Set Yourself Apart By Creating A Distinct Voice

Set Yourself Apart By Creating A Distinct Voice



By Stoney deGeyter



One of the easiest ways to set yourself apart from your competitors is by creating a distinct voice through your written content. Whether you realize it or not, every website has a voice. For most businesses, the tone of their online voice is that of whoever wrote their content. Whether written by the site owner, an in-house writer, an SEO, a sub-contracted copywriter, or any such combination, each has contributed to creating the voice of the website.



Unfortunately, this type of collaboration also makes most content virtually indistinguishable from one website to another. Instead of creating a unique voice that is distinct throughout the site, what is created is a voice too diluted to be heard.



That's not to say that the copy is bad. On the contrary, the copy can be quite effective at educating and engaging the visitor and driving them to the conversion point. Voiceless copy isn't necessarily bland copy.



Give your website personality



Creating a very distinct voice for your website is really about giving your website a personality. As I said before, you can have great copy that lacks a clear voice that can be heard. But by creating a voice that can be heard clearly and distinctly through each written word on the page you are increasing the level of engagement with your visitor.

No longer is your website just a website that sells something. By giving it a voice you create a unique personality that each visitor is able to identify with. This personality you have developed is then able to do more than just sell your product or service, it becomes one of the main draws that brings visitors back time and time again. The visitor no longer feels like a guest, but instead has become a friend.



This friendship isn't developed with the people running the website, or the person writing the content, or even with the customer service representatives (though that's certainly desirable). But, at least initially, the friendship is developed solely with the voice that is speaking through the website. If developed with care, the visitor treats the voice as if it were a living breathing person. It becomes someone they enjoy being with and, depending on the site and the circumstances, someone they can laugh with, cry with, share with, relax with, joke with, be serious with, learn with, and do business with.



Of course all this can only be achieved by creating a voice that truly resonates with your audience. Understanding who your audience is and what type of voice will speak best to them is key to developing an effective voice that goes beyond just engaging your readers with your product or services. To engage them, you must be engaging.



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About the Author:

Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing (www.PolePositionMarketing.com), a search engine optimization / marketing firm providing SEO and website marketing services since 1998. Stoney is also a part-time instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College, as well as a moderator in the Small Business Ideas Forum. He is the author of his E-Marketing Performance eBook and contributes daily to the E-Marketing Performance (www.eMarketingPerformance.com) marketing blog.