The Top 4 Things to Know About Your Website’s Voice

How’s your website’s Voice?

Do you know the true story behind the HMV brand of Nipper, the loyal dog recognising his deceased master’s voice through a gramophone?

(If you’re too young to know or too old to remember, HMV stands for His Master’s Voice.)

This account shows that, regardless of the words the Master had recorded, it was the voice that Nipper loved and responded to. Website content writers have a lot to learn from this heartwarming story.

Voice is distinct and sometimes contradicts the words we say.

A visitor to your site hears your website’s voice through the layout, the words and the graphics, through what you include, what you leave out and what you prioritise.  The voice they hear may not be the one you think you’re projecting.

Website visitors will judge in an instant whether you’re speaking to them. If so, they’ll stay and scan the headlines. They’ll look at the pictures and may read a paragraph or two.

Is it really all about you?

A well-written and well-designed site does one amazing thing above all else: it tells the world about your business offerings while making visitors feel like it’s all about them.

Sites may proclaim, ‘It’s all about you’ when actually it’s all about the business. Site visitors can pick that in an instant.  A website’s voice needs to be informative or else it seems slick and untrustworthy. It has to translate your key messages into your visitor’s language.

Can they hear your ‘call to act’?

CTA reflects what you want your site visitor to DO.  The first thing you want them to do is to stay and have a good look around. If they find what they’re after (or something they didn’t even know they wanted) they’ll stay longer and look at different pages. At some point they will act. If it’s all too hard, most will just give up in the first few seconds.

“Am I in the right place?”

Do you know where your site visitors are coming from? (If you don’t, talk to us.) Some will come via Internet searches or perhaps by accident. In any case, they need to know they’re in the right place.

You have likely identified your ideal audience and how you want them to respond. But do you know the questions they have when they come to your site? They may not be the questions you’d like them to ask but your trustworthy website’s voice can assure them that you have real answers.

Get your website’s voice checked

Why do we find listening to our recorded voice so uncomfortable? Because there is a difference between the way we sound to ourselves and the way we sound to others.

Online communication is exactly the same so you need to ask someone else to evaluate your website’s voice. You can’t always hear what others hear and you could be losing customers as a result.

Here’s a CTA you need to hear: Call Oddball Marketing and get a website voice check.

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