Writing like a business people actually trust
Almost every local business website is written in the same voice, and it is nobody's. Here is how to sound like the person who will turn up on Tuesday.
- The house style of local business websites — bespoke solutions, passion for quality, second to none — is interchangeable and therefore worthless.
- Replace every adjective with a number, a name or a date. "Live in five working days" beats "fast turnaround" because it can be checked.
- Write the way you talk on a job. Read it aloud; if you would not say it standing in someone's kitchen, cut it.
- Answer the question they are too polite to ask — usually about price, mess, or how long you will be in the house.
- Saying what you do not do is one of the strongest trust signals available, and almost nobody uses it.
Open five local building company websites and you will read the same page five times.
We pride ourselves on delivering bespoke solutions tailored to your needs. With over 20 years of experience, our passion for quality is second to none. From initial consultation to final handover, we work closely with you every step of the journey.
Four sentences. Nothing in them. Every one could be moved to a competitor's website without alteration, which is the definitive proof that they carry no information at all.
If a competitor could paste your sentence onto their site unchanged, it is doing nothing for you.
Why does everyone write like this?
Because it is safe. Nobody was ever criticised for saying they were passionate about quality. It is the written equivalent of a suit — it removes the risk of getting it wrong, and with it any possibility of being noticed.
It also comes from a misunderstanding about what a website is for. Owners imagine a browsing audience needing to be impressed. The actual reader is a specific person with a specific problem and three tabs open, and she is not evaluating your passion. She is trying to find out whether you do wet rooms, whether you come to Oxshott, what it will cost, and how long you will be in her house.
The single rule that fixes most of it
Replace every adjective with a number, a name or a date.
"Live in five working days, and you get the date before you pay anything."
"Esher, Cobham, Weybridge, Walton, Oxshott and Guildford. Further out, ask."
"Five pages, £499 plus VAT. Everything we charge is on the pricing page."
"Daniel takes every first call. He has been doing this for twenty-five years."
The right-hand column is not more clever. It is checkable, which is the entire difference. A claim that can be verified is evidence. A claim that cannot is decoration.
Write the way you talk on a job
The most useful test available: read the page aloud. If you would not say the sentence standing in somebody's kitchen with a mug in your hand, take it out.
You would never say "we pride ourselves on delivering bespoke solutions". You would say "we'll come and have a look and tell you straight". That second sentence is better writing by every measure that matters — it is shorter, it is specific about what happens next, and it sounds like a person.
This is also, incidentally, why so much website copy fails after it is handed to an agency. The agency writes in the register it believes a business should use. The business would never speak that way, and the mismatch is audible on the first phone call.
Answer the question they are too polite to ask
Every trade has three or four. They are asked on the phone constantly and appear on almost no websites, because they feel slightly awkward to raise.
- What does it actually cost? The one everybody wants and almost nobody answers. Even a range, with what moves it, puts you ahead of every competitor hiding behind a form.
- How much mess, and for how long? The thing people privately dread. Say it plainly: which days are the bad ones, whether they can use the kitchen, when the skip arrives.
- What happens if it goes wrong? Answer this and you have addressed the fear underneath every other question on the page.
- Why is one quote half the other? If you are the more expensive one, explaining this on your website does more for you than any amount of talk about quality.
Say what you do not do
The most underused sentence in local business writing, and among the most persuasive.
"We do not do commercial work." "We do not take on jobs under £2,000, because we cannot do them properly at that price." "We do not sell paid advertising before month four."
Every one of those costs you an enquiry you did not want and gains you credibility with the reader who remains. A business that says no to something is a business making choices — and a business making choices is one you can predict, which is the whole thing the reader is trying to establish.
It is also, and this is the useful part, extremely easy to write. You already know what you do not do. Nobody ever thinks to put it on the page.
Questions we get asked
How should a local business write its website copy?
The way the owner talks to a customer standing in their kitchen. Short sentences, specific facts, named towns, real prices, and the questions people actually ask answered directly. Read it aloud — anything you would not say out loud should not be on the page.
What words should I avoid on my website?
Bespoke, solutions, passion, journey, seamless, cutting-edge, second to none, and any sentence beginning "we pride ourselves on". None of them carry information, all of them appear on your competitors' sites, and collectively they make businesses indistinguishable.
Should I write my own website copy?
You should supply the substance — the prices, the process, the questions you get asked, the things that go wrong and how you handle them. Whether you write the final words yourself matters less than whether they contain your actual answers rather than generic reassurance.
How long should website copy be?
Long enough to answer the questions somebody has before ringing you, and no longer. For most local service pages that is 400 to 800 words. Length itself is not a ranking factor worth chasing; unanswered questions cost you enquiries.
What is the most persuasive thing to put on a service page?
A price, or a starting price with what moves it. It is the question everyone has, almost nobody answers, and publishing it filters out enquiries you would have lost anyway while making you conspicuously more straightforward than the alternatives.