Confused about what copy to write for your website? This blog post will help you with the first thing your site visitors will see – the intro copy.

Disclaimer: It feels a little odd to explain to writers what they should be writing, but don’t be offended, websites have rules and guidelines of their own and there’s no reason why you should know them. Bear in mind, also, that rules and guidelines are sometimes better broken. The following advice is standard for websites, but there’s nothing stopping you from doing your own thing and I’m not here to stifle your creativity. It’s your website, so it’s up to you. When writing your website copy, however, it might be worth considering the advice below.

A portfolio website is a showcase of your work, but if it’s also a sales page (meaning you want visitors to ‘buy’ your services or hire you) your copy should follow the same rules as any other marketing content. It needs to be search engine friendly as well as clear and to the point. It should immediately tell the reader who you are, what you do and what you can do for them.

You might be tempted to write something creative and poetic such as:

“I am a health and nutrition word alchemist. I take words and weave them into a golden apple that motivates and inspires.” 

(Terrible, I know, but I’ve heard much worse.) You really wouldn’t say this to someone to describe what you do, so I’d seriously recommend a rewrite. A good technique is to imagine you’ve just met someone at a networking event full of potential new work and they’ve asked you what you do. There’s no way you’d say: “I’m a word alchemist that weaves golden apples.” Your answer would be in one or two sentences and it would describe how you can help the person you’re talking to. For the golden apple weaver, it would be something like:

“I’m a health journalist specialising in nutrition. I help people to create a life-transforming set-and-forget healthy food plan that takes as little effort as possible.”> 

 Aed(I made this up but I need this – anyone?) Notice how this intro copy also includes words people will be typing into Google to find you?

‘Health journalist‘ ‘health‘ and ‘nutrition‘ ‘healthy food plan‘.

This helps your ranking on Google. The higher you rank, the easier you are to find – important if you’re using search engine marketing to reach your audience. If you’re not bothered about search engines and if referrals, word of mouth or social media are how you get work, your header copy should still always immediately explain who you are, what you do and the benefit to your reader.

Unless you’re world famous. Then you can put absolutely anything you want.

There are other exceptions, of course, and it depends on the rest of the content on your site and what your domain name is. Environmental journalist Anna Turns, for example, has the web address www.environmentaljournalist.co.uk and that tells a story in itself. It describes exactly what she does, so she has room to be a little creative with her site’s headline. For some time Anna chose the website headline: “National and regional stories from the coast to the kitchen.” The two worked well together and looked professional but without her web address explaining up front what she does the headline alone would have been confusing for many of her visitors. Anna has now changed her headline to simply: “Environmental journalist,” to keep it simple. Either works well.

There’s an article coming on choosing your domain name (web adress) very shortly. Sign up to get updates here if you want to get a notification.