Most projects run like this: the design is signed off, the build is ready, and then “the content” is still missing. Hire someone to write at that point and you often get a solid result for a page whose job nobody ever defined. This article describes the process in the order that actually works — and how to judge a draft without correcting the life out of it.
Why structure comes before the first sentence
You cannot write a page whose job is undefined. Before the first sentence exists, three things have to be settled: who lands here, what question they arrive with, and what should happen next. Take any one of those away and the copy turns generic — not because the writer is weak, but because nothing else is available to them.
An example: a service page meant to serve new customers and existing ones, private clients and companies, all at once, inevitably ends up with wording that is just about true for all four. That is why so many business websites sound alike even though the businesses behind them work very differently.
- Who is this page written for — one group, not three
- What question does that reader arrive with, and where did they come from (search, a referral, a business card)
- What is the single action they should take afterwards
Those three lines per page are the real brief. We put them in a table before any writing starts, page by page, and have them signed off. It takes an hour, and it saves the two rounds of revisions that otherwise go into working out what the page was supposed to be about.
What a writer needs from you
The honest answer: not your current website. The raw material for good website copy is your real sales conversations.
You have the same conversation every week. You explain why your quote is higher than the competitor’s. You take apart the same three doubts. You say the one sentence that makes the customer nod. That conversation is the page. It has already been written — it just is not on the website yet.
- The three objections you answer most often on the phone — word for word, not summarised
- The question nearly every enquiry opens with
- The reason the last few prospects went elsewhere
- Two jobs that went really well, and what they had in common
- What you do not do, even though people keep asking
- Your prices — or at least the logic that produces them
The last point is the most uncomfortable and the most effective. A page that stays silent on price generates enquiries whose only purpose is to find out the price. A page that states it, or at least shows how it is calculated, generates fewer enquiries and more work.
That is why a copy project starts with a conversation of roughly an hour, going through exactly those points while someone takes notes. Fill in a questionnaire instead and you send back answers in marketing language. In conversation you talk the way you talk to customers — and that is the template.
Describing the company, or answering the reader’s question
The biggest difference between copy that works and copy that does not is which way it faces. One text describes the business. The other answers what the reader wants to know before getting in touch.
A ten-second test: read your opening paragraph and look for one single piece of information a reader could verify, or compare against a competitor. If there is none, the paragraph is describing the company. That is not a style problem but an information problem — which is why better wording will not fix it.
| Weak phrasing | Better phrasing | Why |
|---|---|---|
| “We offer tailor-made solutions.” | “We build fitted kitchens for period flats with walls that are not straight.” | “Solutions” describes every company. The second sentence describes exactly one — and speaks to exactly the people with that problem. |
| “Quality and reliability come first with us.” | “If we book a date, we come on that date. If something goes wrong, we call before eight.” | Reliability is a claim. A promise you can be measured against is a statement. |
| “Contact us for a no-obligation quote.” | “Send us two photos of the room. You get a price by the next working day.” | A quote is not an event, it is a process. The reader wants to know what they do and what happens after. |
| “We are your competent partner for all things heating.” | “We service and replace gas boilers. We do not do new-build planning.” | A sentence saying what is out of scope makes the rest credible — and spares both sides enquiries that were never going to fit. |
| “Fair prices.” | “No call-out charge inside town. The first hour is a flat rate, everything after that in quarter-hour steps.” | “Fair” is the supplier’s own assessment. A billing logic is something the reader can judge for themselves. |
Note what the right-hand column is not: more creative. It is more specific. Good website copy rarely comes from better words, it comes from more information. Which is exactly why a writer who learns nothing about your business is stuck with generic sentences, however talented they are.
What a copy project actually looks like
- Structure: a page list with the three lines per page — reader, question, action. Signed off before anything is written.
- Conversation: about an hour on your customers, objections, prices and boundaries. Notes are taken.
- A first draft of one single page: usually the most important service page, not the home page. This is where the tone gets settled.
- Your feedback on that one page — on substance first, not on style.
- The remaining pages in the agreed tone, plus page titles and descriptions for the search results.
- One collected round of revisions across everything.
Step three is the one clients most want to skip. Writing a single page and then waiting feels slow. It is still the cheapest part of the process: a tone that is off on one page is fixed in an hour. The same tone across twelve pages costs a full second pass.
The home page comes last for the same reason. It is a summary of everything else. Write it first and you write it twice.
What website copy costs — and what drives it
The price ranges floating around online are not much help, because they compare different things. It is more useful to know the billing models: they explain why two quotes can be far apart without either one being dubious.
| Model | What is billed | What drives the price |
|---|---|---|
| Per page | A fixed amount per page | The number of pages. Getting up to speed happens once but is paid for through every page |
| Per project | One amount for all the copy | Scope and the number of agreed revision rounds. Getting up to speed only counts once |
| By time spent | The hours actually needed | How clear the brief is. Without a page structure, thinking time is billed by the hour |
| Included in the website project | Not a separate line item | The size of the website, not the copy on its own |
The main cost driver is the same under all four models: an unclear brief. Start without a page structure and you pay for thinking that should have happened before the writing — and you pay for it at the most expensive moment, in revision rounds.
With us the copy is not a separate line item. It belongs to the website project and sits inside the fixed price agreed before we start: Standard at 1.250 € for up to five pages in two to four weeks, Pro at 2.100 € for up to ten pages plus a blog in four to six weeks. Larger projects are quoted individually.
There is a practical reason for that: keeping structure, copy and build in one place removes the round where finished text meets a layout it was never written for. It also has a downside worth knowing — if you only need copy and not a new website, a dedicated copywriter serves you better. The first consultation is free even when it ends with that sentence.
Reviewing a draft without wrecking it
The most reliable way to ruin good copy is a well-meant review round with four people in it. Each of them deletes whatever strikes them as too blunt. What is left is a text nobody objects to and nobody reads.
Two rules prevent that. First: one person decides, everyone else comments. Second: correct what is wrong, not what you would have phrased differently.
- Is every fact right: services, processes, timings, responsibilities, locations
- Is anything claimed that you could not back up if challenged? Cut superlatives and unsupported figures
- Does the page answer the question the reader arrived with, before they scroll at all
- Is it clear what the reader should do next — one action, not three side by side
- Would you say this sentence out loud on the phone? If not, it is either too stiff or too grand
Three edits feel like improvements and cost you effect every time: lengthening sentences to make them more polite. Replacing something specific with something general so as not to “commit too much”. Adding industry terms your customers never use, only your trade does.
Useful feedback sounds like this: “I never hear that objection, but I get this one constantly.” Useless feedback sounds like this: “I am not quite feeling it.” The first kind can be acted on, the second cannot — it only produces a variant that fits exactly as well or badly as the first.
AI-written copy: a usable start, an unusable finish
Text generators are a good tool against the blank screen. In minutes they give you an outline, a first pass and ten versions of a headline. That is worth more than sceptics admit, and there is nothing wrong with starting that way.
They still do not make a finished page, and the reason is factual rather than stylistic: the model does not know your objections, your prices or your customers. It writes very well but cannot add anything that is not already somewhere online. That missing piece — your specific knowledge — is the only part of the text your competitor does not also have.
In practice: use a model for structure, for subheadings, for a second opinion on a paragraph that will not move. Supply the substance yourself. A page produced without your involvement reads smoothly and says nothing, and readers notice that faster than they realise.
If you write it yourself
The most honest sentence on this topic argues against our own offer: if you write your own copy and it is honest and specific, it beats polished copy from someone who has never spoken to your customers. Elegant language does not replace knowledge. Knowledge replaces elegance surprisingly often.
A method that works without any writing talent: right after your next sales conversation, write down what you said. Type it up. Delete everything that only applied to that one customer. What remains is the raw text of your service page — in your language, with your examples, with the objections in the order they really come.
Then three passes, no more: shorten the paragraphs, add subheadings, and delete every sentence that could sit unchanged on your competitor’s website. The last pass matters most — and it is the only one nobody can do for you without your involvement.
Frequently asked questions about website copy
There is no correct number. A contact page manages with a few sentences; a service page needs as much as it takes to answer the usual questions and objections. More useful than a word count is checking whether anything is still open after reading that would stop the reader from calling.
Often in part. Technical passages, descriptions of how you work and answers to genuine customer questions are usually usable. What normally gets rewritten are the opening paragraphs and anything that describes the company instead of addressing the reader. Also check every figure and every date before it moves across.
Ideally that is the same job. Optimising copy for search mostly means picking up the question in the words it is searched in, and answering it fully. Nobody can credibly promise you a particular position for that — anyone who does should make you suspicious.
The writing is rarely the bottleneck. With us it runs inside the project timeline: two to four weeks for up to five pages, four to six weeks for up to ten pages plus a blog. What actually delays projects is outstanding feedback and information only you have.
Then it is almost always because an assumption about your customers was wrong, not because of the style. That is exactly why only one page is written first: it can be sorted out there at manageable cost. Say specifically which statement is not true — a better text comes out of that.
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