July 2014

Give newbies a chance.

This ad was famous early in my career and I've kept it in the forefront of my mind ever since.

Most visitors have never been to your site before.

Don't assume that everybody already knows everything about your company.

Don't assume the visitor is already a customer and already knows everything about you.

You know more about your company than anybody. Share the wealth.

• Don't assume the reader will do the work you can't be bothered to do. (Example phrase: "...limited only by your imagination.")

• "We're prouder of ourselves than anybody else in Silicon Valley."

Everywhere I look I see bad sites—bad from the copywriter's point of view. They're bad because they present no information. They may have data buried somewhere on the site, but they flunk the basics of copywriting.