey. That involves a bit of audience research and Bill certainly will tell me lots about his business and his customers and it makes it easier for me to write for those people. I would do a little bit of research as well online, use keyword research tools and things like that.

However, assuming too much about those people you're writing for might mean you paint yourself into a bit of a corner . You become a little bit stuck, you become a little bit trapped in your own assumptions.

It seems, for example, it seems logical that writing for doctors or for engineers means that the style needs to be academic, formal, wordy, laced with industry jargon and eye-watering levels of detail with smatterings of Latin phraseology like "utilise" instead of its simpler Anglo-Saxon equivalent word which is "use".

For those reasons, you might want to write for the two extremes.

So that is to say: you've got those detail-orientated individuals on one end of the spectrum who tend to be accountants and people mired in process and detail, as well as those who are a little bit more impatient who tend to be like founders, CEOs, go-getters and doers.

Good editing plays its part in all of this as does appropriate formatting.

The warning here is that when you do write something, the idea that someone's having to sit down and read walls of text without any breaks, headings, graphics or any other cosmetics to pretty it up is a big ask for anyone. Online consumers of content tend to have some level of ADHD and I think I've developed a adult ADHD – I really have to concentrate sometimes – but when it comes to the online arena of content and reading in particular, people will skim, skip and scroll. They are lazy, they are ruthless, they are selfish.

That's a fact. But still content and copies shouldn't be written to a pre-prescribed length. The only rule is it just cannot be boring and it cannot be irrelevant.

There are personality profiling models that can help you actually. There's a book that I discovered a long time ago it's called Positive Personality Profiles and I'm sure it's not the only one that's been written about DISC. I don't know if you've heard of disk, D-I-S-C.

So at the top quadrant you've got outgoing types, the bottom quadrant you've got the more reserved types. On the left hand side task orientated people, on the right hand side you've got more people orientated people.

D tends to mean: dominant, driving, dogmatic. I tends to mean interesting, inspiring, maybe idiotic at times. I think I'm an I type.  C type can be cautious, cold, calculating and S can be supportive... I'm trying to think of some other words which begin with S that are synonyms for supportive... but supportive types... they make good nurses or teachers or something like that.

Now this is just a personality profiling model which means it's theoretical but it's a good guide if you're getting started. If you have a very specific customer profile, an avatar, a persona... you could write for those types of people.

I mentioned engineers and doctors earlier they tend to be reserved and task oriented but not always. So in your writing you could try and appeal to the traits that you think people have. If it's mass market you could be writing for anybody so you want to try and hit all four quadrants in your writing... so provide figures, facts, stats, details but then also wax on some of the bigger picture aspirational ideas as well. So try and hit a bit of everything.

There are some books I can recommend so Positive Personality Profiles by Dr Robert Rohm, then we've got Effective Business Writing by Patrick Forsyth this was written for the Sunday Times apparently I've not actually read this yet. I got this in the library for 50p once, but I've flicked through it and this is very mechanical basic writing. This is the kind of stuff that you... this would be good if you work for a corporation and you use email a lot and you have to communicate a lot by email. I know someone who worked in health and safety who used this so this is meat and potatoes business writing.

Then we've got Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug. This book is about website usability but there are some chapters about words – writing words – and how not to confound or confuse users and how to do proper UI – that's user interface – writing, like labels you know for buttons, forms all that sort of stuff. So there's some good stuff in there.

This is a good one as well I bought this in 2013: Utility by Jay Baer. This is pretty good this is about this is more like a high level more aspirational sort of attitude to writing content that's useful. The kind of content which isn't always necessarily salesy but the sort of content which... I suppose... I hate to say this, but "adds value", you know? Demonstrating value... you know how people often have lead magnets... you know where you can opt in and download something... you get it for free in exchange for an email, or you just want to demonstrate that you're capable and competent of doing something and of course you know if you've done a demo video for example of a product in action... that's an example of useful content. You know people will often watch a video or read an article and try and implement the solution themselves but they may get out of their depth and decide: "Do you know what? I'm just going to come to you and let you do it because you obviously know what you're doing."

There's another one – I'm throwing a bit of a hand grenade into proceedings – this is called Fucking Good Content by Dan Kelsall. He's a copywriter who started an agency called Offended. This is quite a cheaply-produced book but I think he was trying to make a point by doing so. He cranked this out over a weekend I think and put it out there. A lot of it is just about encouraging people to have a bit more courage and put their best foot forward when it comes to creating content. Most of the content we see is just boring rubbish which I wish I'd never read and you know it's time you can never get back and you know what I'm talking about. You've read that kind of content. This book is encouraging people not to do that.

And then best to last: The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy. This is a classic. This was written in the 90s and it was last updated as far as I know 1999. I've been going through this.. brilliant! Really good. This was written in an era where offline really dominated and online was just coming into focus. I think at the time it was email really that was taking off. But we live in a different world now... but the principles still apply.

If I was to recommend one book out of all of these I'd say get this. You can get this for a couple of quid online. Get it. It's really really worth it, whether you do offline or online marketing.

So it's all about communication. That's what we're talking about here.

I was recently researching local businesses and one of the websites I came across literally had text on the home page that said "text goes here blah blah blah. Text goes here blah blah blah." And as far as I could tell this was an active business.

It's obvious what's happened: someone's overlooked that. They were supposed to put some content in there but they forgot. They're not paying attention to how they're communicating, right, and it just about sums up the general attitude to copyrighting and content.

They're so eager to get a website up and running that they completely overlook the most important part which is the communication, because the website is a delivery system for your messaging. Very simple. If you can't get that into your head, don't build a website. You're wasting your money.

Now the other side of it is that people start businesses based on what it is they're passionate about and they make this abundantly clear, because when you visit their website they have plastered words and sentences all over the website that tell you and me – the reader – that they love what they do, how passionate they are and how excited they are to be in business. And read the website and it's all to that effect. It's tiresome. No one cares about this crap – except for them.

All right, I know it sounds harsh but sometimes what business people need is a little bit less excitement and passion and a better grounding in sales. Sales is a learnable skill and no I'm not talking about the Yellow Pages and all that sort of crap: ringing people up and browbeating them. No.

Okay let me set you an example: if you're a personal trainer writing about big muscles, don't write about your big muscles. Write about my small ones or my inadequate muscles. While you're at it, be sure to touch on the reasons why I would want bigger muscles or better muscles because you'll probably find – if you question me or do a bit of research – that my ideal outcome and the possibilities that can be unlocked by having bigger muscles are buried somewhere in my mind.

In other words, I don't just want big muscles. I want the thing that big muscles can get me. Do you see? I mean, maybe I want to go and kick the shit out of my childhood bully.

You know, that would be the outcome. Getting the muscles is the result, but the outcome is that I'm an unstoppable force.

That's more for the sales process. Whether you can put that into the marketing is a bit tricky, but it's all about communication. Writing underpins everything.

If you need help with your writing, contact me. I'm a good writer. I will help you. I will work with you, and we will find out what the reasons are that people would ever want to buy your stuff, and then we will communicate that.

We'll start off at the bottom of the funnel. If you don't know what that is, see the video I did about the marketing funnel. It could be copywriting, sales letters, or it could be some, you know, news style articles as well.

So get in touch. IlkestonWebDesign.com. Thanks. Speak to you soon. Bye!