I’m picturing you, creative entrepreneur. You’ve been in business for a few years now (maybe even several!). You’ve been consistently booking clients or selling your products. Your business is not without its bumps, but for the most part, you know what you’re doing.
But there’s one problem: you don’t feel like your website and especially the words on your website reflect your current stage of business. You’ve definitely moved past the first cringe-worthy website you first put up when you were starting (you know the one where you largely referenced other people’s to write your own? We all had one!) but you know it’s not as good as it could be.
If you feel like your copy has grown a little flat, inaccurate, or outdated, this blog post is for you. Even if you feel like your copy is solid right now, I recommend going through the steps here every year or so just to keep everything fresh and up to date.
Let’s chat about five steps to take to update your website copy into words that are accurate, genuine, and ready to carry your business into the next stage.
#1 – Reevaluate Your Ideal Client
“Ideal client,” “dream client,” and “client avatar” are terms that get thrown around frequently in our creative business world. Even if you are familiar with the concept, or have already gone through the process of identifying your ideal client, don’t dismiss this step! Knowing your ideal client is the first step to writing copy.
Have you actually sat down to map out and write down who you work with in your dreams? Who are they? Where do they live? What problems do they have that you can help solve? Maybe the answers are the same as when you first started your business, but if they are different, it’s time to make some changes to your copy.
#2 – Refresh Your Brand Copy
Right on the heels of finding your ideal client are the words that make up your brand copy. Is your tagline up to date? (Your tagline is that short piece or two of copy that you use on your website home page, your Instagram bio, or anywhere else you say what you do).
Maybe you’ve never had brand copy you loved, maybe it’s not accurate anymore and bringing in clients that aren’t right for you, or maybe just feels outdated. Whatever the reason, having brand copy that is accurate to where you are right now will always make your copy feel better and work better.
#3 – Update Your Experience
It’s an obvious fact that the longer we run our businesses, the more experiences we have and the more expertise we develop. Does your copy reflect this? Maybe you crossed the milestone of photographing 100+ weddings this past year, or maybe your design style has changed. Talk about the new milestones in your copy. If you have new client reviews, add them to your website. Your website copy should reflect your current experience, not the amount of experience you had three years ago.
#4 – Add Depth
Is your website a little bit shallow? If you’re like many creative entrepreneurs, your website may only have the basic framework of your business. As you work on getting your website copy out of the meh zone, experiment with adding depth! Share more details about what it is like to work with you, and break down exactly what the process is like. Don’t be afraid to add more touches like your brand values and what keeps you going. As long as you don’t create endless paragraphs that are hard to read, adding depth to your copy immediately scales it up from beginner to expert. Use your copy to demonstrate that you’ve been in this awhile and you know what you’re doing.
#5 – Swap Out Buzzwords
It’s hard to get away from trending words. Whatever your industry is—you have buzzwords! We all want to be authentic and tell stories these days, and that’s not a bad thing—but we have to figure out how to talk about it differently. Swapping out buzzwords in your website copy forces you to get serious about what you actually do instead of what you want to say you do.
Can you ever use buzzwords in your copy? Yes, I think you can! But be conscious that if you aren’t careful, their meaning is likely to be lost on your audience. Use them in a different way, acknowledge that they’re buzzwords, and explain what you mean.
Book a Copy Refresh with Studio Tell
If this all looks a little daunting, you have never loved writing copy, and/or you want to go through this process with a professional copywriter, I would love to work with you! Click here for my services page or click here to get in touch ASAP. I can’t wait to work together.
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