Spent 6 months writing site copy that nobody read before I caught on

I was cranking out these long, detailed product descriptions for a local hardware store client. Thought I was killing it with all those specs and features. Then I asked the owner how many calls or emails came from the site, and he showed me the analytics. The average time on page was 12 seconds. Nobody was reading past the first sentence. Switched to short bullet points and customer pain points instead of feature lists, and that time jumped to almost a minute. Has anyone else had that moment where you realize you were writing for yourself instead of the actual visitor?

3 comments

3 Comments

victor_robinson21d ago

Why not just write copy that serves both purposes?

vera_lewis221d ago

You ever try writing two different things at once? I had a buddy who ran a local coffee shop and tried that with their website and social media. Ended up with this messy mix of "stop by for a fresh brew" and "order your beans online" in the same sentence, it just confused everyone. Nobody knew if they were supposed to come in or click a link. Had to scrap the whole thing and start over with separate pages.

kimmurphy21d ago

My buddy at a local hardware store tried this exact thing with their email blast last spring. He wrote one subject line pitching in-store lumber sales and another for online tool rentals in the same email. Customers kept calling asking if they could pick up a saw in the shop or if they had to order it. @vera_lewis2 is right, trying to do both just ends up with folks throwing up their hands and leaving. He finally split it into two separate emails and saw a 30% jump in clicks on the first week.