How to write the words for your website when you are not a writer.

The method, in order

Good website copy for a small business is mostly your customers' questions with your answers under them. You do not need a talent for writing. You need the right raw material and a few hard edits. Work in this order:

• Collect the words customers use, from calls, emails, reviews and messages.
• Decide what each page has to do before you write a line of it.
• Write the opening lines for a phone screen.
• Draft the rest the way you would say it to a customer.
• Swap every claim for a fact you can back up.
• Cut a third.
• Read it aloud, then hand it to someone who does not know your business.
• Write the small words: buttons, form labels and the message after a form is sent.

This guide does not cover which pages a site needs; what a small business website needs does. It covers how to fill them.

Collect the words your customers use

The best copy for your site has already been written, by your customers, one question at a time. Spend two weeks collecting it before you write anything:

• Keep a notepad by the phone and write down each question in the caller's own words.
• Search your inbox and form messages for "how much", "do you", "can I" and "how long".
• Read your reviews and your competitors' reviews. Note what people praise and what they complain about, in their phrasing.
• Ask whoever answers the phone or sits at the front desk what people ask most, and what surprises them.
• Look at the Performance report in Google Search Console, which lists the searches that already bring people to your site.

Sort what you find into a word bank with three parts: what customers call the service, the problem in their words, and the doubts that stop them booking. For a cleaning company it might read:

• What they call it: "end of tenancy clean", "move-out clean", "deep clean". Nobody says "vacant property sanitation".
• The problem: "I need my deposit back", "the agent is fussy", "I'm moving on Friday".
• The doubts: "Do I need to be there?", "Is the oven included?", "What if the agent isn't happy?"

Each doubt is a sentence the page has to answer, and each phrase in the first part is a word the page should use.

Decide what each page has to do

Before you write a page, write three lines about it, and keep them next to you while you work:

• Who reads it: "A tenant moving out in the next fortnight, worried about the deposit."
• What they need to know to act: "The price for their size of flat, what is included, whether we have a slot this week and what happens if the agent complains."
• What they should do next: "Book a clean online, or send a message if the flat is unusual."

Everything on the page serves those three lines, and anything that does not can go. The history of the company does not help that tenant. The line about returning free if the agent finds something does.

One page, one job. A page that tries to sell office cleaning to a facilities manager and end-of-tenancy cleans to a tenant does both badly, because they ask different questions.

Write the opening lines for a phone screen

Many visitors arrive on a phone, where the first screen holds a headline, a line under it and a button. Write those three before anything else:

• The headline says what you do, in the customer's words, with the place if you serve one area.
• The line under it answers the next doubt: how soon, how much, or who.
• The button names the action: "Check a date", "See the packages", "Book a first appointment".

Three examples from different trades:

• A bookkeeper: "Bookkeeping for cafes and shops in Bristol." Under it: "Fixed monthly packages, and the same bookkeeper every month." Button: "See the packages".
• A wedding venue: "A barn wedding venue for up to [number] guests, near York." Under it: "Ceremony, meal and evening party in one place." Button: "Check a date".
• A driving school: "Driving lessons in Cardiff for nervous beginners." Under it: "Automatic and manual cars, with pick-up from home or college." Button: "Book a first lesson".

Test each headline with two questions. Could a competitor paste it onto their own site unchanged? Would a customer ever type those words into Google? "Making your dreams a reality" fails both. "Driving lessons in Cardiff for nervous beginners" passes both.

Draft it the way you would say it

Most owners explain their business well out loud and badly on paper. So say it first. Record yourself on your phone answering the questions from your word bank, as if a customer had rung, and type up what you said. Then tidy it.

The owner of a car repair garage might say: "Yeah, so if you ring before ten we can usually look at it the same day, otherwise it's the next morning, and we always call you before we do anything that costs more." Tidied, that becomes: "Call before 10am and we can usually look at your car the same day. After that, the next morning. We call you before any work that adds to the price."

Keep what made the spoken version good:

• "You" and "we", or "I" if you work alone.
• Short sentences, one idea in each.
• The answers in the order customers ask the questions.
• Real names, days, places and numbers you can back up.
• The next step straight after the answer that leads to it.

Leave the polishing for later. A rough draft full of real answers beats a smooth page that says nothing.

Swap every claim for a fact

Claims are what businesses say about themselves: quality, trust, passion, excellence. Every competitor says them, so a reader skips them. Facts are what only you can say. Go through the draft and turn each claim into a fact, or delete it:

• "Quality workmanship" becomes "Every bathroom we fit comes with a written warranty on our labour for [period]."
• "Friendly, experienced team" becomes "Your first lesson is with Anna, who has taught nervous drivers since [year]."
• "Fast response" becomes "We reply to every quote request by noon the next working day."
• "Affordable prices" becomes "A standard service is [price], and the full price list is below."
• "Fully insured" becomes "Insured for [cover]. Ask and we will send the certificate."
• "Customer satisfaction is our priority" becomes "If your letting agent finds anything we missed, we come back and clean it free."

A fact you cannot back up is worse than a claim, so never invent one. No made-up years, numbers of customers, awards or reviews. If the true fact is modest, such as a new business, say the modest true thing.

Google's guidance on helpful content asks whether a page gives original information, and whether a reader leaves feeling they learned enough to reach their goal. A page of facts about your own business passes that test without trying. A page of claims fails it.

Cut each page by a third

On a phone, a paragraph that looked short on the laptop fills the screen. A third is a target rather than a rule: it forces you to choose what matters. The cuts are easy to find once you know where to look:

• Welcome lines: "Welcome to our website."
• Openings about yourself: "At [business name], we believe..." Start with the customer's question instead.
• Adjectives in pairs: "professional and reliable", "quick and easy".
• Sentences that repeat the heading above them.
• The same point made twice in different words.
• "Please do not hesitate to contact us." The button already says it.

Here is a cleaning company's paragraph before the cut: "At Spotless Homes, we pride ourselves on delivering a professional and reliable end of tenancy cleaning service. Our experienced and friendly team understand how stressful moving can be, which is why we go above and beyond to make sure your property is spotless. Please do not hesitate to contact us."

And after: "End of tenancy cleans for flats and houses in Leeds. We clean the oven, the fridge and inside every cupboard, and if your letting agent finds anything we missed, we come back free." It is a third shorter, and every word now tells the tenant something.

Print the page and cut with a pen. It is easier to strike through words on paper than to delete them on a screen.

Read it aloud, then hand it to a stranger

Read every page aloud, slowly. You will hear what you cannot see: a sentence too long to say in one breath, a word used three times in a paragraph, a trade term your customers never use. Fix each place you stumble.

Then give the page to someone who does not know your business, on their own phone, and ask them three things after they read it:

• What do we do, where, and what would you do next?
• Was there anything you did not understand?
• What would you still phone to ask?

Do not explain or defend anything while they read. Their answers to the third question are the gaps, and each one becomes a line on the page.

Write the small words too

The words around the forms and buttons decide whether people finish what they started, and they are usually left as the template wrote them. Write each one:

• Buttons that say what happens: "Request a quote visit", not "Submit".
• Form labels with a reason where a field might worry people: "Postcode, so we can check we cover your area."
• The message after a form is sent: "Thanks. Leah will call you back by 10am tomorrow, from the number at the top of this page."
• Error messages that say how to fix the problem: "Add a phone number so we can call you back", not "Invalid input".
• The page people see when a link is broken, with a line of help and a way back.
• The title and description each page shows in Google, written like a short advert for that page.

If you send paid traffic to the site, the page an ad opens should repeat the ad's words, so the visitor knows they arrived in the right place. Landing pages for ads covers that page in detail.

Where AI drafts help, and where they give you everyone's slogans

AI writing tools are useful at two stages of this method, and harmful if you let them skip the rest. They help with:

• Turning your word bank and rough notes into a first draft you can correct.
• Shortening a paragraph you wrote, or offering ten versions of a headline to choose from.
• Spotting trade terms a customer would not understand.
• Asking what a customer would still want to know after reading a page.

They hurt when they write from nothing. Ask for a page about a plumbing firm and you get what plumbing firms usually say: "your trusted local experts", "quality you can trust", "no job too small". Your competitors asked the same tool and got the same lines, so the page could belong to any of you. The tools also fill gaps with plausible claims, such as years in business, certifications or response times you never gave them.

So feed them your facts and your customers' words, and tell them to use only those and to add no claims, numbers or reviews. Then do the facts, the cut and the reading aloud yourself. If AI is building the whole site, can AI build your business website covers the parts that break, and does Google penalise AI content covers what Google checks.

Words that also work for search

Writing for customers and writing for Google are mostly the same job, because Google is trying to find the page that answers what people typed. A few habits help both:

• Use the customer's word for the service in the page's title, its main heading and its first lines, as your word bank shows them.
• Give each main service its own page, so each page can answer one set of questions properly.
• Name the towns you really work in, once and naturally, not in a list at the bottom.
• Answer the questions people search in full sentences. A question in your word bank is often a search someone typed.

Do not repeat a phrase until it reads oddly. A page stuffed with "emergency plumber Leeds" reads worse to people and does not help with Google either.

Keep the words true after launch

Copy goes out of date quietly: a price rises, a service stops, someone leaves, the opening hours change for winter. Give one person the job of the words, and once a month have them read the main pages against what is true today.

Keep the word bank going too. When customers ask a new question by phone or email, it belongs on the page where they would have looked for the answer. A site that grows from real questions gets better each month without a redesign.

When to get help

If writing is the part you dread, you can still own the words without typing them. Talk the business through with someone who writes, on a recorded call, and correct their draft until it sounds like you. The facts, the customer words and the final say stay with you, which is what matters.

On a site we build, that is how the words get written: you talk us through the business, we draft the pages, and you correct anything that is not how you would put it. Nothing is published until you approve it, and we never invent reviews, numbers or claims you cannot back up. See websites for how a build runs, and how to write an about page for the page most owners find hardest.