Have you ever clicked on a seemingly beautiful website, read through the copy, and found yourself deep in a maze of pages, only getting more confused by the minute?
After quickly ‘X’ing’ out, you’re left thinking what exactly is this person offering, and why should I be interested?
Or maybe you’re even thinking, “But wait, I think I actually really want to work with this person – but I have no idea how?!”
We’ve been there.
Even if you’re garnering most of your leads through word of mouth or social media, you can always expect people to visit your website to learn more about who you are, what you offer, and the price of your services. Your website is the first impression your visitor or prospective client will see about your company.
We often find ourselves thinking of the website as your ‘money-maker’. That might sound ‘salesy’ – but really, one’s website is the point of conversion for most people whether you’re a service or product-based business. Sure, you could build a business without a website, and it’s totally fine to start off that way, but honestly…
What’s a better use of your resources: Having a well-optimized website that articulates and demonstrates the best you have to offer, or somehow managing all of that without a website?
Umm, we think the answer is obvious!
So think of your social media as the wine tasting event invite that catches your eye and your website as the sommelier during your tasting that helps you discover your new favorite bottle.
It’s where the magic happens!
Basically, what we’re trying to say is that a crystal clear website matters. It truly acts as the litmus test for your prospects to see if they can trust you on what you promise to deliver after looking at the highlights of your social media.
By incorporating these five (read: essential) things into your website using clear and compelling copy, you can have prospects lined up around your digital corner in no time.
01. Your Value Proposition Above the Fold
Arguably one of the most important things to master in website copywriting. Your messaging and text above the fold of your home page (images and text you see before scrolling down) should be short, sweet, and to the point; not to mention, customer-centric. The idea is that your prospect needs to know EXACTLY what they’re getting out of your offer as soon as they click onto your page.
Your value proposition can range from a transformative message to the promise of solving a problem, or it can merely state precisely what you do. The point is to be as clear and concise as possible to avoid confusion with your prospective client. This is where you want to hook, line, and sink ‘em – not try to convince them with your linguistic genius!
Some of our favorite value propositions are below:
We Help Modern CEO’s Become On-Brand AF
High Moon Studio
Completely Customizable Websites for the Modern, Stylish Creative
Tonic Site Shop
Build a Brand that Helps You Chase Your Dreams
Drop Cap Design
02. Obvious Calls to Action (or CTA as we like to refer to it)
Here’s another place where you want your copy to be clear and to the point. After all, in the words of Donald Miller, your website is the equivalent to your elevator pitch. You want to use it to attract and win over your ideal audience with your amazing product or service, and the fastest way to do that is through an enticing and repeatable CTA button.
We recommend your CTA be bold to stand out, even making it a different (aka brighter) color from anything on your site. It should also be fluidly repeated, so your lead knows exactly what to expect for your next step. It may sound like overkill on every page, but remember, if you aren’t asking people to inquire, place an order, or fill out a subscriber form, they won’t.
We like to say, CTAs can go one of two ways. They can either be a punchy, clever piece of copy like our own, ‘Let’s get growing’, or it can be as concise and straightforward as ‘Buy Now’. There’s really no set rule of thumb per se, but just make sure you’re making the ask.
03. Impactful Images
Brand photography, in our opinion, is a much-underrated element of a high-converting website. Often it’s the images and the design that truly draws viewers in – and the words that keep them there.
As we always say, copy and design go together like cheese and wine.
We use images on our site to provide context and further communicate the words on the page. Fittingly, we’ve aligned the images on the CU site with our wine theme, so there’s glasses or bottles of wine, vineyards, photos of us cheers-ing, etc.
But even if you don’t have a theme per-se, you can create an overarching mood or feel with your images to help bring the copy and design together.
Additionally, we can’t recommend enough adding images of yourself and your team to your website, and if you’re smiling in them, all the better. Psychologically, we like to see images of happy, satisfied people, as it represents the emotional destination of where we’d like to be. Stay true to you, of course, but even if you can’t stand being in front of the camera and feel like you aren’t photogenic, it helps to generate a connection with your audience; which is ultimately a precursor to conversion.
The point is, be authentically yourself – as you are a big part of your brand!
04. Breakdown of Your Services
One of the biggest challenges we see with our clients is merely communicating what they actually do. I know that seems obvious to you, but you’d be surprised how many people have diversified revenue streams that make it challenging to communicate their products and services clearly and concisely.
We like to start by finding that umbrella message – or a “through-line” if you will, that unifies your various products and services.
On the Copy Uncorked home page, we have a small breakdown of our services using the overall message ‘Grow Your Business Like a Grapevine.’ Although we’re a copywriting and brand strategy studio, we offer products for DIY copywriting, a course, and 1×1 services. To tie in all these offerings together, we simply state that you can use any of these products or services to accomplish what you came here to do and ultimately – grow your business.
When you click over to the Services page, you’ll see our overarching message for our services is:
The Wine Copy List
Our offerings and services for modern brands and creative founders
For Every Palate: From $ to $$$
Our Services page value proposition and sub-head clearly states who our target audience is while directing them on where they need to go next based on their budget. By filtering out each offering using dollar signs, our prospective clients are guided into a particular product or service by allowing them to click on the one best suited to their needs.
After clicking onto each sales page, you’ll see we have CTA’s in each section to guide our prospective clients to each step along the way.
Once you find that umbrella message, you can further separate your products and services using additional sales pages, allowing customers to choose where they want to go without getting confused or lost.
05. Short but Sweet Body Copy
I’m sure you saw this one coming.
And you may also be confused as to why I’m telling you the importance of less is more in your website copy. But I’m telling you, the way to generate leads and turn prospects into paying clients is to keep things skimmable and easy to read.
The reality of the fact is that most people scan websites. So since we have about 10 seconds to make an impact, we want our copy to “be brief, punchy, and relevant to our customers,” in the words of Donald Miller.
A great way to achieve this is by using strong headlines, supportive subheaders, and bullet points – which can be some of the most potent persuasion weapons in your copywriting arsenal. It makes your copy easier to read, and it makes your benefits stand out, which is exactly what your visitor came to your site to learn.
Another thing to consider with your body copy is utilizing white space with paragraph separations and design elements to clearly differentiate sections. Where and how you place text impacts conversion whether you have a LOT to communicate or a little, so be sure to take the user experience into consideration when structuring your page.
As your prospects scroll down your website, it’s okay to use more words and even sentences here and there to clearly address the reader’s questions and concerns in a way that’s easy to comprehend.
If you need a longer section of text to explain something further, use a CTA such as ‘Read More’ or ‘Learn More’ to direct your reader to a long-form sales page. We use this a lot on our website, so as not to bombard our visitors with text overkill, just in case that particular product or service is something they’re not interested in.
If you’re looking for more help in writing your website copy, but you’re not quite ready to take the plunge with our 1×1 services, we encourage you to check out our course, The Copy House, a done-with-you website copywriting group program for the modern entrepreneur.
We show you the exact frameworks and formulas we use in our own copywriting work with 1×1 clients.
After incorporating these five things into your website using clear and compelling copy that puts your reader’s needs and desires at the forefront, I have no doubt you’ll see the results you’re looking for.
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