Top 5 Copywriting Tips for Small Business Owners

Business Tips

Sep 28

Writing your own website copy can be surprisingly tricky. You know your business inside out, but putting what you do into words that are clear, engaging and actually sound like you? That’s another story.

The good news is that you don’t need to be a professional copywriter to make your website copy a whole lot better. A few simple tweaks can make your site easier to understand, easier to skim and much more likely to connect with the right people.

Here are five of our go-to copywriting tips for small business websites 👇

Choose Your Brand Voice (and stick to it)

Define Your Brand Voice

This one’s probably the most important when it comes to building a brand and attracting your ideal client. Believe it or not, your brand voice can be just as important as your design when it comes to branding.

So, what’s your message? How do you want your business to sound? And more importantly, how do you want your ideal client to feel when they read your copy?

If you don’t have a clear brand voice yet, it’s worth taking a little time to figure it out.

Start With the Basics

Think about what you do and why you do it.

Who are you helping?
How are you helping them?
What makes your approach different?
And how would you naturally explain all of that to someone in real life?

Yes, these are pretty tricky questions and they require a bit of thought so our recommendation is to get a piece of paper out to brainstorm your answers.

You don’t need to make it complicated. In fact, it’s usually easiest to write in your own voice. You want to sell your services, but you also want to sell you and your brand, so writing the way you naturally speak often makes the most sense.

For example, instead of something generic like:

“We provide professional website design services for small businesses.”

you might say:

“We create thoughtful, personality-packed websites for small businesses that are ready to look a little more legit online.”

Same message, but one actually gives you a sense of the brand.

Give Yourself Something to Refer Back to

Sometimes though, your voice can get a little lost… especially when you’re writing lots of different things across your website, social media, emails, and marketing!

This is where it really helps to have something written down that you can always refer back to.

Write down your catchphrases. Write down how you describe what you do in your own words. Make a note of the words you naturally use, how casual or polished you want to sound, and even the words or phrases that don’t feel like you.

Think of it like a Branding Style Guide, but for your copy.

Having something to refer back to helps your brand messaging stay consistent wherever people come across your business. Just like design, if you have too much going on and no consistency, things can start to feel a little confusing!

Don’t be Afraid to Repeat Yourself

Once you figure out your key message, catchphrase or the main way you talk about what you do, repeat it throughout your branding.

Yes, it can feel repetitive and a little corny, but repetitive = memorable!

And remember: people don’t see everything you post. You might feel like you’ve said the same thing 100 times, but most of your audience has probably only seen a small portion of it.

This step should really sit at the core of all your copywriting. Define your brand voice, write it down, and keep referring back to it so everything you create sounds like the same business.

Once you have that in place, you can use the tips below to make sure you’re delivering your message clearly.

Be Clear

This one’s simple, but often overlooked. Use clear, simple language and explain things thoroughly.

Whether it’s website copy, blog posts, courses, or anything else, you’re usually writing about something you’re already familiar with. But this doesn’t mean your audience is familiar with it.

Using confusing language will just confuse your audience. You need to write like you're explaining to someone who has no idea. Because often, someone who stumbles on your website or post actually has no idea, and that's why they're here, to learn. Explain whatever you’re writing about from the ground up, using simple language. Otherwise, your readers will get lost, confused, and will leave.

Along with explaining things thoroughly, try using simpler words. Maybe by using complex language you are trying to stand apart from others, or to come across more intellectual or professional, but unless your ideal client is an english major, this is probably doing more harm than good.

Go through your website copy and read everything as if you have no idea what any of it is about. Would you still understand it? If the answer is no, simplify it.

Keep Your Copy Short

People are busy, and they’re usually not reading every single word on your website. This is especially true for home pages. No matter what length your copy is, people skim read it to try and take in the important parts as fast as possible.

So, help them out. Cut down the long explanations, remove the fluff and get to your main points quickly. You want to capture your audience first with short, clear copy that tells them what you do, who it’s for and why they should care.

Once you’ve got their attention, they can move onto your Services or Sales page to learn more.

This is where you can start getting more detailed — and where longer bodies of copy can actually be helpful.

If someone is considering spending money on your product or service, they’re naturally going to want more information before deciding whether it’s the right investment for them. This is your chance to explain what’s included, how it works, what makes it valuable and answer the questions they might have before taking that next step.

But longer copy still needs to be clear and easy to navigate. Stick to your brand voice, keep your message simple and make sure every section actually has a purpose.

The way you format your website copy is just as important as how much you write.

Break larger amounts of information into smaller, more manageable chunks using clear headings, short paragraphs, line breaks, bullet points and separate sections. Instead of asking someone to commit to paragraph after paragraph, give them plenty of places to pause, skim and find exactly what they’re looking for.

Head over to your home page now, do you have paragraphs of information there? It might seem counter intuitive to get rid of it, but at least try to cut down the fluff, get to the point, and format it so it’s easier to tackle!

Talk Directly to Your Readers

This one’s a good one to remember, and it’s something you can usually update pretty easily: talk directly to your audience.

Instead of making your copy all about your business, shift the focus onto the person reading it: what they want, what they’re struggling with, and what they’re hoping to achieve.

For example, instead of saying
“We offer custom bookkeeping and accounting packages.”

Try something like
“Spend less time buried in spreadsheets and more time actually running your business.”

Make Your Ideal Client Feel Seen

Good website copy should make the right person think, “Yep, this is exactly what I need!”

Talk about the problems they’re dealing with, the things they want to change, and the outcome they’re looking for, using language that feels familiar to them.

The more specific you are about who you’re speaking to, the easier it is for your ideal client to recognize themselves in your copy.

And yes, that might mean some people decide you’re not the right fit. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Trying to speak to everyone usually makes your copy feel generic.

Your goal isn’t to convince everyone. It’s to make the right people feel like they’re in exactly the right place.

Don’t Make it all About you

People are selfish, and it goes both ways: people want to read about themselves, and people want to write about themselves. Warning about this one, it's harsh, but true!

When someone lands on a website with a service they might be interested in, the first thing they want to know is how it can help them. The last thing they want to see is a whole website dedicated to your story and why you love your job.

Now, that’s not to say there isn’t a time and place to talk about who you are and why you love what you do, there absolutely is! But it shouldn’t be front and centre in place of what you can actually do for your potential client. It’s great that you’re passionate about your work, but what do they get out of it?

Keep Bringing it Back to Your Reader

It’s easy to get carried away talking about your story, your experience and your business (everyone likes talking about themselves, there’s no denying that!).

If it’s on an About page, that’s totally fine, but you still need to give your audience something. They didn’t come to your About page just to read your life story. They also want to understand what you do, why you’re good at it and how that’s going to help them.

If you’re writing blog posts you want other people to read, make sure you’re writing to them, about them, and to help them. That doesn’t mean you can’t tell a relevant, charming story about yourself, people do want to get to know the person behind the business. Just make sure there’s a reason for the story to be there and a way it comes back to the reader.

And yes, this applied to social media too.

This one does get a little muddier. There’s a lot of advice out there telling businesses to share their story, be transparent, and let people get to know the person behind the brand.

While this is true to an extent, you can’t just expect to talk about yourself and yourself only and grow any sort of client base. You need to make sure what you’re telling people directly or indirectly translates into helping them somehow. If you do have a strong story to tell, people will follow usually because they relate to it and it resonates with them. See how it somehow always comes back to them?

So go through your website copy right now and check, is this somehow relating back to what I can do for my clients?

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Need a Little Help Putting it all Together?

If writing your website copy still feels a bit overwhelming, you don’t have to start from a blank page!

Every Big Cat Creative website template comes with a fill-in-the-blanks copy workbook created with our copywriter friends at Handle & Hone. It walks you through what to write for each key page of your website, with prompts, examples, and plenty of guidance to help you shape your messaging as you go.

Pair that with a ready-to-customize Squarespace template and you’ve got both the words and the layout mapped out for you! Win!

Browse our collection of templates below:

Squarespace Template Gallery