Today I’m getting down with the Halloween vibes and sharing 5 Spooktacular ways your website copy might be scaring visitors away.

I talk about:

• How and why to avoid analysis paralysis. 
• Not overwhelming visitors with ALL the detail.
• Why your website is not all about you.
• How confusion creates inaction, and more!

And if you want a freebie to help you write roarsome website copy that packs a personality punch, simply jump over here: https://hayleymaxwell.com/copywriting-with-personality 

Connect with me:

Instagram at https://instagram.com/hayleymaxwellwrites

Website at www.hayleymaxwell.com 

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, my friend, and welcome to episode seven of the fierce impact Podcast. Today, I’m getting down with the Halloween vibes. And I’ll be sharing five spooktacular ways, you might be scaring your website visitors away. Heres the thing as our business grows and evolves, so to do our websites, and sometimes we need to take stock and look at our website and ask ourselves whether it’s helping or hindering our ideal clients as they seek help for their problems and challenges. So with that in mind, let’s jump into the five ways.

So number one is too much information. Lots of websites out there have so much information on them. And the problem with this is it can become overwhelming for your reader. The truth is no one wants to wade through an online encyclopedia. And when we’re writing our websites, what we often forget is that we don’t need to include every single detail about ourselves, our services or our process. As a service provider, the job of our website is to provide enough information to support our ideal client, to see that we have a solution that can work for them, and enable them to make an informed decision and show them how to take the next steps. Because for many of us, once someone has got in touch with us to inquire about a specific service, we will have a discussion with them. So that’s when we then provide that next tier of information that the ideal clients need to know. So we actually don’t need to confront them with huge swathes of information at the early stages when they are just checking us out. Because typically, we can then speak to a lot of the detail when we are talking to our ideal clients on a discovery call.

So to sum this one up, I’d say stick to what your ideal clients really need to know, in order to take that first step with you. So think about the information that you are communicating on your website. And is it essential that they know this information right at this early point? Or is it actually something that you can then discuss with the right ideal clients that come through to you to speak with you.

So number two, is having too many options on your website. And so this is kind of the rabbit caught in headlights effect. Too many choices lead to analysis paralysis. So have you ever heard the Aesop’s fable The Fox and the cat. So the fox and the cat and walking along one day and the fox proudly tells the cat that he knows more than the cat because he’s got, you know a huge number of tricks in his sack. But the cat only has one. And he says to the fox, it’s worth 1000 of the foxes tricks. But then in the distance they hear hunting hounds. And in one swift move, the cat jumps up into the nearest tree, but the fox with so many tricks, so many ideas for potential escape. He can’t decide which one to try first, and then the hounds arrive. And so while your website visitors, you know, won’t meet such a gruesome gory fate. The moral we can take from this story in relation to our websites is that less is more when it comes to options.

Whether that’s too many different calls to action on each page, or too many service offerings being showcased. It makes people question what the best option and the best pathway forward for them is. And when people feel confused, it leads to analysis paralysis, the ability to seek a solution or a course of action because it just feels too complicated. And when things feel too complicated, we tend to shut down. We tell ourselves things like, I’ll come back to that later. But we often don’t ever go back to it. Because we know it’s actually going to take us some brainpower to sit down and think it through. And so what happens is, we still got that problem. So we look elsewhere. And when we come across someone else that presents a simpler stack of options that makes it really easy for us to make a decision. Well, you can guess what happens. So what does this mean for your website, so think strategically about the calls to action you have on each page, focus on one main thing you want people to do, when it comes to your services, if you have many different options available, think about how you can streamline the ones that you showcase on your website.

So ask yourself questions like which services are the ones that are often the entry point for my ideal client, which are the services that I really want to focus on, which are the services I really want to be doing more of, and which are your most popular services, and then select those accordingly. Because we don’t actually need to showcase every single offer or service that we have. Because remember that people can inquire about one of the services we offer. And then in the course of our discussions and find out more about that person, you can, if the case arises as in, you think of a different one of your services that you’ve haven’t highlighted on your website, maybe that’s a better fit for your ideal client, you can make the suggestion for that service and talk it through with them, instead of overwhelming them with all the potential options upfront. So select a few of the services that encompass the overall type of services that you offer. So ideally, that the entry points for the different levels of your ideal client might be in. And then you use that as a springboard to then discuss and share other potential options that might be a really good fit for your client once they are on a call with you.

Number three is boring copy. Think about this for a minute, a quote I heard recently, and I just cannot for the life of me remember who said it? It was when was the last time you bought something after being bored by the copy? And I would say that probably you’re thinking I don’t think I ever have actually. So the answer is probably never right. It’s true, if your website, copy bores the pants off your visitor, it’s unlikely it’ll connect with them. It’s unlikely that it will captivate them and entice them to keep reading, which means they’re unlikely to take that next step with you. This doesn’t mean that your copy has to be blinged up to the max with flowery language, what it actually means is deeply understanding your ideal clients needs, hopes, desires, and being able to articulate those in a way that captures their interest and makes them feel that you really do see them and understand them because you do. And this type of copy is the kind of copy that deeply resonates with your visitors copy like this is never going to be boring to your ideal client.

So copy that speaks to your ideal client, and has them nodding their head along with it is the kind of copy that is never going to be boring to them. And so it will encourage them and captivate them to keep reading. Number four is injecting that personality into your copies and injecting your personality into the copy. And that doesn’t mean that you have to try and be something that you’re not in your copy. Let me just be clear on that. So what it means is you can just loosen up a little and use more conversational language, then, you know, we’ve been conditioned to use in the corporate sphere. Think about the way you talk when you’re having a conversation with a client that you really get on with that you feel relaxed to just chat away with. And I’m willing to bet that that conversation is not stiff and stuffy and full of jargon. So just allow yourself to write in a more conversational way and remove things like the jargon or extra words that really don’t add to any of the information and the point that you are trying to share.

Number four in these spooktacular ways to scare your visitors away is when your copy is all about you. If your website has copy, and it is written in a way that is all about you, instead of your ideal client, then it’s going to bore people, and it’s going to turn them away pretty quickly, they’re going to be running for those hills pretty quickly. So when a visitor comes to your website, they’re concerned with their own situation, they’re concerned with the challenge that they want to overcome. That’s why writing your copy, so it speaks directly to your ideal client and uses second person. So that’s from the ‘you’ perspective. That’s why it helps us to make our copy more about our ideal client than about us. So it helps us to flip it. And then when you’re writing your copy, placing your ideal client first and asking yourself, why is this important to them? And keep asking yourself the so what question? So what, why does this matter to my ideal client, and then cull anything that isn’t important to them. And of course, it’s always important to include information about us, it’s not about completely removing you, and your expertise, and your experience from your website, because people actually do want to get to know who we are. And whether we share similar values, whether they feel like they could get on with us and work with us. But think about presenting information about yourself in a way that explains why that information makes a difference to your ideal client, how it helps your ideal clients. Of course, weaving more of your own personality into your copy, as I spoke about in point three, also helps your visitor to get a really good idea of whether actually, they feel like you’re the kind of person who has got the kind of personality that they can gel with that they can vibe with.

Last but not least, is number five. And this is your website is confusing, because confusion never connects. And one of the biggest mistakes I see on many websites today is when people have tried to be too clever and creative with their copy that it actually becomes a distraction. It distracts from the message they’re trying to share and the points they’re trying to make. And what happens in these instances is that the reader so the visitor can lose focus, they either become confused about how that person can help them, or what’s in it for them. Or they aren’t clear on the next steps that they actually need to take. And as I spoke about earlier, if there’s so much information on the website that it kind of feels unwieldy, or overwhelming, that’s going to lead to inaction. So remember these sayings when you’re writing your copy, confusion leads to inaction. And always remember, clarity over cleverness, because as Jay Abraham once said,

“Sometimes the best copy to sell a horse is: horse for sale.”

Jay Abraham

It’s okay to keep things simple and clear. So take a look at your copy on your website and ask yourself, Is there anywhere I can make my copy clearer to reduce confusion?

So what do you think? Could your website be scaring away visitors? And are there some tips in here that you can use to improve the experience your ideal client has, when they’re on your website? Are there some tips that you can use to make it easier for your ideal client to make an informed decision? And take that next step with you? And I’d love to know your thoughts. Simply DM me via Instagram @hayleymaxwellwrites, and if you’re on Instagram and we haven’t connected already, hit that follow button and let’s connect and let’s chat. As always, if you’ve enjoyed this episode, and want easy access to my episodes when they drop, simply follow or subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast player. And until next time, go forth and be fierce





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