10 Reasons Business Owners Shouldn’t Write Their Own Website Copy

Dear business owners: No one knows your business like you do, right? So why shouldn’t you write your own website copy? It may seem like you should, but it can actually hurt your business. Here’s why.

1. You’re Too Close to the Subject

You spend hours upon hours each day working for your business, thinking about your business, and being surrounded by people (employees, vendors, and others in your industry) who are an integral part of your business.

It’s what business owners do and how they often grow and succeed. That said, it puts you in a bubble, and you don’t have an outside perspective.

What does that mean when you start writing? You’ll most likely end up with “industry-speak.” Your messaging might make perfect sense to you because you live and breathe your business every day. But it may be confusing or too technical for your audience, or you might slip into jargon that only those in your inner circle understand.

On the other hand, a professional copywriter has precisely the type of viewpoint you need — an outside perspective from someone who isn’t heavily involved in your business. With the business information you provide, they’ll write clearly so your target audience understands your business and how it can help them solve whatever problem they’ve come to you to solve.

2. There’s a Level of Expertise You’re Missing Out On

As a business owner, you’re highly skilled in your industry, and customers turn to you for your expertise. You have the professional experience, training, and background people seek when looking into services or products they’re interested in.

However, you likely don’t have the same type of expertise as a professional copywriter who has made it their career and knows how to:

• Craft compelling copy that resonates with your target audience and turns them into leads.
• Create high-quality content that shines a positive light on your brand.
• Follow best practices for content marketing that will get you the best results.

Everyone has blind spots. Working with a professional copywriter can ensure your business’s selling points come through loud and clear.

3. Writing Is Time-Consuming

You’re likely already wearing too many hats if you’re a business owner. You might be part CEO, sales associate, operations manager, customer service representative, accountant, head of HR, IT support, and overall chief decision-maker all rolled into one.

Do you really want to add “copywriter” to that long list of responsibilities?

Writing content for an entire website is a lot of work. Our professional copywriters at WISE Digital can spend 15 to 30 hours or more writing copy for a single website project. And that’s at an expert level — if you don’t write for a living, it will likely take you much longer. Do you have that kind of time? Give us the information we need on your business and products/services, and we’ll take it from there.

4. Your Messaging Might Be Inconsistent

It takes careful planning, writing, and editing to ensure a website doesn’t send mixed messages about a brand across its many pages.

You definitely want to avoid falling into the trap of inconsistent messaging because you can easily confuse your customers, turn off the prospective customers you want, and muddle your image.

A professional copywriter knows how to maintain consistent messaging throughout a website and keep it all from going sideways.

5. You Could Kill Your SEO Strategy

Placing relevant keywords on your website pages within headings and copy (naturally and without overdoing it) improves your search engine rankings, making it easier for people to find your business online. Unfortunately, business owners who write their own copy are at risk of producing unoptimized copy. Another extreme occurs when business owners turn their website copy over to SEO agencies that don’t have skilled writers. That’s where you get keyword stuffing and messaging that sounds like it was written for robots.

At WISE Digital, we blend SEO and Copywriting seamlessly. Our award-winning SEO team dives deep to develop the best keyword strategy for your business. Then our professional copywriters (who understand up-to-date SEO best practices) incorporate the strategy within the copy they create for maximum impact.

Without a properly implemented keyword strategy, you most likely won’t rank well in search results, defeating the purpose of hiring a digital marketing firm like WISE Digital to develop a strong SEO strategy for you.

6. You May Not Get the Leads You’re After

If you want more leads, your website copy should be crafted to convert visitors into customers. A professional copywriter can speak directly to an audience to persuade them to try your service or buy your product. They use techniques such as:

• Speaking your customers’ language
• Acknowledging and overcoming objections
• Using psychological triggers
• Being clear about what the customer should do next
• Painting a picture of a customer using your service or product
• Asking questions and immediately answering them
• Creating a sense of urgency
• Highlighting benefits over features

A professional copywriter always keeps the writing focused on the customer. You’ll see much more “you” in the copy than “we.” Remember, potential customers are most interested in what you can do for them.

For example, let’s say you are a tax firm, and you state on your home page that you offer tax preparation services. Ok, that’s good to state that, but what’s in it for the customer? Wouldn’t it be better to state something like, “you’ll get peace of mind knowing your taxes are done right”?

7. Your Brand Voice Might Be a Little Off

Having a well-defined brand voice is crucial because:

• It helps create a consistent and cohesive image for your brand, building trust and familiarity.
• It allows you to establish a unique personality that resonates with your target audience.
• A distinctive voice can differentiate you from competitors and position your brand as memorable and relatable.

A professional copywriter will:

• Identify the target audience because it’s crucial to understand who you’re speaking to.
• Define the brand’s personality. If the brand were a person, what would their personality be?
• Identify the tone to use when writing website copy. Is the brand joyful and friendly? Encouraging and inspirational? Confident and assertive? Straightforward and informative?
• Use language strategically to ensure it resonates with the target audience, reflects the brand’s personality, and is optimized for search engines.
• Be authentic. All copy should be genuine and true to the brand’s values, which helps build trust and credibility.

8. You Could Delay Your Results

When a digital marketing team is designing and building a website, copy and design typically work in tandem, collaborating together.

A copywriter needs to be keenly aware of how the words they write fit within a page’s design. Is the heading too long? Are there too many words or paragraphs to fit a space? Are there two lines of copy in some sections but four lines of copy in others, throwing off the visual balance?

A website designer needs to understand the purpose of each block of copy and determine the best way to display it. Is it easy for readers to digest? What type of image(s) or iconography should accompany the copy to illustrate what it’s about? Is there a logical flow?

At WISE Digital, we have this symbiotic relationship down pat:

• Solid processes are in place to keep the project timeline moving on schedule.
• Design and copy work together to produce a polished product designed with customers in mind.
• There’s a smooth handoff to the web development team who builds the website on our NEST™ platform.

Some of the challenges we’ve encountered when clients choose to write their own copy include:

• Copy that’s not optimized for users and speaks to the intended audience.
• Copy that is a mismatch with a web page’s design.
• An improperly executed keyword strategy that could have boosted traffic.
• Extended project timelines that delay all the benefits a business gets with a website that’s launched on NEST.

9. You Could Miss the Mark With Your Target Audience

When business owners write their own website copy, they almost always position themselves as the story’s hero. It’s easy to do because you’re emotionally invested in your business and want to shout from the rooftops how great your services or products are.

We don’t doubt that you have a great business, but when it comes to your messaging, you instead want to position yourself as a helpful guide for your customers, addressing their problems, questions, and fears. That’s what makes someone want to buy.

A professional copywriter has the outside perspective you need to nail down that type of messaging, and they’ll be able to write from this position much easier than you will.

10. You Need the Competitive Advantage

In today’s crowded online marketplace, standing out from the competition is more important than ever.

Professional copywriters can help you differentiate your brand by writing unique and compelling website copy that speaks directly to your target audience. At WISE, we do research that helps identify who your true competitors are, and we use it to craft copy that helps you outshine your competition.

The Bottom Line

While you might find it difficult to hand over the writing of your website copy to another person, the drawbacks far outweigh the benefits.

With a professional copywriter, you’ll get a fresh perspective and see better results because they’ll ensure your brand focuses on customer needs.

Your website content will be engaging, persuasive, user-friendly, and aligned with your business’s unique personality. You’ll enhance your online presence, drive conversions, and ultimately get much better results for your business.

Don’t get professional copywriters wrong, though. They want your valuable insights and feedback while working on a project.

At WISE Digital, for example, we have multiple checkpoints where we ask clients to review copy at various stages of a project. This helps us maintain alignment with brand and tone, and accurately represent the business and the services/products it provides to its clients.

It’s important to note that when reviewing copy a WISE copywriter has prepared in collaboration with you, we advise you to avoid these two common pitfalls we encounter when working with clients:

1. Getting frustrated or disheartened because the early website copy drafts contain some inaccuracies, are off regarding tone/voice, and require tweaks. Remember: what you’re seeing is a draft! We request your feedback within our process to ensure we get it right for your website launch.
2. Wanting to go through many rounds of tweaks at every copy review checkpoint. Give us clear feedback about what’s working and what’s not when you review, and it’ll increase the chances that you’ll like the revised draft. But after a while, further fine tuning can devolve into endless nitpicking and distrust of our copywriting experts. Trust our expertise, and remember: we can make further tweaks after your initial website launch.

Let’s Start Something Great

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WISE Digital and its team of digital marketing experts are here to help your company thrive and achieve accelerated growth. We’ll ensure your success with practical, profitable, and measurable strategies. Let’s talk!