You’ve built the site. Chosen the fonts. Paid extra for the fancy hover animation. And yet nobody’s clicking, booking or buying.
Your bounce rate’s higher than your caffeine intake.
Here’s the hard truth: pretty websites don’t sell. Persuasive ones do. And if your copy sounds like it was written for a school project, or worse, by a committee, you’re losing leads faster than you can say “hero section”.
This one’s for founders, creatives and small business owners who want their website to do more than sit there looking pretty. Six years of writing copy for a hundred-plus brands has taught me one pattern worth tattooing somewhere visible: design grabs the attention, but the words drive the action. And the right words all start with you.
Use “you” language like your conversions depend on it (because they do)
Most websites talk about themselves. “We are a boutique agency.” “We specialise in…” “Our process is…” The problem? Nobody cares. Your reader’s brain is gloriously selfish, and it filters every sentence through one question: what’s in it for me?
Switch from “we” to “you” and you flip the spotlight. They’re the star now. They feel seen, understood, and, conveniently for you, sold. People buy when they feel understood, not when they’re impressed.
The “we” wall
We are a boutique agency.
We specialise in helping businesses grow.
Our team is passionate about branding.
The “you” bridge
You’ll grow faster with a strategy that actually makes sense.
You’ll finally get a brand that looks like you.
You’ll stop guessing why nobody’s buying.
The fix costs nothing:
- Change “We help businesses grow” to “You’ll grow faster with a strategy that actually makes sense”
- Swap “Our team is passionate about branding” for “You’ll finally get a brand that actually looks like you“
- Use second person relentlessly: you, your, you’re. Speak to one person, not a vague crowd
The fastest homepage audit I run: count the we’s, then count the you’s. If “we” is winning, the site is a mirror, not a window. The record so far is nineteen we’s before the first you, and no, they weren’t converting either.
Pro tip: read your homepage out loud. If you sound like you’re pitching a boardroom, rewrite it like you’re texting a friend.
Lead with what they want, not what you do
Features are facts. Benefits are emotions. Nobody hires a website designer because they crave a responsive site. They want more bookings, more credibility, less cringe.
People don’t buy services, they buy outcomes, and the buying part happens in the feeling before the logic ever gets a vote. That order is the whole science of emotion first, logic second, and your copy either works with it or against it. If your page doesn’t immediately scream “here’s how your life gets better”, your dream clients are already three tabs away.
So flip every feature on its head:
- Open with a promise: “Your new website won’t just look good, it’ll actually convert”
- Reframe features as results: “built-in SEO tools” becomes “you’ll show up when people search for you”
- Add proof with a real name, a real number and a real timeframe, and if you don’t have one yet, go earn one before you fake one
Make every benefit visual and tangible. If they can picture their future self high-fiving the air, you’re onto something.
Structure your pages to keep them hooked (and scrolling)
Even great copy flops when it’s buried in a wall of text under vague headers. Because here’s the uncomfortable bit: your visitors aren’t readers, they’re scanners.
If someone lands on your site and can’t instantly tell what you do, who it’s for and why it matters, they’re gone, and not because your offer is bad. A confusing page literally feels risky to the brain scanning it. So give the scan a spine:
And keep the formatting merciful: short sentences, bullet points, white space galore. You’re not writing a novel. You’re writing for attention-deprived humans on their lunch break.
Wrapping up: stop talking about yourself
If your website copy feels like a sales pitch nobody asked for, it’s probably because it’s all about you, and not the good kind of you.
Flip the script. Talk to one person. Show them what they’ll gain. “We” builds walls, “you” builds bridges. Benefits beat features. And structure isn’t decoration, it’s persuasion for people who won’t read four-fifths of what you wrote anyway.
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Website copy FAQs
What is “you” language in copywriting?
It’s writing addressed directly to the reader, you, your, you’re, instead of talking about the business. It works because people process self-relevant information more deeply and remember it longer, so the same message lands harder when the reader is the subject of the sentence.
What’s the difference between features and benefits?
A feature is what the thing is; a benefit is what the reader gets. “Built-in SEO tools” is a feature. “You’ll show up when people search for you” is the benefit. Lead with benefits, then let the features back them up for the detail-hungry.
Why isn’t my website converting?
Usually one of three things: the copy talks about the business instead of the visitor, it lists features instead of outcomes, or the page structure buries the message so scanners never find it. All three are fixable without touching the design.
How long should homepage copy be?
As long as it needs to be and no longer, structured for scanning either way. Visitors read roughly a fifth of the words on a page, so the length matters less than whether the headline, subheads and CTA carry the message on their own.