The Top 4 Mistakes People Make With Their Website Copy

This is a guest post from Krista Goncalves, CHN, RNC
Nutritionist, Wellness Business Consultant & Copywriter

Copywriting is the process of writing text used for marketing purposes. To be more specific, it is the words you use to promote and sell your services, programs and products through advertising and marketing. Text you’ve written on your website can be referred to as website copy.

Copywriting is basically what separates the effective (high converting!) marketing campaigns from the not-so-effective ones.

You’ve seen them — a bunch of bold headings with the latest trending buzz words, followed by a pile of text on a dedicated sales page or perhaps in an eye-catching ad on socials. Yet, you literally have no idea what it’s trying to advertise or sell?!

When it comes to your website copy, a visitor should be able to answer these questions quickly, within the first 30 seconds:

1. WHO are you? (no need to give your full bio on the homepage though!)
2. WHAT (service/program/product) do you offer?
3. WHO are your offerings for?
4. WHAT will the client/customer get out of it? How will I FEEL when they work with you and/or buy your stuff?

*This one may not be as obvious right on the homepage, but it should be apparent on your other core pages – Start Here/About Me/Services/Work With Me.

If they can’t easily identify those things, and readers are quickly leaving or “bouncing” from your site, you need to re-evaluate HOW and WHAT you’re communicating to your people (your target audience) through your written words.

Some fancy-schmancy marketing terms you need to know as you skim through this:

*Target Audience – this term is used synonymously with Ideal Client, and it is the demographic of people most likely to be interested in your service, program or product; defining your audience, before doing anything else, is a business best practice.

*Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – intended to improve ranking on search engines such as the almighty Google. Basically, it is the activities or measures taken, like research and use of effective keywords, to make your content more “findable”.

(Leesa touches on this in THIS ARTICLE.)

*Call To Action (CTA) – this refers to any copy used to provoke prompt action by your reader, like a button with the text: “Book Your Free Discovery Call Now!” OR “Grab The FREE Guide to Elevate Your Wellness Brand in 3 Easy Steps!” {hint, hint}

Most Common Mistakes to Avoid When You’re Writing for Your Own Website

Evident in the online health business space that I’m so connected with, here are the top 4 mistakes that I see so many new wellness website DIY copywriters making:

(And perhaps I’ve even made a few of them myself so I’m especially familiar with these ones!)

1. Making the copy all about you

Want to know what your readers and your target audience (who are also your ideal clients) care about the most?

Themselves – and what YOU can do for them.

They do care about you, but more in the context of how you can address their pain points, help them accomplish their goals and provide the solution to their problems.

Keeping this in mind, everything you write should be using the underlying messaging that clearly demonstrates you know how to meet their needs.

The caveat to writing about yourself is doing it in such a way that it’s in the context of providing value for your potential clients. That should really be the whole point of your copy – and your business!

This starts with knowing your audience in great detail.

2. Unclear or vague Call To Action

The CTA on any given page (or blog) should always be…

• Brief and to-the-point
• Eye-catching
• Action-provoking
• Relevant to the rest of the copy

Avoid having multiple CTA’s on the same page, especially all in close proximity to one another – more is not better! Also, a CTA that is not clear will cause readers to quickly leave because they’re confused by your vague messaging.

For example, “Sign up for my monthly newsletter!” isn’t an effective CTA as it doesn’t offer the 3 keys your ideal client must FEEL before they’re likely to take action:

* Value
* Relevance
* Urgency

On the other hand, “Grab the FREE 3-Step Guide to Boosting Your Wellness Brand Now!” offers clear value, relevance to a specific need, and that it must happen now (urgent action required!).

3. Not proofreading…for grammar, spelling, and flow

Never, ever, ever hit that publish button without thoroughly proofreading and fixing your errors.

Even if you won the spelling bee in Grade Four and the teacher always asked for your help with writing on the blackboard. Trust me, there are still likely going to be a few errors!

Proficient editing = better copy and better content overall. And better copy always starts with proofreading. (using the spell check function & the Grammarly app are a good start!)

However, if you need some fresh eyes on your work, be sure to seek out an external editor.

4. Ignoring SEO

It should go without saying (but I’m going to say it!) that your website copy should be written for your people, but that doesn’t mean you should forget about showing the search engines some word love!

Basically, there are 2 ways you can incorporate your keywords into your copy:

• Keep a list of your keywords handy while you write to help you find more natural places to put them OR
• Go back after you’ve written your content to find logical places to put them in

Either way, keywords should be placed where they sound like they belong — don’t force it!

Also, consider frequency: if you cram in too many, not only does your writing go downhill, but the search engines will penalize you. However, if you don’t use enough of them, you simply won’t get found by your ideal clients.

Generally speaking, do a little research, and come up with a few key phrases and just incorporate them as best you can. Using a plugin like Yoast for your website can make a big difference and makes implementing a simple SEO strategy as part of your copywriting a lot easier!

Measurables of Success in Copywriting: Test, test, test

I believe everyone has the ability to write, and you don’t even have to be the best writer the world’s ever seen in order to write with a little persuasive flair.

However, you do need to refine your writing skills in order get your message across with enough clarity to allow it to effectively sell your services, products, and programs.

It’s largely impossible to predict how your target audience or ideal client is going to react to what you’ve written. And let’s just say that going purely on your gut instinct will often have you missing the mark!

Testing out the parts of your writing that have measurables are the key to honing in on your copywriting skills.

Examples are email subject lines (A/B split testing is often a feature of email marketing platforms), blog post titles, sales page headings, social media post titles and subtitles.

These are all things that you can actually get valuable feedback on through your analytics, whether it’s a plugin on your website, or Google Analytics or from your email marketing platform.

You’ve got to learn to test those measurables and be sure to look at your stats to see whether your copy is converting or translating into more leads, more paying clients, and more sales of your programs and products.

BONUS COPY PRO TIP: Write more compelling headlines that speak your ideal client’s language!

“On average, 5 times as many people read the headlines, than they do the body of the content. It follows that unless your headline sells your service/product/program, you’ve wasted 90% of your time and money…”
~ David Ogilvy, known as the Father of Advertising

Here’s how to shape a READ ME! headline:

• Make it unique
• Make it specific
• What’s in it for your target audience? I.e. make it useful
• Convey a sense of urgency

Hopefully, I’ve given you some actionable takeaways that you can apply to your copywriting when you sit down to create your next piece of sweet content!

About Krista Goncalves, CHN, RNC
Nutritionist, Wellness Business Consultant & Copywriter

Krista is a Registered Nutritional Counselor turned Business Clarity Coach & Copywriter for Wellness Professionals. She lives in Kelowna BC with her husband and two young (active!) kids.

While Krista enjoyed her combined 10 years as a Fitness Trainer/Bootcamp company owner and Women’s Health & Nutrition Expert, she’s now incredibly passionate (wild!) about helping other Wellness Entrepreneurs to “juice up” their online businesses with her web content writing and business coaching insights at Making Lemonade.

Feel free to connect with Krista on her Facebook page: @MakingLemonadeHealth