You know the voice.
“We’re passionate about empowering you to unlock seamless solutions.”
It doesn’t matter if the website is selling accounting software, artisan dog treats, or industrial pipe fittings. Everyone sounds like they’re reading from the same laminated script they found in a business park toilet.
And it’s not just boring. It’s actively suspicious. If your words could belong to literally any company on Earth, then they don’t belong to you. They’re just noise.
The curse of safe words
Most websites are written by people who are scared. Not scared in a dramatic way, like a shark is in the office. Just the normal modern kind of scared: scared of being mocked, sued, screenshot, or asked a follow-up question.
So they reach for language that can’t be wrong, because it doesn’t mean anything.
“We deliver value.”
“We put customers first.”
“We’re committed to excellence.”
Brilliant. So is everyone else. Even the worst companies on the planet claim that. The point of words isn’t to sound like a decent human. The point is to say what you actually do, for who, and why anyone should care.
But clarity is risky. Specifics can be challenged. If you say “we’re the cheapest”, somebody will check. If you say “we answer the phone in under a minute”, somebody will ring you at 5:01pm on a Friday out of spite. So instead you get the verbal equivalent of bubble wrap.
Templates ate the internet
There was a time when a website sounded like the person who made it. Then we invented the modern web stack and decided every small business needed the same homepage layout:
- Hero banner with a smiling person looking into the middle distance
- Three “benefits” in neat little boxes
- Logos of companies you’ve never heard of
- A testimonial from “Sarah, London” who apparently cried tears of joy over the onboarding
- A big button that says “Get Started” even when the thing is a local plumber
When you start with the same layout, you reach for the same filler to fill it. The template practically demands it. You can’t write “Here’s our thing, it’s decent, call us” because where would you put the “Trusted by 10,000+” section you just made up?
And yes, people do make it up. If you’re going to claim numbers, claims, awards, or “as seen in” logos, you should be able to prove them. If you can’t, don’t put them on the site. (This sounds obvious. It is not treated as obvious.)
SEO didn’t ruin everything, but it helped
Search engines didn’t force anyone to write drivel. People did that all by themselves. But SEO culture definitely encouraged a certain kind of dead-eyed writing where every sentence is trying to “rank” rather than communicate.
You can almost see it happening:
Somebody googles “how to write a landing page”. They find a checklist. The checklist says you need:
- a value proposition
- pain points
- social proof
- urgency
- calls to action
So they paste in all the right shapes of sentence, like filling in a tax return. The result ticks boxes, but doesn’t sound like a human being. It’s writing designed to appease an imaginary algorithm-god and a nervous manager at the same time.
Also, half the web is now written or “assisted” by tools that have been trained on the same pile of bland corporate internet. That doesn’t create sameness from nothing, but it does turbocharge it. You feed the machine beige and it gives you beige. Shocking.
Brands are terrified of having a personality
Most companies want the benefits of being memorable without taking the risk of being remembered.
A real voice means you might repel some people. That’s the point. If you try to appeal to everyone, you end up sounding like an airport lounge.
There’s a special kind of nonsense reserved for this fear. It usually looks like:
- big claims with no details
- long sentences that never land
- words like “innovative” stapled to things that are not innovative
If you sell insurance, you probably aren’t changing the world. That’s fine. I don’t want my insurer to “disrupt”. I want them to answer the phone and pay out when my ceiling falls in.
How to stop sounding like everybody else
Not by “being authentic” as a vibe. By doing the unglamorous work of being specific.
- Say what you actually do. Not “solutions”. Not “services”. The actual thing. “We fix leaking roofs in Leeds.” “We make invoicing software for sole traders.”
- Pick a reader and talk to them. If your site is for everyone, it’s for no one. Decide who you’re helping and write like you mean it.
- Use normal words. If you wouldn’t say it out loud to a mate, don’t put it on your homepage. (Unless your mate is also a corporate brochure.)
- Prove the big claims or bin them. If you’re “award-winning”, name the award. If you’re “trusted by thousands”, be ready to back it up. If you can’t, don’t say it.
- Add one honest detail. Something real that another company can’t copy-paste. Your turnaround times. Your process. Your weird little rule. The fact you don’t do weekends. Anything true.
The web doesn’t need more “mission-led” waffle. It needs sites that tell the truth, plainly, with a bit of spine. The funny thing is it’s not even a branding trick. It’s just basic respect for the reader’s time.