Hate Your Website Content? Here’s the First Step to Fixing It.

I hate my website content.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever said it. I see a lot of hands, including mine.

Part of the reason why many of us poo-poo our website content so quickly is because we see it more than anyone else. We get bored with it.

As a writer, I constantly nitpick every word on my website. I have to force myself to resist the urge to constantly change things. I have to remind myself that I wrote it this way for a reason.

When I look at my website content objectively from the perspective of a visitor, I actually think it’s pretty damn good. And it’s making me money, which is the most important thing.

That’s the difference between bad website content and website content that we’ve read too many times.

Bad website content is bad because it doesn’t do its job. It doesn’t convert visitors into leads. It doesn’t help people find us on Google. It doesn’t clearly convey what we do, why we do it, the value of what we do, and results of what we do. It does nothing to differentiate us from the competition.

In most cases, bad website content is bad because it sounds like what people have been conditioned to believe is “good marketing.”

Remember, if your website content looks like marketing and sounds like marketing, it’s probably bad marketing.

If you really want to fix your website content, stop trying to sound like “good marketing.”

Stop focusing, at least for now, on products, services, processes, benefits and results. If your website content is bad, it probably doesn’t have much to do with the facts. Inaccuracies are the easiest things to correct anyay.

Take a long, hard look at who you are and why you do what you do. Think about how you feel about your company or product. Think about what you want other people to feel when they think about your company or product.

Say what you feel out loud. Write those feelings down. Better yet, use the audio or voice recorder app on your phone or tablet so you can just speak freely without pausing to take notes.

Although you’ll probably rattle off something that you can actually use in your website content, these thoughts and feelings don’t have to make sense or flow into perfectly constructed sentences. Actually, if it makes too much sense or sounds too perfect at this stage of the game, it means you’re probably trying too hard to sound like marketing.

At this point, you’re just letting it fly. Notice that I didn’t use the word “marketing” anywhere in this self-examination process. The goal is to get your raw emotions, feelings and thoughts out of your heart and brain so you can review and organize them later.

I know what you’re thinking.

What’s next? Should we gather in a circle, hold hands, and sing Kumbaya?

No, smartass.

Then what’s all this talk about feelings?

More often than not, website content is bad because the business owner or marketing director lost sight of why they do what they do, and what people expect of their company. Instead, they focus on superficial details instead of their core purpose.

That’s why it’s important to get these thoughts and feelings out on the table. After all, effective website content is driven by emotion and the ability to make an emotional connection.

Fixing bad website content requires you to make sure your purpose is aligned with your business operations, and your business operations are aligned with the needs of your target audience and how you want them to perceive your company.

It does no good to rewrite content if these things aren’t aligned. If you say or promise one thing in your website content and do or deliver something else, your content is nothing but a big lie. And your content is the least of your problems.

If your company’s purpose and operations are aligned with your target audience’s needs and perceptions, you can start thinking in terms of the words that actually appear on your website.

What can you say to support and reinforce why you do what you do and the value you deliver? What can you say to shape perceptions about your business?

Then you can begin to weave in information about products, services, processes, benefits and results in a way that stays true to your purpose and is relevant to your audience.

When you dig deeper into what truly drives your business, you won’t end up with website content that sounds like what you’ve been conditioned to believe website content should sound like.

And that’s a good thing.

What you will end up with is website content that’s real, authentic and powerful. Content that conveys value beyond price. Content that’s meaningful to your target audience.

This kind of website content does more than convert leads into sales and helps people find you on Google. It defines who you are as a company, both internally and in the minds of your clients. It builds trust and confidence.

And it makes people more willing to hand you money for a product or service than your competition.

If you hate your website content and need help fixing it, please contact me and I’ll help you figure out the best plan of attack.