Writing Website Content: What to Put on Every Page, and How to Write It Yourself

Writing website content is where most small business owners get stuck. The design is ready, the photos are done, the web developer is waiting for text. Then a blank document opens, and the only question in your head is: what am I supposed to write on this site?

This post is a practical, page-by-page guide to writing the text for a small business website. It is for owners of small service businesses (coaches, therapists, consultants, private tutors) who want to write their own site, or at least hand good material to whoever writes it. Here is what it covers:

1. How to collect your clients’ words before writing a single sentence
2. What goes on each page: home, about, services and contact
3. A complete fill-in template for a service page
4. Headline, proof and call to action: the three parts that do the heavy lifting
5. Common mistakes, and when to write it yourself versus hire a copywriter
6. A short checklist before the text goes live

Before you write: collect your clients’ words

The first mistake happens before the first sentence: we write in our own language. We know the field from the inside, so we write “emotional therapy with an integrative approach”. The client, meanwhile, writes on WhatsApp: “my son hasn’t slept through the night since he started first grade”.

Picture a cosmetician in Ra’anana. Her site says “advanced facial treatments for skin renewal”. Her inquiries say “I’ve had breakouts for two years and no cream helps”. A visitor reading the first line is not sure it is meant for her. She recognizes the second one instantly.

So before opening a document, spend half an hour on this:

• Go through your last 20 inquiries on WhatsApp and email, and copy how people described the problem, in their own words.
• List the 10 questions that keep coming up on first calls. Each one is a paragraph on your site.
• Read your reviews on Google and Facebook, and mark what clients said changed for them.
• Check what people search for. We have a guide to DIY keyword research with no paid tools.

That list is the raw material for the entire site. From here on, you are never writing from scratch.

What goes on each page

Every page has one job: answer the question the visitor is asking at that moment. Know the question, and you know what to write.

We have full guides on the first two: what to write on your homepage, in six blocks, and an about page that works, in five parts. This post focuses on the two pages that usually get written last and in a hurry: the service page and the contact page.

The service page: where the decision is actually made

The homepage brings her in, but she decides whether to get in touch on the service page. That is where she checks whether it is for her, how long it takes and what she gets at the end. A two-line service page (“Personal coaching for women, contact us for details”) leaves every question open, and she will move on to a site that answers them.

Rule of thumb: one page per main service. A coach offering one-on-one coaching, a group workshop and a single consultation needs three pages, because each one has a different client with different questions.

The contact page: lower the hesitation

Most contact pages are a form and a phone number. Not enough, because the visitor who lands there is still hesitating. Add three sentences that ease it: when you will get back to her (only promise what you actually do), what happens on the first call (“a fifteen-minute intro call, no commitment”), and which channel is easiest. On choosing the channel and placing it on the page, see our post on turning visitors into WhatsApp leads.

Fill-in template: a service page in eight parts

This is the template I give clients who want to write their own pages. Fill each part with two or three sentences and you have a complete service page. The examples in brackets are for a yoga teacher in the Krayot, north of Haifa.

1. Headline: the service, who it is for, and the result. (Yoga for women over 50 in the Krayot, for a more flexible back and easier mornings)
2. Who it is for, and who it is not for: describe the client in her own words. (You wake up with a stiff back; you tried the gym and it never clicked.) A “not a fit if…” line builds more trust than any promise.
3. The problem: what is happening now, without the service, in two or three sentences.
4. How it works: the steps, in order. How many sessions, where, how long each one is, what to bring.
5. What comes out of it: what she will feel or know at the end. No promises you cannot keep.
6. Proof: one or two real testimonials with a name (and the client’s permission) that talk about this specific service.
7. Price or starting point: even “from…” beats silence. A visitor who finds no hint of price usually assumes it is high.
8. FAQs and the next step: three to five questions from the list you collected, then one button.

Part 8 works twice: it reassures the client, and it is exactly the format Google and AI engines like to quote. We explain why in our post on FAQ sections.

Headline, proof and call to action

Three parts of every page do most of the work. If there is no time to polish everything, polish these.

The headline. A simple formula that works: what + for whom + what result. “Baby sleep consulting in Haifa, for calmer nights for the whole family” answers all three in one line. Notice the result is stated as a direction, not a promised number of nights. A headline only promises what you can deliver.

The proof. “I am professional and experienced” is a claim. Proof is something a visitor can check: a testimonial with a full name, years in practice you can back up, a photo of you at work, a relevant certification. Testimonials must be real and approved by the person who wrote them. A made-up testimonial is not a shortcut; it is a liability.

The call to action. One main action per page, in words that say what will happen: “Book an intro call on WhatsApp” is clearer than “Click here”. You can repeat it several times down the page, as long as it is the same action.

7 common website content mistakes

1. Writing about yourself instead of the client. Count the sentences that start with “I”. If it is most of them, flip the order: the client first, then what you do for her.
2. Words everyone uses. “Unique approach”, “personal attention”, “uncompromising professionalism”. If a competitor could paste the sentence as is, it says nothing.
3. Walls of text. On a phone, a ten-line paragraph looks like a wall. Short paragraphs, subheadings, lists.
4. No price and no hint of one. You do not need a full price list, but “from…” or “what affects the price” saves inquiries that are a poor fit for both sides.
5. Headings that say nothing. “Our Services” and “A Little About Me” help neither a skimming visitor nor Google. A good heading stands on its own. Headings are both an accessibility issue and what AI reads.
6. Copying competitors. Beyond the legal and ethical problem, you end up with a site that sounds like everyone else.
7. Write once and forget. A service changed, a price went up, a new testimonial came in. A site untouched for two years feels abandoned. More recurring mistakes are in our post on 7 small business website mistakes.

Write it yourself or hire a copywriter?

There is no single answer. The question is what you are missing: material, time or wording.

The middle path that works best for solo service providers: write a rough draft following the template above, with all the information and no worrying about style, then hand it to a professional to polish. The copywriter does not have to guess, and the whole thing moves faster.

And ChatGPT? It is a good tool for organizing your thoughts, suggesting a structure and tightening text you already wrote. But it was not in your sessions. Google states in its guidance that its ranking systems are designed to prioritize helpful, reliable information created to benefit people, and suggests asking whether your content demonstrates first-hand expertise (Google’s full guidance). That first-hand experience is exactly what only you have.

A short glossary

• Copy: the marketing text on a site, written to persuade and not only to explain.
• Call to action (CTA): the next step you ask the visitor to take, and the button that leads to it.
• Social proof: anything showing others already chose you: testimonials, reviews, client logos.
• Main headline (H1): the large heading at the top of the page. One per page, and Google reads it to understand what the page is about.
• Microcopy: the small bits of text, like the label on a button or the hint under a form field. Small, but they shape the decision to click.

Checklist before the text goes live

• Every page makes clear within seconds what it offers and to whom
• Headlines use the words your clients use
• Each main service has its own page, with all eight parts
• There is at least one real testimonial, with a name and permission
• There is a price, a “from…”, or an explanation of what sets the price
• Each page has one main call to action
• The contact page says what happens after someone reaches out
• You read everything aloud, on your phone, and rewrote every sentence you stumbled on

Summary

Writing website content starts before the writing itself: with collecting your clients’ words. From there, each page gets one job: answering the question the visitor is asking at that moment. The homepage tells her she is in the right place, the about page builds trust, the service page answers what, how and how much, and the contact page eases the hesitation to reach out. On every one of them, the headline, the proof and the call to action do most of the work. After more than ten years and more than 200 websites, I can tell you the sites that bring in inquiries are not the ones with the most brilliant wording, but the ones where the client recognizes herself in the very first headline. That material lives only with you, and even if someone else polishes it, it starts with you.

Want a website built around your own content, in your clients’ words? Talk to us ↗