Don’t you love the web? Don’t you love sitting by a warm fire, getting hammered on cheap merlot with the web? Wouldn’t you like to have babies with it?
Except when it doesn’t speak to your innermost desires. Which happens all too often. Sometimes, I want to divorce the web.
I’m going to start a new feature on this blog. My ambitions are modest and I hope you share my desire for how to make your web site better. Together, we will help create a more perfect online world…
I’m actually going to do my level best not to use YOUR web copy, or if I do, to make it untraceable. I’ll highlight certain words or phrases to focus on. (By the way, I’d truly love to have another writer or editor take a whack at my web copy this way.)
Let’s hear it for self interest!
EXAMPLE: “We understand how content, services, and user interface interact to produce uniquely powerful results for…”
I know that the person who wrote this does not hate the web or mean it harm. I know they were hoping this would be scintillating copy. It isn’t.
First of all, you and I, as users of the web, seekers of information and shiny objects, don’t really care what a business “understands” about the world or even their own business. What do we care about? [All together]
OUR OWN SELF INTERESTS!
That’s not as evil as the ALL-CAPS would imply. Humans are largely self-interested creatures. That’s OK; we’re still good mammals.
Give ’em what they come here fer
All I’m saying is that when we writers speak to a web audience, we need to think and write about what customers come looking for. They didn’t come looking for some corporation’s understanding. They came looking to see what that corporation could do to make their lives better.
And honestly, why should we take this company’s word for the fact that they understand anything? They might understand a lot but I don’t know them. I’ve never bumped into them in Denny’s or Safeway or any of the other places I go to find dates. Or if I did, they didn’t ask me out or vice versa. We’re not even on a first-name basis.
So, let’s not begin sales copy by telling potential customers what we know or understand. Let’s show them by speaking directly to their wants and needs.
Jargon is for people who hate their mothers
“We understand how content, services, and user interface interact to produce uniquely powerful results for…”
I was a content publishing lead at Microsoft for many, many years. I know what them there highlighted words mean. Potential customers might or might not know what something like “user interface” really means. They might think they do. Even if they do, how sexy is that terminology? Does it make you breathlessly want to click their contact link?
The point is, why use jargon? Especially freakin’ high-tech industry jargon, which made my skin crawl even while I happily embraced working in the industry? It doesn’t really sound smarter. It isn’t clear and concise. Why do you hate your mother?
Don’t worry. I’m getting to the point. Chill the mouse over there.
A mutual or reciprocal action
“We understand how content, services, and user interface interact to produce uniquely powerful results for…”
I thought interaction was something mediated by gauge bosons. I’m sorry. I can’t resist pointlessly throwing physics jokes into a post on copywriting.
But the use of the word “interact” in this context is meaningless. How does it help you that someone you don’t know understands the interaction between things you’re not even sure you need?
“We understand how content, services, and user interface interact to produce uniquely powerful results for...”
Umm, really?
I think Superman and Wonder Woman are the only ones capable of uniquely powerful results. If I hired this company, they’re lucky that I probably wouldn’t remember later that I was supposed to get uniquely powerful results. Although if I did remember, and they didn’t live up to this hyperbole, I would be uniquely unhappy.
Flaccid optimization
I’ll just mention briefly that this copy is from a home page and there is nothing in the quoted phrase above that optimizes the page for the search engines. ‘Nuf said.
Well, would you?
If the example above were the description beneath the company’s link on a search results page, would you click the link? What could we do to improve this one little sentence (with a view towards improving the odds that customers would click through)?
This company touts their use of data driven design. If this were the one feature most attractive to their customer base (which I hope they’ve researched), let’s rewrite the copy to read like this:
“Is your web site doing all it can for you? It will when we get done with it. Call us for a FREE consultation on how data-driven design drives traffic to your site.”
Not perfect (hey, you’re not paying me for this blog post). But if this text appeared beneath the company’s link on Google, that’s a link I would click. It has text I understand and something (data-driven design) that makes me curious.
Most importantly—it puts benefits before features.
With that, it’s late and I’m going to stop beating up on the web tonight.
Share the most awful and pointless sentence you’ve ever found on a web site.
