Short answer. Say who you serve, where you serve them, what you do, and what happens after someone gets in touch. Say it on the page where they land, in the words a customer would use. If a visitor has to open three pages to work that out, the copy is the problem, not the design.
What a visitor needs in the first screen
A person arriving from a search or a listing has one question: is this the right place for what I need? The first screen should answer it without scrolling.
- Who it is for. “Family dentistry for North Shore households” says more than “a warm, welcoming practice”.
- Where. The neighbourhood, the city, or the service area. Not “across the region”.
- What to do next. One clear action. If there are two equal buttons, most people pick neither.
On the North Shore, someone who has already crossed a bridge for an appointment shouldn’t also have to guess which entrance to use. That kind of detail belongs on the page, near the top.
One page, one job
Most small business sites try to make the home page do everything. It ends up describing the business in general terms and answering nothing in particular.
Give each page one job:
- The home page says what the business is and points to the right next page.
- A service page explains one service: who it is for, what is included, what you need from the customer, what happens next.
- A location page covers one location: address, hours, how to get there, who works there, which services are offered from it.
If two pages could answer the same question, decide which one is the answer and link the other to it. Duplicate pages make customers, and search engines, guess.
Details that have to match everywhere
For a business with more than one location, this is where copy quietly goes wrong. The name, address, phone number, hours and service area appear on the website, on the Google listing, on social profiles and in directories. When they disagree, customers notice before anyone on your team does.
Pick one written version of each detail and copy it exactly. When something changes (a new phone number, holiday hours, a moved door), change it in every place the same day. A short shared document your team can find is enough.
Words to cut
Some phrases take up space and tell the reader nothing: “quality service”, “tailored approach”, “passionate team”, “we go above and beyond”. Every competitor says them, so they don’t help a customer choose.
Replace each with something a customer could check:
- Instead of “quality service”, say what happens: “We confirm the quote in writing before work starts.”
- Instead of “experienced team”, say how long, doing what: “Our technicians have serviced heating systems in older North Shore homes for more than ten years.” (Only if it’s true and you can stand behind it.)
- Instead of a generic “reach out today”, say what the reader gets: “Send us the address and a photo of the problem. We’ll reply with what we need to know next.”
Side by side
Say something a customer can check
| Instead of | Say |
|---|---|
| Quality service | We confirm the quote in writing before work starts. |
| Experienced team | Our technicians have serviced heating systems in older North Shore homes for more than ten years. |
| Reach out today | Send us the address and a photo of the problem. We’ll reply with what we need to know next. |
Examples from this article. Only claim what is true and you can stand behind.
A five-minute check on your own pages
Open your most visited service or location page and read only the first screen. Then answer:
Checklist
Your first screen, in five questions
- Could a stranger say who this is for?
- Is the location or service area stated?
- Is there one obvious next step?
- Do the name, address, phone number and hours match your Google listing exactly?
- Is there a sentence a competitor could copy word for word? If so, rewrite it with a specific detail.
Long Square Studio.
An example, not a client: a two-location physiotherapy practice finds that its home page describes “personalized care” while the Burnaby page lists old hours and the North Vancouver page doesn’t say which services are offered there. Nothing on the site is wrong in a way that shows up in a design review. The fix is copy: one clear line on the home page, one accurate page per location, and the same hours everywhere.
A few common questions
How much does website copywriting cost?
It depends on how many pages, how much your team can supply, and whether the writing includes interviews and revisions. We don’t publish prices. We agree the scope in writing before any work starts.
Should I use AI to write my website copy?
It can help with a first draft, but it doesn’t know your locations, your customers or what you actually do. Anything it writes should be checked against your real details by someone who knows the business before it goes live.
When it’s worth getting help
Write it yourself if you have one location, one main service and time to keep it current. Get help when the pages disagree with each other, when you’re adding a location or a service, or when nobody on your team owns the words on the site.
We start by reading the pages your customers actually land on, listing what’s unclear or out of date, and picking the one fix that matters most. If that sounds useful, start an inquiry.
