Copy That Doesn't Suck: Developing the Consultant's Web Site

by Don Wallace

This article will show you how to not commit the common egregious errors of writing judgment that plague most IT consultant's web sites.

Before you hire a web designer, before you start printing your snazzy new domain on your business cards, and before you tell your mom to have her bridge club check out your online artistry - please read this article and heed a few simple guidelines.

Flabby, confusing, look-alike, posturing, pompous, awkward, easy to dismiss...

No, that's not just me at my first grade-school dance.

That phrase describes the copy in the majority of web sites that IT professionals and other consultants first put up on the web in order to announce their glorious availability to the world.

Most technical professionals tend to write marketing materials that confuse or bore their prospects, without really communicating their business proposition in a way that prospects can care about. Stilted writing, not taking chances, playing it safe, being too "corporate" while actually saying too little - these things, and others, are the death of the small business marketing message.

There are relatively few ways to showcase yourself effectively so that someone will actually want to hire you to help them. And there is a multitude of ways to make your prospects click away someplace else.

This article will show you how to avoid some very common pitfalls in writing for your consulting web site.

Writing Well for Promotion

You may believe that because your work is complicated, the message has to be complicated, too. Or it just happens to work out that way.

The general rule for writing for marketing is continual simplification. Less is usually more and simpler is usually better. These principles are counterintuitive to technical folks like programmers and systems analysts.

The Simpler the Better

A good rule of thumb when writing ad copy is always to write at a 5th to 6th grade level. Even for an "intense" or "hard core" programmer or architect type.

Here is a checklist of the most important things to do in your writing:

• In your writing be completely obvious to laypeople.
• Be clear: explain exactly who you help and how you help them.
• Be specific: qualify your services by industry or sector, as necessary.
• Avoid overly fancy and unusual words. The simpler and more ordinary the word, the better. 9 out of 10 cavemen agree: "ameliorate" BAD, "improve" GOOD! UGH!
• Avoid BS: avoid jargon and "businessy" seeming but relatively meaningless and unquantifiable terms. A few common examples include "leading edge", "take to the next level", or anything "-centric". There are almost always much more direct and persuasive ways to say the same things.
• Use short sentences. Break up lengthy sentences.
• Chop unnecessary words mercilessly. Only say something once. (Obviously this advice does not apply to "long form sales letters", which are a niche of copywriting not discussed here.)
• Avoid being "Mr. Professor" - come off your high horse! Avoid sounding like a technical textbook. Use active voice, not passive voice.
• Above all, be conversational in your writing tone. If you can't imagine talking like you write, then change the way that you write.

Now, on to the tactics of writing well for your IT consulting web site.

What Do You DO? The Science of Clear Description

Let's talk about how you title your consulting practice.

Your highest priority should be to identify yourself and your services clearly in a way that makes sense to your prospects.

Indirectness is not allowed. Metaphors are not allowed. Cuteness is forbidden.

The primitive parts of our brains - as well as your prospect's brains - rely on labels and names. Your first job is to label yourself, and your specialty, as a specific type of independent professional.

But beware - even if you think that you are being on-point, you may still label yourself poorly from a consulting viewpoint.

The Trap of Commoditization

What do you tell someone when they ask you what you do for a living?

• "I'm a Java architect."
• "I do embedded."
• "DBA."
• "Configuration management."

These phrases, blurted out quickly, are fine for social gatherings where other techies are present.

They are also the very words used by ... warning ... very ugly phrase coming... contingent labor brokers. Those "temp" agencies, whose entire mission on this earth is to commoditize you heavily and to rank and grade you "objectively", and to assign a dollar worth to your scalp that limits your income potential.

Such job-activity-specific descriptions, when they stand alone, make you look more like a job seeker rather than like an independent professional. In general, these types of technical specialty-specific phrases are used in full time employment job ads. That implies that you should not use them, except where absolutely necessary.

End Users Going "Duh?"

The other problem is opaqueness to laypeople. All experienced professionals have a certain blindness. They don't realize what they actually do know.

All trades and professions use verbal shorthand - "Adam and Eve on a raft" means two poached eggs on toast in many restaurants when waiters are barking food orders to the cooks.

But you don't see "Adam and Eve" on many menus.

To attract the right kind of initial attention from prospects - the kind of attention that means that your best prospects can recognize you - you must formulate a clear, concise, simple, and universal description of your services. And one that doesn't fall into the line-items that human resource folks use to label their own people.

Avoiding the Labeling Traps - Be "Beneficial" and Know Your Prospect

The best single way to both avoid confusing your audience and avoid being confused with a job seeker is to label your consultancy in such a way that you are providing a benefit or a solution to your prospect.

The more that your phrasing can reach out and assure the reader that you are there to help them directly with their pressing need, the less that you will look like everyone else.

Examples of Titling Your Business

Here are specific examples of these ideas in practice.

Really bad: Frammis Solutions is a contract software developer operating in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

This isn't even good from an "HR standpoint" because there are thousands of programming specialties and the label doesn't denote any of them. There are millions of software developers in the world, and this says that Frammis is just like the rest of them.

I usually see phrasing like this in neglected and outdated web sites where the owner finds their business through their personal network and never even refers to their web site.

Just OK: Frammis Solutions specializes in creating customized applications that meet your most demanding requirements.

What's the problem? For starters - what is an "application"? "Application" - what is that? A job application? A loan application? OH, a COMPUTER PROGRAM! (Well, if your prospects had a guru like you at their elbows to decode somewhat industry-specific terms like "application", they wouldn't NEED your help, would they?)

The insidious damage that certain "semi secret handshake" words (such as "application" with no clear context) do is to lull your reader into inattention. As they stumble mentally over more and more words, your reader's confusion becomes greater, and they "get" less and less of your message. You're literally driving their attention away from you!

Much more effective: Frammis Solutions is a highly skilled developer of software applications on all major platforms - web, desktop and mobile.

What does this fix? For one thing, we spelled out exactly what Frammis does: they develop software applications. And we even distinguished in what areas that Frammis shines for its customers. Now, your reader may not need software applications. But at least you have driven a stake into your turf. The readers that are remaining are with you. They want to know about your "software applications", say, for the web.

Better yet: Frammis Solutions develops custom software applications that help remodeling businesses stay compliant with local labor laws.

This is explaining that Frammis helps a particular kind of business with a particular kind of problem.

This is really good because we have dragged Frammis Solutions kicking and screaming away from being a geeky company doing complicated computer stuff, to a helpful provider of solutions to their client's problems. The focus becomes very narrow, of course, but the text will reach and grab the business owners who have that very problem.

In conclusion, naming and labeling yourself clearly and effectively is critical. In general, it's best to adopt a "benefit" oriented mindset, rather than regurgitating a technical specialty.

The next section explores in more detail how to describe benefits that will command your prospect's attention.

Benefits: So, Why Should Your Customer Care?

Let's say that you've identified yourself and your product well. The next step in the process is to state clearly how you help your customers. I alluded to this whole issue of benefits language above.

Remember the old maxim about drill bits. People buy holes, not drill bits. Your prospects don't hire you because they "need" a highly paid subject matter genius. They hire you because you can produce a result that their business requires.

Your genius, good looks, and charm are mere features. The benefits that you produce are the result that will attract the prospect and will make them sign checks.

So what is that result? That's what you need to explain in your web copy.

Most consultants and B2B (business - to - business) service providers do one (or more) of the following basic things for their clientele:

• They help their client make more money.
• They help their client save more money
• They help their client use a technology, tool or process that has become essential in their line of business. So regardless of profitability, the clients needs to incorporate new technology or approaches from outside the organization.
• They develop or improve processes, techniques or implementations that allow the business to enter or stay in a line of business.

If you are running a consultancy, you have already identified one or more such benefits and your early discussions with prospects revolve around those benefits. You may literally be so expert that you take this knowledge for granted.

But your prospect who surfs your web site isn't an expert and he doesn't know how you can help him. So you need to spell it out for him in terms to which he relates.

When you write your web copy, think benefits, not features. Suppose that you are an expert programmer, or designer, or architect. That's the "drill" - your skill is your tool. So what is the outcome - the figurative "hole" - that you produce for your clients? Spell it out, using simple language that your mom or golf pro could understand. The best language for this uses very direct and simple declarative sentences and it talks about real problems and challenges facing your clients.

Here is an example of accurate, but pedantic and indirect benefits language.

Just OK: Quality map production involves more than compiling data. It involves compiling, distilling, and refining the look of the underlying data into a graphic suitable for the specific user or solution. We have the tools to refine the data and create a cartographic quality map.

Many prospects will say to themselves - "Yes, you are a data expert. But why are you telling me all this stuff? Why should I care how carefully you do things?"

Now let's sharpen up the "benefits" statement.

Direct and To-The-Point: We can create the custom outdoor maps you need by using GIS data. We compile, distill, and refine raw GIS data into a graphic suitable for your use. We have the tools to process this data and to create a cartographic quality map.

The difference? We used the commentary about our tools mastery to tell the prospect how we can deliver a product to him.

Simple Examples of Benefits Derived from Technology

Let's take some very specific and granular examples of programming technology and recast them as customer benefits. Note that some technological features are almost benefits. They are benefits in the eyes of those who really know such things. But they may evoke a "why should I care" reaction from a customer.

(Just to be clear - the "feature" column on the left is the less desirable technically oriented description and the "benefit" column on the right holds the more customer-friendly phrasing.)

Technical Feature	Corresponding Benefit
Efficient, standard C++	Lightning fast software that your company can maintain easily
We use the open source database PostgreSQL	We use a stable, proven, reliable open source database to minimize licensing expenses
Coded in VB.NET	Runs on the Windows servers that you already own

It's Not Easy

Thinking in terms of benefits is usually the hardest thing that anyone can do for their own business. Why? Because you literally must place yourself in your client's shoes. Then you must imagine that their problems are problems that you, as their consultant, must "own".

A great consultant is really much more like a psychiatrist or a priest or a rabbi than just a technical expert, but that's another article! Being a highly paid consultant is ultimately about helping your customers - and then monetizing that help. You first have to explain clearly how you help your customers if you want them to know about you. Benefits, and not features, are the key here.

Who's Your Competition?

No, you're not going to send your prospects over to "Brand X", your evil competition and sworn adversary.

What you must do, however, is explain how you are different and "better" than other, reasonable sounding alternatives that may be before your prospect. Which may just include doing nothing, or doing what they have always done in the past.

It is likely that you already know this stuff. If you have been in business profitably as a consultant for awhile, you have had to "triangulate" your service offering to your clients based upon essential things that other consultants, products or existing standard services can't supply to them as effectively (in whatever way) as you are able to.

Your marketing material should say something about why you're special - why you are that special snowflake that the prospect must use. And that proposition is usually woven around benefits, but stated in such a way that you are alone and unique - and in a good way.

Example: We don't simply solve a staffing problem by deploying software developers. And we aren't just narrow software specialists. We become your partner for the duration of your project.

Another Example: Our cost to perform such re-engineering is generally the same or even less than many of our competitors who use automated systems.

The whole territory of establishing and describing your "specialness" is called the Unique selling proposition, or "USP" for short.

Where Does This Stuff Go?

Here is a sort of checklist of each type of item above and the places where such material goes in most web sites. These are not hard-and-fast rules. They are simply suggestions as to where each type of content can best fit into a web site.

Type of Material	Examples Where Used
Description, Label, name	- Web page title - Meta Tags (for search) - Index or Main or Default or Entry page of web site
Benefits	- Main page (in compact form) - Services Offered page - Testimonials page - About Us page - Case studies page(s)
U.S.P. Language	- Main page (in compact form) - Services Offered page - Testimonials page - Case studies page(s)

Conclusion

A web site for a professional service provider such as a consultant can be tough and challenging to get right. Someone out there really needs you. Your primary challenge is identifying yourself so that your prospects realize that they really need you. Clear, simple, direct writing should be one primary weapon in your arsenal to make those prospects find you.

About the Author

Don Wallace develops better messages for his clients. If you need help with your marketing materials for your business, please contact him or call him at (513) 932-2236 so that he stops writing in the third person about himself. His wife would appreciate it if you did and he would, too.