As it relates to the majority of your potential customer universe, there are no more important words than those that populate your website. The sections of copy that define your approach to service and those that live on your homepage are your first — and sometimes only — interaction with prospective clients. Get it right, they give you their money and their business.
Some of these prospects are known to you. Some of them you have attracted through advertising or marketing. Some are friends of people who you currently serve.
Other potential customers come from the great unknown, the digital ether. They’ve found you on Google or happened upon your website by accident.
Maybe their perusal of your site takes place as they experience the type of problem that you remedy. Maybe they are in the process of researching options for an impending purchase. In either case, you can imagine that their search is motivated by action and intent.
They are either already reaching into their wallet or planning to do so. They are going to give somebody some money to perform the service that you perform.
At this stage in the process, these customers are unaffiliated. They are uninvested. At this stage, the decision about whether it is you or your competitor that receives their business means quite a bit more to you than it does to them.
You see, good web copy is about more than words. It is the bridge that takes this universe from prospect to customer; from member of the great unwashed masses to trusted customer and friend. It is the invitation that guides them from uninvested to invested in your business.
Good website copy makes bookkeepers happy. It greases the wheels of capitalism. Equal parts lubricant and accelerant, it makes people who read it feel good about you and feel confident giving you their business and their money.
Good web copy has a few hallmarks. Here are some of the most characteristic. They are universally applicable, independent of product, service, or market.

Words are too powerful not to be used effectively. Here’s a picture from the Planet Word Museum in Washington, DC.
Good Web Copy Imparts Confidence
This might be the most important thing that your website can do. You know that you are good at what you do. Your repeat customers, the foundation of your business, are confident that you will take care of them. Your website should impart this same confidence to anyone who reads it.
The best part of this? There is nothing secret, magical, or made up about it. For most businesses, imparting confidence with your website involves nothing more than distilling your points of difference and what differentiates you.
If you have a successful business (one that’s not a Ponzi scheme or built on graft), you have a story and a point of difference. From there, it’s simply a matter of distilling it and having someone write it up for you.
(Ok, this part can be a limiting factor. In most parts of the internet, compelling writing has gone the way of the dinosaur. Perhaps the American bison is a better, more hopeful example. Powerful writing, like herds of buffalo, benefits from a few skilled, dedicated people who are committed to bringing them back!)
Confidence is powerful. Expressed most fundamentally, prospective customers just want assurance that they are making a good choice. They want to know that you’ll take care of them and that they won’t find themselves in need of the same product or service in three months.
Here’s an interior design client whose website expresses confidence clearly, directly, and without the need to explicitly state that’s what we’re doing. She does great work and has a wonderful business.
Her website imparts this to anyone who reads it. This comes straight from her home page (her name has been changed, otherwise it’s verbatim):
Welcome
The Laura Jane Collection uniquely marries passion and experience with construction and design. Our process delivers style and space that speaks to the vision of a select, discerning clientele.
To work with Laura Jane is to enjoy a seamless, cohesive experience. One that is planned, managed, executed, and finely tuned by Laura herself. The result delivers exacting elegance and spaces that bring life to the passion of their owners.
Good Web Copy Invites the Customer to Be Part of Something
Good web copy, like all good writing, invites the reader to be part of something. This doesn’t have to be anything grand or outlandish. It doesn’t mean revolution or that you need to try to make your neighbors convert to anything.

Good web copy invites customers to be part of something awesome. Something distinct. A blazing yellow tree in a forest of green…
It can be as simple as the invitation to be part of those who benefit from the way you provide your service. The invitation is made not by explicit appeal, but by using language that is direct, congruent with your brand, and expressed in terms that are meaningful to the market that you serve.
There is a bit of nuance here. You might find yourself saying, “My company installs HVAC systems, how in the hell do I invite someone to be part of something like that?”
The answer to that is straightforward. It is one well-known to Wizard of Ads clients.
Among the first steps in the process of working with a new client is the uncovery. During this time, a Wizard of Ads partner or two schedule a thorough meeting with the business owner.
Over the course of a couple days, the partners and business owners discuss the business, the market, the competitive landscape, and the origin and trajectory of the company. Wizard of Ads partners then chart a strategy, including a comprehensive brand voice and identity.
This process informs the language that populates the many touch points of the business as they relate to its interaction with clients and prospects. These touchpoints might include radio ads, billboards, Google ads, and the business’s website.
When these are all speaking the same language and resonating on the same pitch, that’s called channel alignment. When you get that right, you might need a bigger cash register.
This copy comes from a Wizard of Ads client in Milwaukee. Wizard of Ads partners Peter Nevland, Gordon Seirup, and I have the good fortune to help Karen, Jeff, Tim, and their team to tell the story of D&M Heating.
This comes straight from their homepage:
Residential or commercial, if it heats or cools your home or place of business, D&M Heating is here for you. We’ve been servicing, repairing and installing heating and cooling systems around Milwaukee since 1979.
Sometimes, that means diagnosing, repairing, or breathing life into existing systems. Sometimes it means recommending and installing new ones.
Often, our work involves a combination of the two – extending the life of an old system, while planning the best time to get a new one.
Whatever your situation, D&M Heating and Air Conditioning will give you honest recommendations, quality work, and will always stand behind the work we do for your comfort.
After all, you don’t make it nearly 50 years in Milwaukee without taking care of people.
Sure, the copy relays their service. But you’ll also notice the invitation to be part of a group of people who have been making the lives of Milwaukee homeowners better for more than 5 decades.
Good Web Copy Creates An Ecosystem to Showcase All of the Best Parts of Your Business
Most of the time, when I rewrite a client’s website, the scope of work starts with 10 or 12 pages. It most always includes the site’s fundamental pages — home, services, about us, company history, etc.
The proposal almost always also calls for the creation of a new page that doesn’t yet exist. On this page, we turn the company’s main point of difference into a verb. We then weaponize this verb and describe how its application benefits the customers that the company serves.
By separating the services and focus areas of a company into unique pages, you are able to avoid one of the most common pitfalls in the quest for powerful writing. You want your language to be to the point, straight, and powerful.
When you try to describe too many things in too few pages, you create dissonance. The reader is distracted by too many takeaways, as he or she fails to be guided to the one you’d like them to take away. You’ve asked them to read a book report when they could have enjoyed an invitation to something good.
By writing powerful pages, with hyperlinks and buttons that connect to other powerful pages, you can craft a website that seamlessly integrates brand story, commitment, and authority into services, locations served, and homepages. When this happens, you create a positive feedback loop of brand power.
It’s like feeding the dog the pill inside the cheese. It keeps language sharp, takesaways clean, and is another thing that will make your bookkeeper happy. If you do it right, you might find yourself paying more in taxes than you did last year.
However You Do It Good Web Copy is Written for People, Not Machines
Effective web copy is written for people, not machines. It is written in your brand’s voice and showcases your brand story, your points of difference, and all of the wonderful reasons that your customers trust you.
All too often, business owners fall into the trap of SEO writing. This can be a mistake.
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