I was just doing some research for a new writing project and came across a paragraph of web content I wanted to share with you. I’ve isolated just the first few words of each sentence. See if you can spot the trouble:
“We pride ourselves on… Our honest approach is… We provide our service… We hold ourselves accountable… We even go so far as to…. We encourage you to… We hope you…”
Yes, it can be hard to write web content about your company and its products without using the occasional “we” or “our”. Hard but not impossible. And it’s worth stretching yourself creatively to rewrite those self-centered sentences for one very good reason: your prospects are self-centered too.
They just want to know how you can help them — solve a problem, improve their life, get informed. So every sentence on your site should be geared towards filling that need.
So try this. Go to your own home page or any other top level page. Count the we/our statements (including the company name) and the you/your statements. Is there room for more customer in your copy?
