The substitution test: hide your company name
Take your homepage and mentally replace your company name with 'Acme Corp'. If the text still reads fine - it's not about you. 'Individual approach', 'team of professionals', 'results-driven' fits anyone, which means it says nothing.
Real copy cannot pass this test. 'We only work with food production equipment, we don't work with restaurants' - you can't substitute someone else's name here.
First action: go through your pages and cross out every phrase that passed the substitution test. Fill the empty space with facts later. Often after cleaning you're left with a third of the text - and it's already stronger than the original.
The client is reading about themselves, not about you
Someone arrived at your site with a problem, not a desire to learn your company history. So the first screen should answer three questions: what you do, who it's for, and what to do next.
Compare. 'We are a young ambitious studio that has been helping businesses grow in digital since 2019' - that's about you. 'We build sites and automation for small business: websites, shops, Telegram bots, scrapers' - that's about whether the client landed in the right place.
Simple technique: underline the subjects in each paragraph. If almost everywhere it's 'we', 'our team', 'our specialists' - flip the sentences so they're about the client's problem and the outcome.
Specifics instead of adjectives
Adjectives prove nothing. 'Fast development' - is that two weeks or four months? 'Quality code' - how does the client verify that? You can dispute an adjective, you can't dispute a number or a fact.
The mechanism is simple: for every claim, ask 'specifically?' and put the answer in the text.
If there's no answer to 'specifically?' - remove the claim rather than rephrasing it more beautifully.
- 'Experienced team' → 'team of more than five, we work with React and Node.js'
- 'Individual approach' → 'you discuss the project directly with whoever leads it, not through an account manager'
- 'We work on complex projects' → 'we built a social platform: web version plus mobile apps'
- 'Transparent pricing' → 'the site shows a starting price for each service, exact quote after the brief'
You need to write about pricing
The most common mistake on service sites - silence about money. The owner's logic is understandable: price depends on the project, name a number and you'll scare people off. In practice the opposite happens. A client with no reference point simply goes to someone who does show a number, because they don't want to spend half an hour on a call just to ask 'am I even in budget?'.
Solution - a starting range for each service plus an honest note that the exact amount is calculated after the brief. That's how our site works: for landing pages, corporate sites, shops, Telegram bots, web services and support there's a lower bound, and the quote is assembled for the specific task.
Separately, it's useful to explain what the price depends on: number of pages and unique blocks, custom design or ready-made grid, whether you need CRM and payment integration, who writes the copy. This answers half the questions before the first conversation and filters out those who aren't a fit anyway.
Write who you don't work for
A 'not a fit' section looks counterintuitive, but it does two things at once: cuts off non-target enquiries and sharply raises trust with everyone else. Someone sees you're not grabbing at any money and starts believing the rest of the text.
The wording can be direct: 'if you need a site in three days and don't have copy yet - we won't make it', 'if the task is just changing a button colour on an existing site, it's cheaper to find a freelancer'.
Same with services. A mobile app isn't needed by a business whose client visits once a year: a responsive site is enough. A Telegram bot isn't needed if you get five enquiries a month and you answer faster than any bot. If you write this plainly, clients with real problems come more often, not less.
Handle objections with copy, not calls
The client has three or four fears in their head, and they won't call to check them. They'll just close the tab. So you need to answer on the page.
Collect objections not from your head, but from chats and calls over recent months. Write out the questions people ask most often and put the answers right in the text - as an FAQ block or short paragraphs throughout the page.
Typical set for services: 'what if I don't like the result', 'who supports the site after handover', 'will I still have access to the code and domain', 'what if I don't have copy or photos'. A two-line answer to each question removes more doubt than the entire 'why choose us' block.
One action per page
When there are five buttons on the page - 'order', 'get consultation', 'download presentation', 'calculate cost', 'subscribe' - the client doesn't choose, they postpone. Keep one primary action and repeat it throughout the text.
Button copy also works. 'Submit' promises nothing, 'Discuss the project' or 'Get a quote' explains what happens next. Next to it, briefly write what happens after the click: who responds and what they'll ask. Uncertainty after submitting a form is a separate reason not to submit it.
And check the form: every extra field reduces the number of enquiries. For first contact, a contact method and a couple of lines about the task are enough. Company name, title, and budget from a dropdown - ask in the conversation.
How to check it got better
Give the new copy to someone outside your industry and ask them to retell: what you do, roughly what it costs, and what to do next. If they stumble - the problem is in the text, not the reader.
Second method - look at what clients ask after they've read the site. Each recurring question means a hole in the text. Plugged the hole - the question disappeared from chats.
Don't rewrite everything at once. Start with the homepage and one service page that brings in the most revenue. After a month, compare the quantity and quality of enquiries: did you get fewer off-target requests and do people write with actual business more often.
Copy that sells on a service site isn't beautiful words, it's specifics: what you do, who you don't work for, roughly what it costs, and what happens after the click. If you want to discuss a site or automation along with the copy - write to EFIMOV DEV: we publish starting prices for services on the site, and we assemble quotes after the brief, and you discuss the project directly with whoever leads it.
Frequently asked
Do I need a copywriter or can I do it myself?
You provide the substance either way: who your clients are, what the price depends on, what questions come up most often. Without that, a copywriter will write the same 'individual approach' text. Sensible approach - you dictate the specifics, and an editor or copywriter tidies it up.
If I publish pricing, competitors will see it and undercut me
Competitors already know the market, and price secrecy hurts your client, not them. A starting range shows your level but doesn't reveal how you calculate quotes. That's exactly why we publish a lower bound for each service, and calculate the exact sum after the brief.
How much copy should be on a service page?
Enough for the client to understand whether you're a fit or not, and no more. More useful to focus not on word count but on the client's list of questions: answered them all - you can stop. A long page without specifics loses to a short page with facts.
Should I write copy for SEO?
Keywords are worth considering in headings and menus, but the text is written for people. A page stuffed with queries and not answering questions will bring traffic and not bring enquiries. Start with clear copy, then check whether the right phrases ended up in it.