Why Does My Website Copy Sound Generic?

You read your homepage draft and feel nothing. It says you're "passionate about delivering innovative solutions" and "committed to excellence." Those phrases could belong to any company in any industry. That's the problem: if your copy could describe your competitor just as accurately, it isn't doing its job.

Generic website copy usually isn't a writing talent problem. It's a specificity problem. When you don't have concrete details to reach for, your brain fills the gap with safe, abstract language. Fix the inputs and the output improves.

Why Your Copy Drifts Toward Generic

You're writing to "everyone"

When a page targets a broad audience, every specific detail feels like it might exclude someone. So you sand down the edges. But broad targeting produces broad language, and broad language converts no one.

You're describing yourself, not the reader's situation

"We are a full-service agency" is about you. "You need a landing page by Friday and your developer is booked" is about the reader. Generic copy clusters around company history, mission, and adjectives. Specific copy clusters around the reader's problem, timing, and constraints.

You don't have the raw material yet

Specificity comes from facts: numbers, names, timeframes, processes, objections, and outcomes. If you haven't gathered those, you'll default to abstractions. Most "bad writing" is really missing research.

You're editing for polish too early

Polishing smooths language. Smooth language is often vague language. If you clean up sentences before you've made them concrete, you'll sand away the details that made them useful.

The Specificity Test: A 10-Minute Diagnostic

Run this on your homepage, your main service page, and your primary landing page.

  1. The swap test. Replace your company name with a competitor's. If the copy still reads true, it's generic. Rewrite until it would be false for them.
  2. The "so what" chain. For each claim, ask "so what?" until you hit something a reader would actually care about. "We use modern technology" → so what? → "Your site loads in under a second on mobile" → that's a benefit.
  3. The adjective audit. Highlight every adjective. Words like innovative, seamless, cutting-edge, robust, and world-class are usually placeholders. Replace each with evidence or delete it.
  4. The stranger read. Hand the page to someone outside your industry. Ask them to explain what you do and who it's for. If they hesitate, your copy is too abstract.
  5. The objection scan. List the top three reasons someone wouldn't buy. If none appear on the page, you're writing marketing, not messaging.

How to Gather the Raw Material That Makes Copy Specific

You can't write concretely from an empty notebook. Collect these before you rewrite:

Rewriting Generic Phrases Into Specific Ones

Here's how the same idea changes as you add detail:

Notice that none of these require a statistic or a study. They require facts about how you actually work.

Where Generic Copy Hides on Your Site

Generic language rarely lives only on the homepage. Check these spots, which are the most common offenders:

A Quick Pre-Publish Messaging Checklist

Before you publish or hand off a page, confirm:

Common Mistakes That Keep Copy Vague

How to Know It's Working

Specific copy tends to produce a few recognizable signals: higher engagement on the page, fewer "what do you actually do?" questions from prospects, and sales conversations that start further along. If you want a baseline before you rewrite, run a free audit of your site to see how your pages perform on clarity, trust, and conversion signals — then compare after your edits.

For more practical guides on tightening your site's messaging and structure, browse the guides library.

Generic copy isn't a permanent trait. It's a symptom of missing specifics. Gather the facts, run the swap test, and rewrite one page at a time. The version that sounds like only you is the version that converts.

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