The most common reason a website misses its launch date isn't technical. The design is done, the code is done, the hosting is paid for — and seven empty pages are waiting for text.
It's happened often enough that I now raise content in the first meeting rather than the week before launch. It's the usual bottleneck on a project, and it's also the part nobody can do on your behalf. The code is my job. The content is yours — nobody knows your business better than you do.
What follows is a practical plan: what has to be on the site, how to write it, and what to avoid.
The sections a site can't work without
Not every business needs all of them. But there's a core set, and without it a visitor has no way to make a decision.
The home page
It has to answer three questions before anyone scrolls: what you do, who you do it for, and what they should do next.
The usual mistake is a headline that says nothing. "Tailored solutions for your business" fits any company in any industry, so it means nothing. "Fitted kitchens — design, build and installation" tells someone immediately whether they're in the right place.
About
After the home page this is usually the most-visited page on the site. People want to know who they'd be dealing with.
It should cover:
- who you are — briefly, but specifically
- why you do this work
- what separates you from the three other firms nearby doing the same thing
- experience: how long, how many projects, what kind
- a photograph, if you're a one-person business. A good one, but a human one — not stock
The typical failure is annual-report language: "The company was founded in year X and specialises in areas Y and Z." Formally correct, completely empty.
Compare two versions of the same thing:
"Our salon provides hairdressing services of the highest standard."
"I've been cutting hair for twelve years. What I've learned is that a good cut changes more than how someone looks — it changes how they walk into a room. That's why I'm here."
Somebody will remember the second one. The first is forgotten in the same second it's read.
Services
Be specific. Not everything you're capable of — the work you actually want to be doing and selling.
For each service, give:
- a name a customer would recognise
- a short explanation of what it covers
- who it's for
- what the customer gets out of it
- a price, a range, or an explicit "ask for a quote"
The usual mistake is writing to a peer instead of to a customer: "We build responsive web applications on a microservices architecture." A business owner isn't buying microservices. They're buying a site that loads fast, doesn't get hacked, and that they can update themselves.
Past work
This is the strongest argument you have. It shows you've done this before and that it worked.
A good case study covers:
- what the client does and what needed doing
- where the difficulty was
- what you actually did
- the result, measurable where possible
- photographs or screenshots
- a quote from the client, if they'll give you one
State the result as a number when you have one. "We increased sales" means nothing. "Enquiries through the contact form went from 4 a month to 19 over six months" is concrete and it sticks. If you don't have the number, or can't share it, describe honestly what changed rather than inventing a percentage.
FAQ
A surprising number of sites skip it, and it's one of the cheapest things you can add. An FAQ clears up the doubts that otherwise end in a closed tab.
One rule: use the questions you actually get. Not invented ones. If someone rings every week to ask about lead times, or whether you travel outside the city, those are exactly the entries.
There's a bonus: a well-written FAQ often ends up in Google's results directly, as an expandable answer.
Contact
The minimum:
- phone number and email address, both tappable
- a street address if you have premises
- the hours you actually answer
- a form
- a map, if customers need to find you
A form under the words "Get in touch" isn't enough on its own. People want to confirm there's a real business at the other end. A phone number, an address and a company name do that better than any reassurance you could write.
How to write for a website
Writing for a website follows different rules from writing an article. Nobody reads a page top to bottom — people scan it, looking for the thing they came for.
Short and concrete. You have a few seconds before someone decides whether to stay. Walls of text lose by default.
Instead of: "Our company delivers comprehensive optimisation solutions aimed at the refinement of business processes through the implementation of advanced digital technologies."
Write: "We automate the repetitive work, so your team stops losing a day a week to it."
Headings and lists. A heading every few paragraphs gives a reader somewhere to land. If you're listing five things, make it a list — not one sentence with five commas in it.
Write to one person. "You", not "businesses". "If you run a workshop and you want a site that actually brings you customers" beats "Commercial entities seeking web-based solutions."
Write about the customer, not yourself. Nobody visits your site to learn about you. They arrive with a problem. "We're the best agency in town" carries no weight, because everyone writes it. Show that you understand the problem first, then that you have a way through it.
A clear call to action. After each section a reader should know what happens next. "Contact us" is fine. "Book a free quote" is better, because it says what clicking will get them.
A blog — optional, but it pays
A blog on your own site, rather than on LinkedIn or Medium, does three things at once: it builds visibility in search, it demonstrates you know the subject, and it gives people a reason to come back.
Take the topics from the questions you already get. If customers ask what it costs and how long it takes, those are your first two pieces.
On frequency: one good article a month is a sensible floor. One solid piece beats four written out of obligation. It's the same principle I got into when writing about your website versus social media — content should keep working for longer than a day.
The mistakes I see most often
Missing the information that decides it. Who's behind the business. Where you're based. Roughly what it costs. If you won't publish a price, at least explain what the price depends on.
No proof. Reviews, past work, client logos, Google ratings. If you have happy customers, ask them for a few sentences. It's the cheapest thing you can do for your conversion rate.
Copy nobody read out loud. Typos and sentences that never end cost you credibility faster than you'd think. Read everything aloud before publishing — it catches more than any spell-checker.
When to hire a copywriter
If writing is what's blocking you, and the site has been stalled on it for three months, that's the moment. A copywriter usually costs less than a quarter without a working website.
A good one starts with questions: who your customer is, what's painful for them, why people choose you over the alternative, what you've delivered, what tone you want. If someone quotes you a per-page rate without asking any of that, you'll get copy that would sit just as comfortably on a competitor's site.
Do some preparation yourself, too. Even an hour of notes — how the business started, three typical customer situations, the things you repeat in every sales conversation — gives a copywriter enough raw material to write something that sounds like you.
A pre-launch checklist
- Every page has its own title and description for search
- The main headline says what you do and who for
- A call to action is visible at least once on every page
- The text is broken up with headings and can be scanned
- No typos — everything read aloud
- Pages link to each other
- The photographs are yours, not stock
- Phone number and email are tappable
- Everything checked on a phone, not just a monitor
Finally
Content isn't a task you tick off once. Prices change, the offer changes, and after six months your analytics start showing you what people looked for and didn't find. A site from a year ago almost always needs work.
But the foundation — who you are, what you do, who for, and how to reach you — has to be thought through from the start. Everything else gets added on top.
If you're stuck on content, or planning a new site and want this sorted before the design work begins, get in touch. One conversation is usually enough to separate what genuinely has to be on the site from what only feels necessary.