How to write your own website copy (a working method for non-writers)

Most projects stall in the same place: waiting on copy. The design's ready, the photos are in, and the whole thing sits for three weeks because writing about yourself is genuinely hard and a blank page is intimidating. So people freeze.

You don't need to be a writer to write your own website copy. You need a method that gets the words out of your head and onto the page without the part everyone hates, staring at a cursor trying to sound impressive. Here's the method I give small business clients. It works, and it's faster than you think.

Talk first, write second

The reason the blank page is so hard is that writing and thinking at the same time is two jobs. So separate them. Open your phone's voice recorder and just answer these out loud, like you're explaining your business to a friend at a bar:

• What do you do?
• Who is it for?
• Why do people pick you over the alternatives?
• What do people say after working with you?

Talk for five minutes. Then transcribe it, your phone will do this for you now. That transcript is about 80% of your website copy already. It just needs trimming and tidying, which is a far easier job than writing from nothing. You'll find you already explain your business clearly out loud; you just freeze when asked to type.

One idea per page

The other thing that makes copy hard is trying to make every page say everything. Don't. Give each page one job:

• Home: what you do and who it's for, in the first sentence.
• About: why you, specifically, the part only you can write.
• Services: what it costs and how it works.
• Contact: how to start, with as little friction as possible.

When a page has one idea, it almost writes itself, because you always know what belongs and what doesn't. Pages that try to do double duty are the ones that sprawl and never get finished.

Write like you talk

If you wouldn't say "we leverage synergistic solutions" out loud at a dinner party, don't put it on your website. Jargon feels safe because it sounds professional, but it makes you sound like everyone else and it tells the reader nothing. Plain English outperforms it with both Google and actual humans, search engines reward clear language, and people buy from businesses they understand.

A good test: read a sentence aloud. If you'd be embarrassed to say it to someone's face, rewrite it the way you'd actually say it.

Steal your testimonials' language

This is the trick most people miss. When clients describe what you did for them, they reach for the exact words your future clients are typing into Google. They'll say "you made the whole thing painless" or "finally a website I can update myself", phrasing you'd never invent sitting alone at a keyboard, because you're too close to it.

So mine your testimonials, your five-star reviews, and your happy customer emails for language, and put those phrases on the page. It's free copywriting and free keyword research at the same time, written by the people you're trying to reach.

your customers already wrote your best lines for you ↗

Cut it in half, then read it aloud

Once you've got a draft, the fastest way to make it better is to delete. Most first drafts are twice as long as they need to be, every "we are passionate about" and "with years of experience" can usually go without losing a thing. Cut until it feels slightly too short, and it'll land just right.

Then read the whole thing out loud one more time. Your ear catches what your eye skims: the sentence that doesn't breathe, the claim you don't actually believe, the place a real person would never talk that way. If a line trips you when you say it, it'll trip the reader too. Fix those, and you're done.

A few questions I get

How long should each page be? As long as it needs and not a word more. A small business homepage can be a few short sections. Say the thing, prove it, point to the next step. Length doesn't impress anyone; clarity does.

Do I need to stuff in keywords for SEO? No. Write naturally and specifically about what you do and where you do it, and the keywords take care of themselves. Keyword-stuffed copy reads badly and Google's been ignoring it for years.

What if I'm still stuck? That's normal, and it's fine. Copywriting help is one of my add-ons for exactly this reason, sometimes you just need someone to take your voice recording and shape it. But try the method first; most people get further on their own than they expect.