Here’s a question worth sitting with: does your website sound like you?
Not “is it professional?” Not “does it cover all the services?” Does it actually sound like the person who runs the business — the one your clients like working with, the one who shows up in their inbox and makes things feel clear and manageable?
For a lot of business owners, the honest answer is no. The website sounds like a slightly stiffer, more corporate version of themselves. Or like a language model that has read a lot of other service business websites. Or like someone wrote it in a hurry and never quite found the right words.
Brand voice is what bridges that gap. Here’s how to find yours — and put it to work on your website.
Brand voice is the sum of how your business communicates: the words you use and avoid, the level of formality, the personality that comes through in written content, the way you handle complexity, how direct you are, whether you use humour and in what situations.
It’s not a single thing you decide once. It’s the accumulated pattern of how you communicate across every touchpoint — your emails, your proposals, your social captions, your website, your text messages with clients.
Most business owners already have a distinctive voice. They just haven’t consciously defined it — which means it shows up inconsistently, and their website often doesn’t reflect it at all.
The rise of AI-generated content has made brand voice more important, not less.
When every business can generate technically competent, grammatically correct copy at the click of a button, the differentiator is no longer whether you can write. It’s whether what you write sounds genuinely like you.
AI copy tends toward a kind of smooth, polished blandness. It’s correct. It covers the relevant points. It sounds like everyone — which means it sounds like no one in particular.
Your brand voice is the antidote to that. It’s the thing that makes a potential client read your website and think: this person gets it. They’re different. I want to work with them.
For service businesses especially — where clients are buying the person as much as the service — voice is often the deciding factor between an enquiry and a bounce.
If you’ve never consciously thought about your brand voice, start here. Answer these three questions honestly.
Not your most flattering client — your favourite one. The one who gets it, appreciates the way you work, and keeps coming back. What would they say about the experience? The words they use to describe working with you are often a better reflection of your voice than anything you'd write yourself.
Most business owners are significantly more interesting, specific, and direct in person than they are on their website. Think about how you explain what you do at a networking event, or how you describe a problem you solved for a client over coffee. That language — the unguarded, unscripted version — is usually much closer to your actual brand voice.
The copy you find clichéd, vague, or exhausting is usually the opposite of your voice. "We are a leading provider of integrated solutions for the modern business" — if that makes you cringe, you're telling yourself something about your voice. It's probably direct, specific, and jargon-free.
Once you’ve got a clearer sense of your voice, here’s how to bring it to your website.
Start with your About page. This is the one page where your personality is expected to come through, so it’s the easiest place to practise. Write a first draft the way you’d explain your story to a client over a coffee — then edit for clarity, not for “professionalism.”
Replace corporate phrases with the way you’d actually say it. “We leverage our extensive experience to deliver tailored solutions” → “We’ve worked with enough service businesses to know what works and what doesn’t — and we’re direct about both.” Same information, completely different voice.
Let your values show in your word choices. If transparency is important to you, your copy should say uncomfortable true things, not just safe flattering ones. If you’re cheeky, let that come through in a headline or two. If you’re warm and nurturing, make sure the copy reads with that energy, not like a dry technical manual.
Read it out loud before you publish. Every piece of copy should pass this test: would you say this out loud in a real conversation? If you’d never say it, cut it or rewrite it.
These are the phrases that drain voice and credibility simultaneously. Audit your website and cut any you find.
“We pride ourselves on…” — every business says this. Show the thing you’re proud of instead.
“Industry-leading” — leading how? Measured by what? If you can’t answer it, don’t say it.
“Solutions” as a standalone noun — especially “integrated solutions,” “bespoke solutions,” “tailored solutions.”
“Passionate about” — say what you actually care about and why.
“Your journey” — overused and usually vague.
“We understand that…” — this is a setup that almost always leads to something generic.
The test: if your competitor could paste this sentence onto their website without changing a word, it’s not serving your voice.
When we write copy for clients, we don’t start with a blank document. We start with a discovery process: we ask A LOT of questions, read everything they’ve already written, and listen for the patterns in how they talk about their work when they’re not trying to be “professional.”
Then we write in a voice that sounds like them — not like a generic agency, and definitely not like a language model. The goal is copy that the business owner reads and thinks: that’s exactly how I’d say it, only better.
That’s the service.
