What to write when you’re not a writer
Nearly every trade website opens with the same sentence in a different order: quality workmanship, competitive prices, fully insured, no job too small.
None of it is untrue. All of it is invisible, because the four sites next to yours say it too. The way out is not better writing — it is more specific writing.
Four questions that produce real text
Answer these out loud, into your phone’s voice recorder if it helps, and write down what you said. What comes out is usually better than anything you would type.
- What do people ring you about most? That is your front page, not the full list of everything you can do.
- What do they worry about before they book? Mess, price going up, whether you turn up. Answer those and you have beaten most of your competitors.
- What do you do that the cheap outfit down the road does not? Be specific. 'We take the old one away' beats 'quality service'.
- What was the last job you were pleased with, and why? That is a paragraph, and it is worth more than a page of adjectives.
Write the way you talk
'We undertake all aspects of domestic electrical installation' is how nobody speaks. 'We rewire houses and sort out the small stuff — extra sockets, dodgy lighting, a consumer unit that trips' is how you would say it in a kitchen.
The second one is also better for search, because it contains what people actually type.
Phrases to cut on sight
- Quality workmanship — everyone says it, including the people who have none.
- Competitive prices — means nothing without a number.
- No job too small — say what small looks like instead.
- We pride ourselves on — delete and start the sentence at the next word.
- Welcome to our website — the worst use of the most valuable line on the page.
- Fully insured — worth keeping only if you say what and how much.
How much to write
Less than you think for the front page, more than you think for a service page.
The front page needs to answer three things in the first screen: what you do, where, and how to reach you. A service page can go on as long as it stays useful, because somebody reading it has already decided they need that thing.
The last check
Read the front page and ask whether a competitor could put their name at the top of it and have it still be true.
If they could, it is not about your business yet. Something specific is missing — a town, a number, a job, a way of working.
Common questions
Should I use AI to write it?
It will produce something instantly and it will read like every other site in your trade, because it is averaging them. Where it is useful is tidying up something you have already said in your own words. Starting from a blank page with it is how you end up with quality workmanship and competitive prices again.
How long should the front page be?
Long enough that somebody who has never heard of you knows what you do, where, roughly what it costs and how to get hold of you. For most trades that is a few hundred words, not a few thousand.
Do I need to mention my town over and over for Google?
No. Once in the heading, once in the text and once in the page title is plenty. Repeating it reads badly to people and has not helped with search for years.
Can’t the web person just write it?
They can write it well, but they cannot invent what is true about your business. Expect to spend twenty minutes on the phone answering the four questions above. That call is the raw material, and there is no way round it.
Want to see what yours would look like?
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