If you’re stuck trying to write website copy that doesn’t sound like everyone else in your industry, join the freaking club.
Because, “I don’t want to sound like everyone else”, is one of the most common concerns I hear from clients and inquiries.
We don’t want to blend in or be constantly compared to others within our industry. We want to own our distinction and be an obvious choice.
In this blog, you’ll learn how to use language, your perspective, and lived experience to write website copy that’s distinct, memorable, and compelling.
Use Your Natural Vocabulary to Strengthen Your Brand Voice
Your personal vocabulary is shaped by many components like:
how you grew up, the jargon you’ve learned through your craft and industry, and the unique inflections you put upon certain words in real life that can be mirrored online.
Think of expressions, metaphors, or slang you use on client calls, and behind the scenes of your life and business. This is your personal vocabulary and it should one million percent be used in your website copywriting.
These words become recognizable over time. They’re tiny pieces of intellectual branding. Your audience begins associating certain phrases with you before they ever recognize your logo.
One thing I often notice during website copywriting projects is a stark contrast between how someone fills in their intake form and how they present themselves on their websites. Their websites can come across as stiff, forced, or cold, whereas their intake document is down to earth, funny, relatable, personable, experienced, cool.
What happens is we assume we have to sound professional instead of leaning into the fact that we are professionals. You don’t have to mirror how others talk to be perceived a certain way. In fact, your dream clients are going to respond a helluva lot faster and with more anticipation and excitement when you express yourself candidly.
If you’re not sure where your messaging is losing people, a Website Copy & Messaging Audit is designed to uncover exactly where your website stops sounding like you.
Write Website Copy the Way You Naturally Speak
Have you ever heard advice from a copywriter that’s something like: “talk how you speak”? This sounds kind of vague but it’s meant literally. Sometimes, we fall into the trap of trying to overcomplicate our sentences, mirror what others are doing, or writing in a way that doesn’t follow our natural cadence.
When you write how you speak, your sentences flow in a conversational, easy to digest manner.
A simple way to check your rhythm is by reading what you write out loud. See how it feels as you speak it.
Ask yourself:
Where could you add a pause? Put a white-space break. Some humour to loosen up a complex idea?
Another way to check your rhythm is by recording yourself speaking. Listen to the words you naturally emphasize, the pauses, the flow. Then mirror that in your website copy.
Your Perspective Is What Makes Your Website Different
No one can steal your perspective from you. And when you use it in your website copy, it becomes unmistakable. Your beliefs, your point of view, and your approach become part of your signature. They’re what make your work recognizable before someone even reaches the end of the page.
Ultimately, someone might choose to work with you because of your perspective. Things like: how you view the world, how you solve problems, and how you communicate with clients, all become parts of a bigger decision. Make that known to your audience through your website copy. Don’t make them figure it out or fck around and find out after booking with you.
Openly sharing your POV directly on your website will be one of your greatest filters for best-fit clients and ones who are misaligned.
Use Storytelling to Create More Engaging Website Copy
We all have a story about how we got where we are, what’s shaped our character, and our work ethic and style. There’s a story behind every piece of who we are and what we do.
Storytelling is one of my signature modalities and something I weave into every single client project because it’s the backbone of how you’re able to do what you do and be who you are.
Some stories make the Homepage, others are saved for the About page, and some weave their way into your social content, but regardless of HOW it comes out, it’s all relevant.
And storytelling isn’t just about your story (your mission, your why, your journey), but also the story you invite clients and future clients to become a part of.
Structure Your Website Like a Story
Your website should tell a story. It should communicate to your browser’s and potential client’s that you see where they fit into your world and beckon them to write their next chapter with you.
This is why every website page I write follows a structure with a clear beginning, middle, and end.
Our words work to guide browsers from self-identification to basically selling themselves on your solutions.
It shows them, “this is where you are right now”, then, “this is where you want to go”, then, “this is how I get you there”, and finally, “this is how to begin.”
When we stop viewing our websites as brochures or stagnant info-dumps, and instead start treating them like an experience and an invitation into something more, something bigger, something expansive and wonderful, our audiences lean in.
They want to become a part of it.
This is what truly compelling copywriting does.
Distinction Comes From Experience, Not Competition
When you recognize your unique POV, rhythm of operations, and the chapter you’re inviting your audience to begin, writing with distinction becomes inevitable.
This is why I don’t believe in competition. I understand how differently I do things, view things, operate, and communicate with my clients and within my brand world.
My lived experiences will always be my own. 15+ years in the service industry, single mother from 21 years old, entrepreneur in the crest of the pandemic – all of these moving parts are separate and yet part of the whole. Reading books on my walk to school, listening to my Nonna enchant a room full of loud Italians with her stories, and learning to fall in love with the ordinary moments that make us human.
No one can replicate my exact story. But they can identify with the emotion, with the results and consequences, and with the inspiration and motivation that transpires from each defining or insignificant moment.
So, How Do You Write Website Copy That Sounds Like You?
- Borrow from your real vocabulary.
- Match your natural rhythm.
- Lead with your perspective.
- Tell stories with intention.
- Remember you’re inviting readers into a new chapter.
Writing like yourself and for your audience can be overwhelming. But it really just comes down to learning how you best communicate what you do and who you are.
Whether that’s recording yourself talking about it, or asking a close friend to interview you. Or hiring a copywriter who knows how to excavate all the gold that’s waiting to be articulated.
Your audience isn’t looking for another version of someone they already follow.
They’re looking for someone whose way of seeing the world finally puts words to what they’ve been trying to articulate themselves.
That’s what compelling website copy does.
