You wouldn’t make a movie like this! Why do it with your website?

Imagine a movie set, a professional film crew. The director shouts ‘shoot,’ and the actors stand there motionless. After an uncomfortable pause, the lead turns to the director and asks, “what do we say?” 

The director can see the scene in his head. The set is great, the lighting so atmospheric. It’s going to look amazing, but there’s no script. Nobody wrote it yet.

It gets crazier. The director asks, “where’s the script?’ The sound guy turns to him and explains, “It’s with Sarah in HR, she’s a pretty good writer and she knows a lot about this kind of thing, but she’s quite busy at the moment, so it’s not quite finished.”

It wouldn’t happen, right?

It happens all the time when people build websites.

People choose their colours and fonts, make sure they’re ‘on brand.’ A web designer puts together a great looking site with random filler text. But, it’s all waiting to go online because nobody’s written the copy yet.

Design is important, but it’s worthless if it doesn’t have the words. It’s the words that make things happen.

And, is Sarah in HR the right one to write the web copy? We’ll see.

Think about our movie scenario again. Before anyone goes near a camera, the script is written. It’s the start of everything because it’s important.

Not only is the script written, it’s tested, pulled apart, re-written over and over again. 

People analyse the script to make sure it tells the story needing to be told. The script needs to be right before anything else is even thought about.

Web designers know all the technical things needed to put together a website and make it look pretty. But what’s the point of a beautiful website that doesn’t get people to do anything or buy anything.

Maybe it’s good for your ego, and boosts your confidence about your business, but it’s not necessarily going to sell anything.

A pretty website is all about branding, and branding is important. But branding alone won’t sell your product or service.

What about the script writer?

Maybe you’re producing the words for your website yourself? If you’re in business, you probably know how to write pretty well. But here’s the thing, it’s not about the words, it’s about the ideas behind them and giving your audience what they are looking for.

The writer within an organisation is often ‘cursed’ with too much knowledge. They understand the product from the wrong side of the shop counter, intimately, inside out.

The insider knows every feature of their product or service, but often, in their enthusiasm to impress they introduce confusion. And confusion causes rejection.

Insiders know facts and features but features only tell, it’s benefits that sell.

Everything on a website needs to be written for the customer’s perspective. It needs to solve the customer’s problem in an easily understood way.

And one final thing. Google doesn’t care what font you’re using, what your brand colours are, or if your site looks ‘cool.’ All Google cares about is that users find what they’re looking for and they view it positively by hanging around and actually reading it. 

It’s the words that matter, make sure they count. If you want to know why your words aren’t working for you call me now on 07803 925446.