The process of writing website copy is often underestimated. It requires more than just good writing—it involves understanding your audience, structuring information for ease of use, and aligning with business goals. And most of that information comes through research and prep.
With a rock-solid structure, messaging that speaks directly to your dream clients, and an intentional layout, your website will do the heavy lifting – attracting, engaging, and converting the people you most want to work with.
So I’ve created this guide for you to start writing website copy that actually gets results for your business and sounds like you.
How to start writing website copy
Before you can start writing website copy that actually serves your business goals, you need to know a few key things and do some preparation.
After 4+ years of officially writing website copy (and a few years of ‘unofficially’ writing it before that), I’ve learnt a thing or two about planning website copy so I get the best results for my clients.
This blog post breaks down my website copy planning process for you, including:
- Getting inside your customer’s heads
- Structuring your website for a good user experience (UX)
- Organising your services and package information
- Keyword research and on-page SEO
- Telling and articulating your story
Follow this step-by-step guide to make sure you’ve covered all bases before you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).
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Step 1: Define your website goals
As with all projects, to see results you need to understand what your goals are. Consider what ‘success’ looks like to you before you even think about writing a single word. Is it to get direct sales, build brand awareness, or book calls?
For example, you might want people to find you via organic search and buy something directly. If this is the case, your copy and structure need to reflect this – and your keyword research needs to be on point.
Whereas if your goal is brand awareness, your homepage should emphasise storytelling and values, pointing people to more value-led resources.
Analyse competitors and conduct research
When you’ve set your goals, it’s useful to see what your competitors are doing so you can avoid sounding the same as them and spot opportunities to be better.
Another thing you can look at is websites in other industries that you like for ideas. For example, when I’m looking for inspiration for client projects, I’ll look at people in the marketing and branding world, even if my client isn’t.
Why? Firstly, those types of companies usually have awesome website copy. But secondly, it sparks ideas to say something different than normal for your industry. It’s no good always looking at only your competitors, as you’re in an echo chamber.
So before you start writing website copy, do some broad research, collect inspiration, and analyse what you want to replicate for your business’ website copy – and what you absolutely want to avoid.
Step 2: Get super clear on your target audience
Before you write any website copy, you need a clear idea of who your ideal customer is. Not just a rough guess – you need to really understand what they’re like.
Imagine your ideal client
Remember your ideal clients are not the type of people you work with because you need to fill a space in the diary, but the type of clients you’d love to work with exclusively.
- What are their fears and stressors?
- What are their goals or desired outcomes?
- What’s getting in their way of reaching that point?
- How do you help to get them one step closer?
- What objections or hesitations do they have about your product/service?
To break this down even further, consider how customers feel before, during, and after your service (or buying your products). Describe their emotions in each stage.
For example, let’s say you’re a business coach.
- Before – your clients are overwhelmed and stressed, unsure what to do next
- During – your clients start to feel relieved and supported by having your guidance
- After – your clients become confident in their future, with a clear plan of action
Knowing this before you start writing website copy will give you a clear idea of whether you’re speaking to your ideal clients’ emotions or not.
Now write down who the wrong-fit people are
You also want to think about any people who were frustrating or bad clients to work with. It’s just as important to put the wrong people off with your website copy as it is to attract the right people.
What would your red flags be? And who doesn’t need your service/product?
Make a list, so you can actively plan to discount them in your website copy.
Interview your customers to gain insights
One of the best ways to get insights into what your customers really think is to interview them. That’s why in my signature 121 website copywriting service, as standard, I’ll interview 3 of your ideal clients before I write anything.
- I have a blog post all about customer interviews, including questions to ask, here.
- And another one about how you can use the voice of customer research afterwards here.
If it’s awkward thinking about interviewing your clients, ask someone else to do it on your behalf. I do this a lot for client case studies and, as already mentioned, for website copy research.
Step 3: Understand your main brand message
You need to be able to communicate what you do, why it matters, and the unique value you offer in your website copy. That’s your core brand message, and it carries across into everything you do.
Below is an example of how to frame a basic version of your messaging:
[Product/service] ________________ helps [client type] ________________ to accomplish
[goal] ________________ by [solving problem] ________________ . This makes them feel
[emotions] ________________ and ________________ [adjective].
For example, “Our social media management services help small businesses save time and build brand awareness by handling content creation and scheduling. This makes them feel less stressed and more focused on growth, so they can focus on bigger-picture thinking.”
You’ll obviously want to tweak this to sound more interesting, but this basic messaging format is a great reference point to have before you start writing website copy, as you can use it throughout.
Focus on the transformation
Have the transformation you help clients with clearly identified before you write your website copy, so you always have a reference point.
- How do you support your customers to reach their goals?
- How do you change their lives?
- Why should they choose you?
Without answers to those questions, you won’t be able to write effective, persuasive website copy…
Another quick way to check this is the ‘So what?’ test. With all your copy, ask yourself, so what? Why should your customers care? Is it adding anything to your message?
Personality and tone of voice
Your core brand message is the ‘what’, and your tone of voice is the ‘how’.
Tone of voice is all about how you say things, and it’s the time to add some fun to your writing… Your brand voice should showcase your personality, setting you apart from your competitors and making your brand memorable.
Your word choices, sentence structure, rhythm, and even punctuation all form parts of your brand voice, so consider:
- How do you want your customers to perceive your brand?
- What adjectives would you use to describe yourself?
- What are your core values and how do you show them?
Tone of voice is a whole topic in itself… so I won’t go into this in too much detail.
A good starting exercise is to decide where you want to be on a sliding scale of 1-10 for the following areas:
- Serious – Playful
- Conventional – Rebel
- Friend – Authority
- Classic – Young
- Formal – Casual
- Inspirational – Pragmatic
- Bold – Subtle
- Traditional – Modern
- Technical – Simple
And so on…
You can also consider what you would NEVER say. Having a word bank of dos and don’ts is a good way to start identifying your tone of voice.
Step 4: Work out the best website structure
A key part of planning your website copy is deciding the best site structure and user flow. The goal? To get your message across clearly and provide a clear, simple, and intuitive user experience (UX).
A key element of this process is information architecture (IA) – organising and structuring your website’s content in a logical, user-friendly way. IA helps visitors quickly find what they’re looking for, which improves their experience and increases your chances of conversion.
Alongside having an overall website goal, it’s also important to have individual goals for each page. These goals will influence the information, tone, and calls to action (CTAs) you include on each page.
Common website pages and their roles
Most websites have a mix of the following pages:
Home page
The home page should immediately answer 3 questions for your audience:
- What you do
- Who you help
- Why they should care
It should also guide users to take the next step, which alters depending on your goal.
Think of your home page as a corridor with multiple doors leading to other parts of your site. You want people to self-select the door that suits their needs best. Make it enticing, persuasive, and trustworthy to leave a strong first impression.
A good home page should:
- Introduce your key services or offerings
- Guide visitors to take the next step with clear CTAs
- Reflect your brand’s personality and build trust with new customers
About page
This is where you share your story, but in a way that connects with your audience. Highlight your values, your experience, and why you’re uniquely placed to solve their problem. Make it about them, not just you.
Service pages
Detail what you offer and how it works. Address key questions like:
- What is the transformation or result you provide?
- How do you work?
- What are the costs?
These pages should give enough detail for visitors to feel informed and confident in taking the next step – so get into the nitty gritty of your business offers.
Contact pages
On the contact page, you should provide a simple, clear way for visitors to reach you. You could include multiple contact options (e.g., email, phone, or a form) to cater to different preferences.
But you should also reinforce and reiterate your core brand message and why they should care, or else it’s a missed opportunity. This can be a simple sentence or two, taken from elsewhere on your website and repeated.
Resources/blog pages
If you produce content, a dedicated section can be invaluable to showcase expertise, improve SEO, and nurture potential leads.
Tips for structuring your website information architecture
Start with your services: Identify your main offerings. Do you need a dedicated page for each service, or can you combine them into one?
Match the content to the goal: If your aim is to encourage direct contact, keep it minimal. If your goal is better SEO and ranking for specific services, include individual, detailed pages.
Think about customer journeys: Remember that different customers will arrive at your site with different needs, and from different locations (so repeating your core brand message is important). Plan your navigation to accommodate a range of entry points and help users progress naturally from learning about you to taking action.
Plan for CTAs: For each page, decide on the next logical step for the visitor and include CTAs that guide them.
Create a sitemap with wireframes to visualise your structure
A practical way to organise your ideas is to create a simple sitemap with wireframes. This doesn’t need to be fancy—a Google Doc or Word document will do. If you’re more visual, a Canva graphic could be useful.
For example:
- Home Page: Introduces three core services, each with a CTA to its own page
- Service Pages: Outline specific details for each service, including benefits, processes, and pricing
- Contact Page: Includes a form and links to email/phone options
This makes sure you’ve accounted for every section and that your structure supports your goals.
See the image below (source) to see what a wireframe could look like. It shows the key sections of information and how they might be laid out.
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Step five: Make sure people can find your website
How will people find your website? If organic search is part of your strategy and goal, you need to know what people are looking for, so you can optimise your website accordingly.
Keyword research
You find out what people are looking for with keyword research. That shows you the exact phrases people use to find what you do.
Although there are hundreds of paid SEO tools which are amazing if you want to take things seriously, there are also some really good free keyword research tools. A few favourites include:
You can use ChatGPT for keyword research, too. Although it shows more broad information and less targeted results, it’s a great way to find out what people are looking for.
Research what’s trending
You can also see what searches and phrases are growing in popularity using tools like Google Trends.
On-page SEO best practices
Once you know your chosen target keywords, you can optimise your website copy for them. Alongside positioning your keywords and semantic keywords (keywords of similar phrases with the same intent) in your copy, you need to consider the:
- SEO title
- H1, H2, and H3s
- Meta description
- URL
- Image descriptions
- Internal linking
Be careful not to stuff keywords into your copy unnaturally, as Google’s Helpful Content Update prioritises ranking valuable content. On the flip side, if Google can tell you’re ‘keyword stuffing’ for the sake of SEO, it will negatively impact your reach.
Direct landing pages
If your goal is to drive traffic to landing page links through ad campaigns, social media, or emails, you’ve got to think about how your customer experiences this journey to create an irresistible next step.
Landing pages with no distractions (like navigation menus) are perfect for spotlighting specific services or offers. But you’ve still got to give visitors the full story! That means packing your landing page with everything they need to know, including:
- Who you are and what you’re all about
- What you do and how it makes their life better
- Why YOU are the best choice to help them
- A clear, compelling reason to buy, sign up or register for the offer right now
When done right, a focused landing page can be incredible for conversions.
Now you’re ready to start writing compelling website copy
It might feel like overkill, but diving headfirst into writing your website copy without a plan is a recipe for confusion and overwhelm. You’ll end up feeling stuck, unsure of what to write—or worse—creating a site that misses the mark.
When you put in the effort upfront to plan your website copy, the writing process becomes a breeze. Instead of staring at a blank screen, you’re simply piecing together the key elements of your message – like fitting the last pieces into a jigsaw puzzle.
Need help writing website copy that converts your ideal customers?
I love nothing more than working with business owners to improve their website copy so it reflects how talented they are, sells their offers, and converts their ideal clients.
I do this in a few ways:
- On a 121 basis where I write the website copy for you and take everything off your plate
- I run a group website copywriting programme to teach you how to write awesome website copy yourself
- I also offer quick-fire Copy Polish consultations to nail a pesky page or two live on a call together
If you need help but you’re unsure where to start, get in touch. I’ll reach out to ask you a few questions and we can arrange a free, no-obligation discovery call.