How one simple change can make your web copy more charming

This post is about one of the easiest changes you can make in your copy to suddenly make it more charming and engaging to your audience.

It is also a note of appreciation to my mum who is wonderful, mischievous and a lover of gin and tonic.

My mum is a people’s person. She has one of those magnetic personalities where people don’t just enjoy her company, they actively flock to her. And if you ask people about my mum, they can’t rave strongly enough about here. She has many fans that will turn out in their droves to help her (though she probably wouldn’t ask).

As a very shy girl growing up, parties and social engagements petrified me. I loved the buzz of being around people but had no idea what to say, let alone have the kind of positive effect on people like my mum did.

So I asked her what to do and smiling her huge smile she replied:

Just forget about yourself, and focus on other people

One of the reasons my mum is so magnetic is that she is naturally interested, and cares about other people. When I was younger, she showed me practical techniques to use at parties because although I was interested in other people, chatting to others didn’t come naturally to me.

I’m no where near as charming as my lovely mum, but I’m certainly a lot better than I used to be!

So how does this relate to your copy?

Well I know that you care about your customers, but your web content might be telling them a different story.

If you want to know my practical tip for turning regular copy into charming copy it would be this:

Wherever possible, turn a sentence that talks about you into one that talks about the customer

It’s one of the first things I usually look for if I’m re-writing web copy and you can usually find a way to turn an “I” sentence into a “you” sentence, even on your about page.

For example:

“Ever since I was younger I’ve loved cooking, so I set up my catering business in 2000 and things have gone from strength to strength ever since”

Can be turned into:

“By hiring a company with over 10 years’ experience catering exquisite occasions, you can be confident that your guests will always remember your event.”

It might only seem a simple thing, but it automatically changes the focus of your copy from you to your customer, and if you do that throughout your website, your customer will be under no illusion how much you think about them.