1. Flat clichés and empty adjectives
Many landing pages and about us pages are long, self-congratulatory spiels. They're full of flat clichés and empty adjectives.
That's why, as a Google user, you'll find an overwhelming number of landing pages with near-identical copy. Often, the company name is more or less the only thing that sets one text apart from another.
Typical examples of clichés are:
- We're quality-conscious
- We put the customer at the centre
- We collect happy customers
- We're flexible
- We deliver on time
- We've been around for X generations
If you've ever googled a company that can do a job for you, you've probably come across one of them. Maybe even all of them on one and the same page.
Google has certainly come across them many times. At the time of writing, the search “we put the customer at the centre” gives 12,900 results. Right behind it comes “we deliver on time” with 12,800 results.
It's not news that a company is quality-conscious, customer-focused and able to deliver. It would be news if it wasn't. A company like that probably wouldn't last very long.
So you don't need to say it outright. 12,900 others have already done that.
So what should you do instead?
Show it instead. Make it concrete rather than abstract.
So how do you make it concrete for the customer that you're quality-conscious?
If you're a removal man, for example, you can write that you use packaging and straps so fragile belongings don't get broken. You know your trade inside out. You know what high quality is. Your customers don't necessarily know that.
That's why you need to show them that you're quality-conscious rather than tell them.
In other words, you need to paint a picture for your potential customers. Rhetoric is the study of the art of speaking and persuasion, and here people sometimes talk about evidentia. The word means that a text or a speech makes the recipient form a picture in their mind's eye.
That's exactly what you should aim for in your copy: getting the recipient, in other words a potential customer, to form a picture in their mind's eye.
So drop the flat clichés and empty adjectives when you write. Replace them with examples and evidentia. Show it, don’t tell it.
2. Flat clichés and empty adjectives describe what you are, not what you do
When you replace your clichés and adjectives with concrete examples, you're already well on your way past the next pitfall.
Clichés make your copy abstract. That's only one problem.
The other problem is that clichés describe what your company is. They say nothing about what it does. The fact that a company has been around for X generations, for example, says nothing about the advantage or benefit for the customer.
Who says a company delivers quality because it's been around for several generations? What if it has been treading water and never renewed itself through several changes of generation?
As a company, you need to put yourself in the recipient's shoes and set your own perspective aside. Few would probably admit it: most of us act in our own interest. So do your customers. Your customers have no interest in your company having been around for X generations. Only you have that interest.
So what should you do instead?
Ask yourself what advantage the customer gets from your company having many years under its belt. And not least: What does the customer get out of it?
One advantage could be, for example, that the customer gets input from experienced staff with knowledge and expertise. The benefit could then be that the customer can be sure of getting the service or product they want.
In other words, you need to say directly what a fact or a feature does.
Does your company have the largest product range in the Nordics? Fantastic. Then make the advantage and benefit clear: Customers get all their needs met in one and the same place. And they avoid spending time and effort shopping with several different retailers.
In other words, you need to point to a value for your potential customers. Say what your company is, and also say what it does for the customer.
In sales and marketing, this strategy is called the FAB model. It's well worth using in your SEO copy.
3. Companies that talk past their customers with insider jargon
If you're a dentist, you know that “gingivitis” is the Latin word for gum inflammation. If you work in law, you probably take it for granted that “exheredate” means to disinherit. And if you work with SEO, terms like “dwell time”, “CTA” and “keyword stuffing” are a natural part of your vocabulary.
Of course, you've mastered the jargon and technical language of your own field. It's also perfectly understandable that you want to show your customers your expertise. But if you take your own expertise for granted, you risk shooting yourself in the foot.
After all, your field isn't your customers' field. Otherwise they wouldn't have googled what you deliver. That's why your copy needs to answer the questions potential customers have, so nobody leaves with unanswered questions.
Writing has one defining condition: it's lonely. As the sender, you're not in the same room as your readers. A conversation is a dialogue. Writing is a monologue. There's nothing new in that. The Greek philosopher Plato knew it back in antiquity, and he even accused writing of being non-dialogic.
Writing is lonely, but you still don't have to leave your readers all on their own. It's non-dialogic, but you still don't have to talk past them.
So what should you do instead?
Writing is lonely and non-dialogic. That's why your copy needs to be able to explain itself. Your readers are your potential customers, and they have no way of getting the terms they don't understand explained.
If the copy is overflowing with technical terms, they'll probably feel overlooked or talked down to. Turn down the insider jargon, and put yourself in the customer's shoes.
Think about the questions you come across in your day-to-day work. What do your customers ask about? What makes your patients wonder? Which words would puzzle you if you didn't have your own experience and training?
Copy that explains itself and speaks to people on their level makes your customers feel more confident. And your company comes across as more trustworthy.
4. Convoluted phrasing: even writing can get too written
Think back to your school days. You've just got your essay back and can't wait to read the comment. Then you look in disappointment at your teacher's admonishing words: “Too conversational!”, and in an ominous red colour, no less.
Does your teacher's comment still haunt you when you write copy? And do you therefore do everything you can to make your copy as written as possible?
Then it's time to forget some of what you learned at school.
On a removal company's website, for example, we came across this phrasing:
“Upon arrival at the new location, your effects shall be placed at your behest.”
The sentence may sound fantastic to your old teacher's ears. In your readers' eyes, it doesn't look quite as good, if they can even be bothered to read it.
We're hopelessly impatient online. We often skim websites for information and rarely read the copy closely from start to finish.
That's why your readers will probably lose interest if they have to chew their way through long, convoluted phrasing, foreign words and clauses tucked inside other clauses.
Even writing can get too written.
So what should you do instead?
Ditch the heavy, hard-to-read prose. Turn down the level of abstraction, and make your copy more conversational.
Of course, that doesn't mean you should write the way you speak. Spoken language is fleeting and tied to a particular moment. That's why it's full of filler words, unnecessary repetition and impulsive asides. You should, of course, cut those out of your copy.
Spoken techniques, on the other hand, are well worth using.
Spoken language also has advantages you can carry over into writing. It's vivid, personal, dynamic and concrete. Those qualities make your copy easier to understand and easier to read.
So use spoken techniques when you write. You can do this, for example, by:
- Writing short sentences with only one piece of information per full stop
- Putting the most important information first in the sentence and the elaboration at the end
- Using imagery and metaphors, so what you sell becomes more tangible
So how can you rewrite "upon arrival at the new location, your effects shall be placed at your behest" to make it more conversational?
Try, for example: "We'll put your moving boxes wherever you want them". Less is more.
5. Fear of filler words leads to too few linking words
As we've already mentioned, we skim a lot when we surf around online. That's why it's a good idea to cut out the unnecessary words the copy doesn't need.
Filler words can be irritating. Especially for a reader who has landed on your page because they have a need to be met. We've also warned against filler words before in the post “15 tips for your landing page”. So have countless other communications agencies.
And with good reason. The internet doesn't need more noise, and filler words can easily make your copy get lost in the crowd.
That said: Everything in moderation!
Many copywriters fear filler words so much that they end up with too few linking words. We often come across copy where the copywriter has clearly taken the advice to avoid filler words a little too literally.
The result is fragmented copy. It contains plenty of information, but the parts don't immediately seem to fit together.
So what should you do instead?
First and foremost, you can always listen your way to what the word does in the sentence. Is it a filler word that makes the copy harder to understand? Or is it a linking word that helps the reader understand it?
Many communications agencies warn against words like “so”, “then”, “just” and “after all”. And yes, sometimes writers use them as unnecessary filler words that only pad out the sentence.
On the other hand, the same words can give copy momentum and make it flow. So linking words can make your copy easier to understand, because they tie the sentences together.
Sometimes writers use “so” just to repeat a point. The word can also underline a consequence. And it can make it clear to the reader what a claim is worth.
Some also think that words like “after all” and “then” are spoken language and don't add anything. At the same time, they can justify a claim and create coherence in your copy, so the reader can keep up.
So how do you judge whether a word is filler or a link?
Read your copy aloud as you write. Did you stumble over the word when you read it? Then it's a filler word. On the other hand, is a link missing in the sentence when you remove the word from the copy? Then it's a linking word, and it should stay.
Avoid the pitfalls with a copywriter
Still nervous about falling into one of the pitfalls? Then let one of our copywriters at Amplify write your landing page. You're always welcome to get in touch.
Call +45 70 60 50 28, email info@amplify.dk or use our contact form.