Website copy: what to write on every page

Of every ten websites we start, nine get stuck at the same point: the copy. Not because the client cannot write, but because nobody told them exactly what to write, and sitting in front of a blank page on a Sunday night does not fix that.

What copy each page needs

Before writing anything it helps to know how many boxes there are to fill. On a small site there are four, and no more are needed.

The home page

Four things: what you do, who for, where and what you want to happen now. One sentence each. If the home page opens with «welcome to our website», you have wasted the one screen everybody reads.

One page per service

A page for each service, with the problem it solves, how you do it, what is included, how long it takes and what it costs or starts from. It is the page that actually sells, and almost always the weakest one.

About us

The hardest to write and the least believed. It is not about your track record: it is about the client knowing who they will be talking to. Names, faces, since when and where you are.

Contact

Phone, email, WhatsApp, address if you have premises, and opening hours. As text, not inside an image, and without forcing anyone to fill a form just to find out whether you cover their town.

The formula we use for the home page

It is written out loud, not in a document. Imagine somebody at the bar asks what you do and you have twenty seconds: «We do X for Y in Z, and what makes us different is W». Written down as it comes out, that is already your first screen.

An example from around here, changed so as not to point at anyone: «We repair home appliances at your place across the Baix Empordà. Same day if you call before eleven, and we tell you the price before we touch anything». Everything is in there: what, where, when and a promise that can be checked.

The skeleton of a service page

If you take one thing away from this, make it this order. It works in any trade and it fills in half an hour.

• A headline with the service and the area. «Blind repairs in Girona», not «Integrated solutions».
• The problem, in one sentence. How people land on that page and what is happening to them.
• What is included and what is not. As bullets, not buried in a paragraph.
• How you work, in three steps: the visit, the quote and the job.
• Price or starting price, even as a range.
• What to do now, with a WhatsApp button and not only a form.

How to write it without being a writer

The trick that works best with our clients is not writing: it is talking. Pick up the phone, open WhatsApp and send yourself a voice note answering one question at a time. What you do. Who for. What people always ask you on the phone. Why they pick you and not the place next door. Which job from the last month left you happiest.

With those five voice notes you already have the site. They get transcribed, trimmed and put in order, and what is left sounds like you, which is exactly the point. People buy from people they recognise, not from brochures.

What not to write

• «We are leaders in our sector». Nobody can check it and everybody says it.
• «Quality, commitment and trust». Three words that mean nothing on their own. If they are true, prove them with a number: how many years, how many jobs, what guarantee.
• Your trade jargon. You say «integrated signage solutions» and your customer searches for «put the name on the van».
• Ten-line paragraphs. On a phone they are a wall. Two or three lines and a new paragraph.

On that last point there is a short, good guide from the W3C on writing so the web can be understood: clear headings, short sentences and ordinary words. It is written for accessibility and it works for everyone.

Your customer words, not yours

Write with the words people type into the search box, which are almost never the industry ones. Nobody searches for «integrated climate solutions»: they search for «install air conditioning» and «repair air conditioning». How to work that out without expensive tools is in how to choose your keywords, and how it turns into the title that shows in Google is in title tag and meta description.

Google sums up what it expects from a page in its search essentials, and the first item on the list is not technical: that the content is useful to whoever reads it.

How much copy you actually need

Less than you will be told. A service page for a small company works with three to six hundred well-placed words; a home page, with far fewer. What matters is not the quantity but that the answers are there: what it is, who for, how much, how long and how to hire it.

A blog is a different matter, where an article aiming to rank needs more room. But the site itself is not a book: it is a counter.

What if an AI writes it?

As a draft, fine. As the author, no. Google has said in writing that it does not penalise content for being made with AI, but for being poor content made for the search engine. The practical problem is a different one: text generated without your details sounds like everybody else. It does not know you come the same day, or that you stock parts for that brand, or how you talk.

The way we use it is simple: the AI tidies up what you said in the voice notes, and a person reviews it and puts your tone back. If what comes out could be published on any competitor site by swapping the name, it is wrong and gets rewritten.

Who writes it if you do not

We write it from your voice notes and your details, and you approve it. It is inside what you already pay: on our pricing page, the one-page landing is 100 € a month and the site with up to ten pages 200 €, with copywriting, domain, hosting, email and maintenance included. The presence plans (400, 750 and 1,500 €) add 3, 5 or 7 articles a month so the site does not stand still; that work is explained on web articles. All plus VAT and with no lock-in.

And the photos are part of the same homework: which ones you need and how to prepare them is in photos for your website. Copy and photos are the only things we cannot do without you.

The sixty-second test

When you think it is done, try this. Hand the site to somebody who does not know what you do, let them look for a minute and then take it away. Ask them three things: what do we sell, who for, and what would you have to do if you were interested. If one of them fails, the copy is not ready, and it is almost always the first one.

We work from Palamós, with businesses in Girona and Barcelona

We have spent years writing sites for workshops, professional firms, shops and service businesses, and the method is always the same: you talk, we put it in order and you approve it. If your project has been stuck for weeks waiting for the copy, send us five voice notes and we will send back a draft of the whole site, with no commitment.