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Blog
5 Tips to KonMari Your Website Copy
Spark joy with content decluttering that ignites your business goals
by Sarah Marshall
As your business grows and develops, it’s normal to keep adding content to your website without subtracting anything. But eventually the messaging becomes confusing and it’s hard for visitors to find key information easily. And that means you’re not only losing your brand identity but also potential clients.
The Marie Kondo-style solution is to clear out anything that doesn’t spark joy for you, your business goals or your target audience. Every word needs to earn its place.
This is for you if you:
- have been meaning to update your website content to reflect your current offers and latest projects but it’s so tangled and complex you don’t know where to start
- want to be more intentional about adding new pages, sections or services while keeping your website a manageable size
- are transitioning between professions or offers but are finding it hard to let go of your old services or identity.
Each of the 5 tips may take some time so you might want to do them in stages. However you work through them, always keep the following question in mind.
Does this content contribute to the vision I have for myself and my business?
Because instead of dwelling in your past, your website should reflect your present and build towards your future.
Let’s dig in.
1. Delete redundant offers
- Review all your services (and products)
- Eliminate services you want to phase out
- Showcase your favourite services or best sellers
Review all your services (and products if you have any)
Is your website still showing outdated offers? It’s not efficient for you or helpful for others if they contact you for something that’s no longer available. Delete or update your offers, prices and terms to avoid awkward conversations.
This is important for search engine optimisation too as Google and AI are increasingly strict about excluding sites from search results that don’t deliver what they promise.
Eliminate services you want to phase out
Your website should be working to build a business you love. But my clients are often hesitant about removing services they’re thinking about dropping for two reasons.
Firstly, they’re still providing those services and worry about alienating existing or former clients. If this sounds familiar, remember that those clients probably aren’t looking at your website and will contact you directly if they want to work with you again.
It’s up to you whether you say yes or no to them but it’s counterproductive to attract new clients to a service when your heart’s not in it.
The second reason is a lack of confidence. When I transitioned from translation to copywriting, it took me a year to fully identify as a copywriter. So I kept both services on my website even though my main goal was to build my new business.
I’ve seen this with many other women as well. The funny thing is that by removing your old services, you’ll boost your own confidence and accelerate the process of becoming what you say you are.
Plus, you’ll save yourself the hassle of turning down new clients for old offers or constantly explaining that you’re shifting from one service to another. The sooner you show up in your new identity, the more real it will become.
Showcase your favourite services or best sellers
Put your favourite or most profitable offers front and centre on your website.
If you’re an interior designer and you prefer doing kitchens to living rooms, list kitchens first on your Home page. Make kitchens the first tab on your services dropdown menu. And discuss kitchen makeovers in your case studies or blog content.
If you’re a coach who wants to scale and makes more from running one corporate group workshop than 10 individual sessions or mini retreats, promote your corporate offer as the central option of the 3 on your Home page. The one in the middle grabs the attention first.
Then make this primary offer the first tab on your services menu and use more keywords, testimonials and case studies related to this service than the others throughout your site.
For different service providers, the same rules apply. Just think about which offer you want to sell most of and position it carefully on your Home page and tabs.
If you have two or three equally important services, make sure they are given equal billing on your Home page.
2. Serve your dream audience
- State clearly who you work with
- Delete outdated references
- Clear out any jargon
State clearly who you work with
Your ideal audience might fall into a certain sector, social group, profession, age range, gender or geographical area. The more clearly you can identify who you serve in your website copy, the better search engines and AI can match you to your target audience.
I worked with a translator who wanted to move into a particular niche but she was still presenting herself as a generalist on her website. Nobody but her knew that she was steadily building her expertise in the food sustainability sector yet she was hoping to attract more of those clients.
I suggested she add some keywords to her headers and mention her target segment on every page. This is because visitors might land on your service page before your Home page. Or they might only read your About page. Make sure you talk about your audience across your entire site.
Now Google and visitors understand who my client helps so they can decide whether she’s a good match or not. And she’s using the same tactic in all her marketing to build her reputation as an expert in food sustainability translations so most enquiries align with her passion.
Delete outdated references
Being clear about who you don’t want to work with is important too. I advised my client to go through her copy and delete references to other sectors.
This type of revision requires a careful eye but it’s worth doing because you don’t want to confuse visitors by suddenly mentioning a completely different industry.
Clear out any jargon
Finally, watch out for acronyms, industry jargon or vague language. We become so accustomed to using certain terms, we don’t even see them as alien to others.
Make your audience feel comfortable and confident by using plain English. Don’t make them guess what you mean: be specific. Even seasoned professionals in your sector appreciate clear communication.
ARTICLE
3. Update your testimonials and portfolio
- Edit your clients’ quotes
- Delete dated portfolio pieces
- Show the variety of your work on relevant pages
Edit your clients' quotes
It’s comforting to keep flattering testimonials on your website but are they telling the right story to potential clients?
Again, everything on your website should be supporting the direction you want your business to go in. So take an objective look at client comments and samples of your work. Don’t choose your favourites, choose ones that best support your goals.
Once you get busy with client work, it’s easy to forget to add new comments to your website. In the meantime, at least you can curate what’s already on your site.
I often see clients using entire quotes, including “Thanks for doing such a great job” or “I hope to work with you again”. Edit the testimonials down to the juicy essence that says what you did and why they liked working with you. Replace “you” with your name. And add in a specific reference to the type of project.
For instance, one of my clients wrote:
“It’s so helpful to have your perspective on the copy. Your strategic thinking and thoughtful approach made all the difference. Everything from the hero statement to the details of each offer feels like it’s meant to be there. I’m so glad we worked together on this.”
This is the edit that appears on my website:
“Sarah’s strategic thinking and thoughtful approach made all the difference to my website copy. Now everything from the hero statement to the details of each offer feels like it’s meant to be there.”
(To keep things honest and ethical, in my feedback form I ask for permission to make these types of edits and send the edited version to my client for approval before publishing the quote.)
Delete dated portfolio pieces
Likewise, when it comes to your portfolio, adding recently completed work doesn’t feel like a high priority when you’ve got an exciting new project on the horizon. But your work will have improved with experience, so be sure to remove earlier case studies or pieces that don’t reflect your current skill level.
And I know it’s hard but it might be time to let go of irrelevant samples you’re fond of. If they don’t relate to your ideal clients or dream projects, they probably have to go.
Unless you only have a couple of pieces, of course. It’s better to have something than nothing in your portfolio.
Show the variety of your work on relevant pages
There used to be two strong trends for testimonials on websites: having all of them either on a separate page or on carousels with arrows visitors can scroll through. People are more impatient now and expect to see social proof in front of their eyes soon after landing on your site and often.
If you have plenty of highly relevant testimonials, include one or two quotes from a variety of clients on each page of your website. Choose your best ones for your Home and service pages but feel free to add one or two to your About and Contact pages as well. Just don’t make visitors click anything to see them.
Similarly, while some professions will always benefit from having a standalone portfolio or case studies, consider adding standout pieces or mini client stories to your Home page or service pages.
Some creatives even have their portfolio as their entire Home page, thinking the work speaks for itself. As a website copywriter, naturally I think it’s the combination of words and images that works best. Not just for search engine optimisation but also to make your work more accessible to visitors who may not be fluent in your medium.
4. Think capsule content
- Get clear about purpose
- Cut the waffle
- Make the text scannable
Get clear about purpose
If your website pages are walls of text with irrelevant paragraphs and rambling sentences, you’re most likely losing clients. Visitors only need enough information to take the next step, whether that’s going to the next relevant page on your site or contacting you directly.
So, begin by thinking about what each page is trying to achieve. I’ve seen Home pages that invite people to:
- book a call
- visit the service pages
- fill out a form
- sign up to a newsletter
- read the blog and
- sign up for a webinar.
And they’ve only just landed on the site!
Or there are multiple buttons with the same call to action on the same page. Sometimes with different wording so it’s not clear where the button goes.
Give your audience time to explore. They know how a website works. If there’s not a button, they can go to the navigation bar or navigation burger (the three horizontal lines for the menu).
Your aim is to lead visitors on a logical journey through your site. You don’t need to say everything on the Home page.
Save your full bio for your About page. Give more detailed descriptions of your offers on your service pages. And even then hold something back for the discovery calls.
Most importantly, be very selective and thoughtful about the number of calls to action you have on each page.
Cut the waffle
Read your copy with fresh eyes to spot repetition and redundant phrases. Looking at other websites can help with this.
Imagine you’ve written a book and are looking for an editor. You want to know whether they’re a good fit for your genre, what their prices are and their range of services. Find 3 online and see if they answer those questions.
If all 3 fit the bill, then you’ll probably start thinking about which one you prefer based on personality, experience, location and other factors.
Now think about what your clients want to know about you. Not what you want to tell them. Make sure they can find the key facts first.
Often we write more to prove we are qualified to provide our services. But what if you assume that your client already believes that you are fully capable?
That means they are simply deciding whether your services match their needs right now. How does that change what’s in your website copy?
Make the text scannable
Make your website copy easy to read by editing or splitting long sentences into two. Separate blocks of text into short paragraphs with wide margins. Allow plenty of white space around the text.
Give visitors visual clues so they can scan the text on each page to find what they’re looking for. Use headers, tables, bullet points and buttons without overdoing any of them.
5. Move, edit or delete irrelevant blog posts
- Identify the purpose of each post
- Separate the personal from the professional
- Edit or remove articles to support your service offers
Identify the purpose of each post
Every blog article should be serving a specific purpose: building trust or authority, providing value or driving leads.
Go through each post and ask yourself whether it’s serving one of those purposes and whether it’s relevant, interesting or useful for your target audience.
Separate the personal from the professional
Does your business website have legacy articles from your student days when you first started a blog? Or are there posts about travel, cooking and shopping because Jenna Kutcher inspired you to turn your site into a lifestyle brand? Believe me, I get it!
The trouble is, if your business has now evolved into something more concrete and service-oriented, those posts are harming your search engine results and confusing your audience. Or worse, sending the message that you’re confused and not a serious professional.
Give your audience and Google a clear picture of what you want to be found and known for. Unless it’s part of your current brand, move your uni diary, your trip to Bali and last week’s incredible roast chicken recipe to a personal blog.
Edit or remove articles to support your service offers
Replace content that refers to services you no longer offer. Either give the post a careful refresh and make it relevant to your current offers or delete it altogether. (Don’t delete any that have had recent traffic – be sure to edit those ones as you’re onto something with that content!)
Identify articles with very similar content and consolidate them into a single post.
Question whether each post has one clear theme or covers unrelated topics. If it’s the latter, consider separating the content into different articles and stick to the main point in each one.
Reworking your blog content can feel especially hard when you’ve put so much effort into each post. But it’s not wasted effort. You were improving your writing skills and testing out different types of content. Now you have the luxury of curating, which is so much easier than creating.
Why should you KonMari your website content?
Aside from the satisfaction of having a streamlined site, there are a series of benefits to this website copy decluttering exercise:
- You show up on search engine results for services you love providing.
- You start attracting more of the clients you want.
- Your visitors find what they need more quickly and are less likely to bounce off your site.
- You waste less time on unwanted enquiries.
- Your website copy works harder for you, making selling easier.
So I strongly encourage you to go through these 5 steps before adding any more content to your website. Remember to always keep in mind who you are talking to and what they need to know to take the next step.
Try my Website Copy Clinic
If you want help editing your existing content so it directly supports your business goals, my Website Copy Clinic is just the ticket.
After a strategy meeting to understand where you want to take your business, you get a detailed written report outlining recommended changes to your website copy.
This can be for just one page or your whole site.
Once you’ve implemented the changes, I take another look so you feel confident your updated copy is aligned with your vision and appealing to both your target audience and Google.
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