If you can’t explain why customers should choose you, your website can’t either
Someone lands on your website.
They understand what you do.
They can see the services you offer.
But so can they on three other websites they’ve just looked at.
So why should they choose you?
If that’s difficult to answer, your website has a problem.
But it probably isn’t a website problem.
Your website can only work with what you give it
It’s easy to blame the copy when a website isn’t making the business feel different enough.
So you rewrite the headline.
Change a few words.
Add another section explaining what you do.
But if you haven’t worked out why somebody should choose your business in the first place, the website can’t invent the answer for you.
It can only communicate what’s already there.
And if the answer is vague, the website will be vague too.
Being good at what you do isn’t enough
You care about your customers.
You provide a great service.
You’re experienced, reliable and professional.
All important.
But your competitors are probably saying exactly the same things.
The customer isn’t sitting there trying to decide whether you’re good.
They’re trying to decide which business feels like the right choice for them.
If every business sounds broadly the same, price, familiarity, or whoever responds first can end up making the decision for them.
The problem usually starts before the website
This is why jumping straight into website copy can be a mistake.
Before deciding what the homepage should say, you need to be clear about the business behind it.
- Who are you actually trying to attract?
- What matters to those customers?
- What do you do particularly well?
- Where are you different?
- And why should any of that matter to the person considering buying from you?
Get those things clear, and the website has something useful to communicate.
Without them, you’re asking the website to solve a positioning problem with words and design.
Customers shouldn’t have to work out the difference themselves
Potential customers aren’t going to study your website looking for subtle reasons to choose you.
They’re comparing.
Quickly.
If the difference between you and everybody else is buried across several pages, implied rather than stated or only becomes obvious once somebody speaks to you, you’re making their decision harder.
And when choosing you feels difficult, choosing somebody else becomes easier.
Your website needs to help people understand not just what you do, but why you’re the right choice for them.
Clarity gives the website something to work with
This isn’t about coming up with a clever strapline or manufacturing a USP because somebody told you every business needs one.
It’s about getting clear on what genuinely makes the business valuable to the customers you want.
Once that’s clear, it starts influencing everything.
- What you lead with.
- What you leave out.
- How you describe your services.
- What proof you show.
- The questions you answer.
- And the journey you create through the website.
The website becomes easier to build because you’re no longer asking it to work out what the business is trying to say.
Before you rewrite the website, get clear on why they should choose you
If your website explains what you do but still doesn’t make the business feel like the obvious choice, don’t automatically assume you need better copy or another redesign.
Start further back.
Can you clearly explain why the customers you want should choose you?
If you can’t, your website won’t be able to either.
Not quite clear on the answer?
That’s exactly what the Brand Clarity Sprint is designed to work through.
We look at your audience, positioning, what makes the business different and what customers actually need to understand before they choose you.
Because once that’s clear, everything you say about the business becomes easier.
