This is Part 3 in a seven part series on copy writing for the web. Read also: Parts One and Two.

You Know More Than I Do

A very common mistake on business websites is to use jargon, buzzwords and gratuitous wording to explain things that should be quite simple. As an expert in your field, you surely know a lot more about what you’re talking about than many of your customers or prospects do. Unless you’re an engineer selling to engineers, cut down on the industry-insider speak, and explain things in a language that the “lowest common denominator” of customer can understand. By lowest common denominator, I mean the people who know the least about you, and need to have things explained. I’ll talk more more about how to appease several different types of visitors with different needs later in this series, but for now just recognize that not everyone understands (or gives a rat’s ass) about the industry-specific language you use to describe what you do or what you sell. Speak in words that they’ll understand, and you’ll have way better success.

Eliminating the ‘Gobbledygook’

I was forwarded an item recently by a peer in the realm of web content, David Meerman Scott, who shares most of my beliefs about web content, and the future of public relations. David prepared this insightful (and at times, quite funny) post about the most over-used words and phrases in press releases today, in effort to train people not to use them.

Although he’s speaking about press releases, the same rules apply. Shake it up a bit. Be interesting, and be easy easy to understand, without empty phrases that are used by everyone but mean nothing at all.

He calls these all-too-popular-yet-grossly-overused terms “Gobbledygook.” Excerpted from his post:

Your buyers (and the media that cover your company) want to know what specific problems your product solves, and they want proof that it works—in plain language. Your marketing and PR is meant to be the beginning of a relationship with buyers and to drive action (such as generating sales leads), which requires a focus on buyer problems. Your buyers want to hear this in their own words. Every time you write—yes, even in news releases—you have an opportunity to communicate. At each stage of the sales process, well written materials will help your buyers understand how you, specifically, will help them.

He also created an analysis tool, and his post includes a graph of the most hilariously useless phrases, and their usage in over 388, 000 press releases in 2006 alone:

(Click image to enlarge)

If I had to guess, I’d say that if you included the use of these terms on all websites, the numbers would be so staggering that we’d fall over laughing. Plus, who wants to be “industry standard,” when you can be different?

Tags: marketing, content, copywriting, writing, webcopy