You need new copy for your website. It’s time and you’re ready. But how — pray tell — do you make words on a web page fully reflect the voice and vibe you bring to the meaningful work you do?

More importantly, how do you make sure your new web copy will appeal to your Right Person — the person you and your business are best designed to serve because you have solutions he really wants, delivered in the way he wants it?

The process by which draft copy becomes This Is It! copy is a bit of a mystery. The ideas and themes that are raw, rough diamonds shake out during the intake process with an experienced professional copywriter. Those diamonds earn their facets and setting under a copywriter’s experienced pen (or fingertips on the keyboard, as it were). Finally, the right words are polished until they gleam through a smart and sensitive revision process.

So how can you, as the client, mess this up?

Well, reader, it happens. Just as when any of us approach a creative service professional whose process we have little inside experience with (for me, I’m thinking: a high end house painter, a DJ who mixes beats, or a fabulous hair stylist or colorist), we can’t dictate a process to the expert we hired. We have to lay our assumptions about what works and why aside — and step into beginner’s mind.

So it is with getting great copy for your website written and delivered by your copywriter. Vet your creative pro and trust the process she’s used with many other clients before you. And if you’re curious about why she’s making a creative choice on the page as opposed to a different option — please, by all means, ask!

Friends of the entrepreneurial webiverse, in the spirit of education (and truth in humor, I hope) I present to you: where great copy does not come from.

1. From your competitor’s website. I’m very serious. If you hire a copywriter, it’s not kosher to send her a link to your competitor’s sales page with the note, “Like this. But plug in my program’s details.” Nor is it cool to send her your best business friend-once-removed’s About page with the note, “I want this. But me.”
2. From your mentor or inspiration’s website. Telling a copywriter, “Make me sound like Danielle LaPorte/Kris Carr/Marie Forleo/Your Favorite Inspiring Business Owner,” won’t really serve you or your Right Person. (Yep, even if your Right Person likes that other person, too.) Neither will saying, “I want to be the Danielle LaPorte of small online business accounting.” Om. Ka-ching.
3. From your corporate bio or your LinkedIn profile, the one written to make you sound as learned, serious, and straightlaced as possible. An About page is not a bio page. Modern-day About pages — even for more ‘buttoned up’ professions like clinical psychologists, attorneys, and tax professionals, have a decidedly conversational tone to them. And no: ‘conversational’ does not by default mean swearing, nicknaming your site visitors, or mentioning your favorite stripey socks.
4. From the ‘two minutes’ you’ve suggested that your copywriter give herself to ‘whip up’ a new name or tagline for your new virtual program. (I say this with love and gravity and as much as I can, without snark.) Thomas Mann says, “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” Most of the professional writers I know would concur with this. Not because we’re not truly talented, experienced, or even gifted at it, and not because we don’t enjoy it. We just understand the craft and what goes into making even a 10-word headline truly clear, impactful, and meaningful for a particular audience. There is no 2-minute job, ever. As many writing pros will tell you, sometimes the shortest bits are the most challenging to get just right, because with an economy of words, every single syllable has to stick its landing.
5. From committee input. Across three businesses I’ve created and run, I can attest that the most bungled, least inspired creative decisions were made by committee. There’s a time and a place and a season for surveying your readership, leading a focus group, or consulting your advisory board, but knee-deep in the creative process with your trusted, hired, desired creative pro isn’t it. Trust. Running your freshly minted 1st Draft past your eager Mastermind group or emailing it to a group of your closest friends who “really get you” (yep, even your cousin Janie who majored in Marketing in college 12 years ago) is only going to get you a hodgepodge of responses, not the steely, resounding, soul-centered consensus you’re hoping for. Their variety of perspectives will most likely confuse you, throw you off your center, and distort your inner knowing. Personal story: When I was creating The Voice Bureau‘s site with Allie Rice, I didn’t show our mock-ups to a soul until we were in the 3rd round of revisions, and only then did I show two or three trusted people who were on my team (and thus, invested). By that point, I knew what I wanted and why. And when I got some feedback that didn’t resonate with me about a particular design element, I was able to discount it (not let it steer me off-course) because I knew the element was there for a purpose that mattered deeply to me.

In the comments, we’d love to hear:

What sort of guidance or leadership would you like from YOUR hired copywriter? Are you hoping she’ll take the reigns and guide you into a style that works for your brand? How much professional insight do you want from her versus just treating her like a hired pen?

(Image credit.)