Your web content is like all the rest — and here’s why

You’ve got 10 seconds — 20 tops.

In those precious seconds, if I can’t easily find messaging on your website that clearly explains the service your business provides, I’m moving on.

It’s that simple. Then again, I suppose it isn’t.

Confused and frustrated customers “bounce” all the time. Me? I do it as a consumer and especially as a content writer. Verifying third-party information starts with a background search of the source. Too often, I’m hunting for the answer to a straightforward question:

“What does your business do?”

More often than not, those 10 to 20 seconds expire. And if I happen to stumble upon the answer, or the closest thing to it, the message is frequently bogged down by industry jargon that requires decoding.

Remember how I feel about big words? The same holds true for buzzwords.

The ex-journalist in me loves a good quote. Albert Einstein has an all-timer: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

I mentioned that famous Einstein-ism recently. It was while speaking with an exceptionally smart individual who enjoyed 40-plus highly successful years in sales and marketing: My dad. Now retired, his distinguished career spans decades with mega-corporations and mid-sized businesses alike. He’ll forget more about effective messaging than I’ll ever know.

He is a hell of a resource.

For years, he has said, “A website is the window through which the world sees and evaluates your business. If it’s cluttered with look-alike messaging and buzzwords, your real uniqueness is unclear.”

Our ongoing conversation about marketing focused on my frustration with websites that (a.) have content, but (b.) little to no insight.

Many marketers, I’ve come to learn, fall into the trap of crafting “inward-facing” content for an external audience. In other words, they create complicated messages that give the illusion of expertise within the walls where they work.

You see the problem, right? They’re aiming at the wrong target and, as a result, missing the mark.

“All too often, companies develop buzzword website messaging that speaks from the inside out,” my dad says. “They need to think like the customer and present content that looks from the outside in.”

Content needs to resonate with customers, and speak to their challenges, needs and concerns in a voice they understand. It should entice them to learn more, not run for the proverbial (digital) door.

And nothing sends them running like the same ol’, same ol’.

“Buzzwords ring hollow to visitors searching to solve their problems,” my dad says.

A short time ago, I spoke with a friend who acknowledged that the messaging on his company’s site left a lot to be desired. He said what I was thinking after taking a 10-second peek: Entirely too much effort was required to identify the message and, yes, make sense of it.

I asked him to take part in an exercise: Pretend we’re meeting up for a drink and talking about our jobs. In your own words, what is the 25-word, two-sentence boilerplate statement that sums up your business?

He took his best crack at it. His attempt made more sense than anything appearing on the website. Of course, he went well past the word count, which again brought Einstein’s rule to mind.

I then asked him to apply a trick my dad taught me: Pretend to remove your company’s name from the site. Replace it with the branding of your biggest competitor. If you didn’t know better, could you tell whose site you were searching?

Countless companies struggle with differentiation. In private conversations with some really intelligent people, I’ve been told that the struggle stems from “the messengers” not really knowing (or at least being able to articulate) the value their business adds.

So they contribute to the clutter rather than cut through it.

Does this sound familiar? The good news is you have the power to make your message relevant, informative and compelling.

The first step is to answer that “simple” question: What does your business do?

I’ll go easy and give you the full 20 seconds. Starting… now.