Blog > Website Copywriting > Is Your Website Giving Out TMI?

Is Your Website Giving Out TMI?

Your company’s website exists for a reason.

Perhaps your website exists so that you can sell your products online. Maybe you had your website developed for the sole purpose of encouraging prospects to make reservations online instead of over the phone. Or perhaps you built your company website because you wanted a marketing tool to persuade people to swing by your showroom.

Think about the purpose(s) of your company website; then consider the types of people who visit it.

With these two things in mind, set aside a few minutes of time to read through your website’s text. (I’m guessing you haven’t given much thought to your site’s copy since your site was built. If this is the case, you’re definitely not alone.)

While you read through your website’s text…

As you read through the text of each page in your site, answer the following questions as honestly as you can:

• Did I use industry-specific terms or acronyms that many of my site visitors won’t understand?
• Did I include personal information or personal opinions that provide little to no value to our visitors? (Seriously. Do your potential clients really to wade through pages upon pages about your hot air ballooning hobby as they try to determine if they like your interior designing work?)
• Did you list features of your products or services that—while they’re true and seem important to you—have little to no meaning to your site’s visitors? (Yes, it’s great that your crew uses the latest 320 KPM drills on the job, but what does that mean to your potential customers? Can you translate that into a benefit?)
• Do you have lots of fluffy, empty content (Like, “Hello and welcome to our website!”) that’s simply taking up space and keeping your visitors from finding the information they’re looking for?

I’ll be the first to admit that it can be quite difficult to remain objective when looking at your own text – so if you find yourself struggling to see your site’s content through the eyes of a visitor . . . make sure you ask for an outside, non-biased opinion or two.

Trim out the unnecessary content and keep what’s essential and you’ll have a more effective website.

Comments

Comment from Mike Roger on 03/19/2012

That’s a really good question we should be asking about our website.  Thanks for the great article and getting us thinking.

What are your thoughts? Any questions?

• Name: (required)
  
• Email: (required)
  
• Location:
  
• URL:
  
• Comment: (required)
  
• Remember my personal information
  Yes! Please notify me of follow-up comments.