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At Hibu, we try to write content that empowers both our clients and their site visitors. As writers, one of the ways we convey this sense of empowerment is by carefully selecting the appropriate tone for our website copy. We try to keep things professional and approachable. We treat every product seriously, and we strive to educate people without being condescending or repetitive. By keeping the following tips and principles in mind, you’ll be in a much better position to craft unique and engaging copy for our wide range of business clients.

It might be helpful to think of tone as how you speak. Your voice tends to be consistent. People who know you generally know the sound of your voice in a variety of circumstances. But your tone changes depending on the situation. You probably would use a different tone of voice explaining to your mom how her car’s door got dented than you would for explaining to your daughter that you are pretty confident your new SUV didn’t drive itself 1,500 extra miles over the weekend.  When writing a website, you’ll probably use a different tone when presenting a law firm than you would a day spa.

So the tone will change slightly from business to business, but we do look for it to be fairly consistent within each site. You don’t want to try to create a relaxing atmosphere for that day spa, only to suddenly shift gears and use super formal language when describing the services they offer.

Some basic principles to consider:

• Be concise.
• Try to stick to one topic per paragraph, and keep those paragraphs short.
• Try to focus on benefits more than statistics.
• Be consistent within the site.
• Be clear in your language. Try to avoid jargon and undefined technical terms.
• Be respectful, friendly and warm so people feel welcome when they visit the site.

We often coach our writers to imagine that they are searching for a product or service when they think about how to craft the building blocks of our websites, such as metadata or headlines. It might help to also think in those terms when crafting the copy. Would the person searching for a business be relieved to have found a plumber who can help them in the middle of the night? Are they anxious as they try to find an attorney who can help them with a legal matter? Or are they looking for that aforementioned day spa, and hoping to unwind after a stressful day?

Each of these businesses is looking to attract a different type of user. When you pay attention to the tone of the website, you ensure that users who find the site will be interested not only in reading more about our business clients, but also in reaching out in order to get their wants and needs met.