Rewrite each main page to open with the customer's situation and questions, then bring in the business as the answer. Keep the history and values, but move them down the page or onto the about page.

Read the first screen aloud

Open your home page and read the first screen aloud. Count the sentences that begin with we or our.

On many small business sites, nearly all of them do. We were founded in 2006. Our team of experienced professionals. We pride ourselves on quality. Our mission is to exceed expectations.

None of it is false, and none of it is wrong to say. But the visitor arrived with a problem of their own, and the page is talking about someone else.

They have to translate every sentence into what it means for them, and most will not bother.

Why owners write this way

An owner knows the business from the inside: the history, the equipment, the values, the hard early years. Asked for words for the website, that is what comes to mind.

It also feels safer. A paragraph about the business is easy to write and hard to dispute, while writing about the customer means guessing what they want.

And many small sites copy the structure of large companies, whose pages can afford to talk about themselves because everyone already knows what they do.

The signs

The third is the easiest to fix, because the content is already there. A list of machines or certificates becomes persuasive the moment each is tied to something the customer gets.

What the visitor is asking

A visitor arrives in a situation. Something broke, a deadline is close, the kitchen table has turned into an office.

Their questions follow from it: whether you can help, what it will cost, how long it will take, what happens next, and why they should trust you.

A page written from their side opens with that situation, in words they would use, and answers those questions in roughly that order.

Turning each fact around

Most pages written from the inside do not need new facts. They need each fact turned around.

Take each sentence about the business and ask what it means for the customer. Open seven days a week becomes come in on Sunday, when your own office is closed.

Twenty years in business becomes still here when your warranty needs honouring. Certified technicians becomes work that passes inspection the first time.

If a fact means nothing to the customer, it may not belong on that page at all.

A worked example

A coworking space above a row of shops in a suburban town centre had a home page that opened with its founders' story: two friends, years of working in coffee shops, a vision of community.

The amenities came next: fast internet, good chairs, a kitchen, two meeting rooms, a phone booth. Prices were on a separate page.

Callers kept asking the same three things: whether they could come for just a day, book a meeting room without joining, or have their mail sent there.

The rewrite opened with three short headings in the callers' own terms: getting work done away from home, meeting a client somewhere professional, and a business address that is not your house.

Under each came the answer, a price and a way to try it, starting with a free first day. The phone booth now sits under meeting clients, and the internet under getting work done.

The founders' story moved to the about page, cut to a paragraph.

Where the history belongs

History is not useless. It answers one real question: will this business still be around when I need it again?

Use it where that question comes up: a line near the guarantee, the year in the footer, a short story on the about page for the few who want it.

Values work the same way. Saying you care about quality persuades nobody. Showing what happens when a job goes wrong does the persuading for you.

We is not banned

The fix is not to strip every we from the page. Some of the best sentences on any site are promises in the first person: we call back within the hour, we clean up before we leave.

What matters is whose situation each sentence serves. A promise about how the customer will be treated serves them. A sentence about the founder's passion serves the founder.

After each paragraph, ask whether a visitor could say what it means for them. If not, rewrite it or move it.

Headings carry most of it

Most visitors read the headings and the first line under each, and little else, so that is where the rewrite matters most.

A heading that names a situation, such as replacing a part that is no longer made, catches the person in it. A heading that names a department, such as our services, catches nobody.

The first screen of the home page needs the same treatment: who it is for, what problem it solves, where, and what to do next.

An outside ear helps

Owners find this rewrite hard for the same reason they wrote the first version: they see the business from inside.

Someone outside, such as a writer who works on websites, can listen to the phone for a morning or interview a few customers and hear the situations in the customers' own words. Those words make the best headings.

The counter-case

Some pages are rightly about the business. The about page is one, and a careers page speaks to applicants about the employer.

Some businesses are their founder: a chef, a designer, a lawyer with a particular reputation. There the person is part of what the customer is buying, and their story earns more room.

Even then, the main pages work best when they start with the customer's situation and bring the business in as the answer.

Rewriting one page

  1. Pick the page that gets the most visits.
  2. Count the sentences that start with we or our.
  3. List three situations customers arrive in.
  4. Open with those situations in their own words.
  5. Turn each fact into what it means for them.
  6. Move the company history to the about page.
  7. Read it aloud to a customer.

Step three is what changes the writing. Once the situations are down in the customer's words, the page has somewhere to start other than the founding year.

What a returning visitor needs to find on that page is covered in writing for the customer's second visit.

Frequently asked questions

Why do so many pages talk about the business?

Owners know the business from the inside, so history and values come to mind first. Writing about the business also feels safer than guessing what customers want.

Should I remove every we from the site?

No. First-person promises, such as calling back within the hour, serve the customer. Cut the sentences that serve only the business, like a mission statement.

Where does our history belong on the site?

On the about page, kept short, plus a line wherever a customer might wonder whether you will still be around, such as near the guarantee.

How do I find my customers' situations?

Listen to the phone for a morning, read old enquiry emails, or ask a few customers what was happening when they first looked you up.

What should the top of the home page say?

Who the business is for, what problem it solves, where it works, and what to do next, all written from the visitor's side.

Which page should be rewritten first?

The one with the most visits, usually the home page or the main service page. Start with headings and first lines, since many visitors read little else.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Home page that opens with your history?

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