10 Signs Your Company Website Copy Lacks Personality (And Needs Rewriting)
As a business owner, sitting down and writing about your company website copy is one of those tasks that, despite sounding simple… isn’t.
Why?
Well, because you know your business so well that you’ve completely lost the ability to describe it like a normal human being. So instead, you default to what you think a website is “supposed” to sound like, and three hours later you’ve written something that could’ve come from literally any company on earth.
Your web visitors can smell that in about two seconds flat. They might not be able to say why your site feels a little… off. But they feel it, and then they leave, and then you blame your “conversion rate” instead of the actual problem, which is lack of an experienced web copywriter.
Stick around, because sign number 7 on this list is the one almost every single B2B website gets wrong, and it’s quietly costing you the exact readers who would’ve loved working with you, if only your copy had let them see that.
A company website copy lacks personality when it sounds generic, robotic, (or just boring). The ten signs below will help you spot it, and why a remote web copywriter (like Copywriting by Tony) can help you fix it.
Okay, But What Does It Actually Mean for Website Copy to “Lack Personality”?
If your company website copy lacks personality, it means someone could delete your logo, slap it on a competitor’s site instead, and nobody would notice the swap. Your copy is playing it so safe that it’s forgotten to say anything at all.
And to be clear, personality doesn’t mean turning your B2B SaaS homepage into a stand-up routine. It means a reader can tell that a specific company, with specific people inside it, wrote specific words just for them. That’s it. That’s the whole bar.
Why Boring Company Website Copy Is Costing You More Than You Think
Your website doesn’t get a redo on its first impression, and that first impression happens faster than you’d like to admit. Stanford’s Web Credibility Project found that 75% of users judge a company’s credibility based purely on its website, and that judgment forms almost instantly, before anyone’s even read a full sentence.
Here’s the kicker, though: sameness is the real competitor you’re losing to. Edelman’s 2025 Trust Barometer found that 74% of consumers are more likely to pick brands that clearly reflect a point of view. Hard to have a point of view when your homepage says the exact same thing as the other eleven tabs your visitor has open.
And generic copy is starting to smell faintly of AI to readers these days, whether it actually is or not. The same branding research found that nearly half of consumers now often doubt the authenticity of brand content altogether. A real, specific, slightly weird human voice is worth more now than it was five years ago, not less.
Ann Handley, who wrote the book on this (literally, it’s called Everybody Writes), put it best: “Your writing voice is the expression of your personality on the page.” If your copy has zero personality, your readers aren’t imagining that gap. They’re picking up on a real, actual absence.
The 10 Signs Your Website Copy Needs an Intervention
1. Your Homepage Could Belong to Literally Any Company in Your Industry
Here’s a fun little test: delete your logo. Now read your homepage. Could it be your competitor’s site? Your other competitor’s site? If you can’t tell the difference, neither can your reader, and that’s the whole problem in a nutshell.
Sounds like: “We provide innovative solutions to help your business succeed.”
Say instead: Name the actual problem you solve, for the actual person who has it, in actual plain words.
2. You’re Hiding Behind Corporate Jargon Like It’s a Security Blanket
“Synergy.” “Best-in-class.” “Leverage our solutions.” These words sound impressive and mean absolutely nothing, and your reader’s brain has learned to skip right past them the way you skip a cookie banner.
Sounds like: “Our best-in-class platform leverages synergies across your organization.”
Say instead: “Our software gets your finance and sales teams looking at the same numbers, finally.”
3. Everything Is Written in Passive Voice, Like Your Copy Is Afraid of Commitment
Passive voice quietly erases whoever did the thing, which makes your copy feel slippery, evasive, a little guilty even. “Mistakes were made” hides a person. “We fixed it” doesn’t.
Sounds like: “Your order will be processed within 3 business days.”
Say instead: “We’ll process your order within 3 business days.”
4. Your About Page Reads Like a Press Release Nobody Asked For
Founding dates. Mission statements. A row of vague “values.” Readers learn exactly nothing about who they’d actually be emailing at 9pm when something breaks, and people buy from people, even the boring B2B kind of people.
Sounds like: “Founded in 2015, [Company] has grown into an industry leader.”
Say instead: Tell us why the founder started this thing, and what annoyed them enough about the old way of doing it.
5. Your CTAs Are Giving “Learn More” Energy
A vague button asks for a click without telling anyone what happens after. Specific CTAs remove the tiny flicker of hesitation that kills clicks, because nobody has to guess what they’re agreeing to.
Sounds like: “Learn More” or “Submit”
Say instead: “See Pricing Plans” or “Get My Free Audit”
6. There’s No Clear “This Is For You” Anywhere on the Page
Trying to speak to everyone is a surprisingly efficient way to speak to no one. The businesses converting best right now are specific about exactly who they serve, and even more specific about who they don’t.
Sounds like: “We help businesses of all sizes grow.”
Say instead: “We help 10 to 50-person SaaS teams cut onboarding time in half.”
7. It’s a Wall of Text With Zero Room to Breathe
This is the one, the sign I promised you earlier. Long, unbroken paragraphs ask readers to do work they never agreed to, and technical B2B offers seem to invite this specific flavor of over-explaining more than anything else.
Say instead: One idea per paragraph. If a sentence needs a comma to catch its breath, it’s probably two sentences wearing a trench coat.
8. You Can’t Hear an Actual Human Voice Anywhere on the Page
No contractions, no rhythm, no evidence whatsoever that a real person enjoys running this business. Reading copy like this feels like it got translated from another language twice, even though nobody translated anything.
Sounds like: “It is the policy of this organization to ensure customer satisfaction.”
Say instead: “We want you to actually like working with us.”
9. Your Testimonials Are Suspiciously Vague (“Great Service, Would Recommend!”)
Vague praise could be about literally anything. A dentist. A dog walker. Your company. Specific testimonials, with real names and real numbers attached, do ten times more convincing for a tenth of the words.
Sounds like: “Great service, highly recommend!”
Say instead: “They cut our support tickets by 40% in six weeks. — Maria, Operations Director”
10. Nothing on the Page Would Make Anyone Screenshot It
This one’s the real litmus test. If every single line on your site is correct, safe, and instantly forgettable, you’ve given your reader zero reason to remember you exist the moment they open their next tab.
Say instead: Find the one line a happy customer would actually say out loud to a friend, then build the rest of the page around earning that sentence.
Why Does Copy End Up Sounding Like This in the First Place?
Nobody wakes up and decides to write boring copy on purpose. It happens for pretty understandable reasons, honestly.
- You’re scared to commit to a stance. Vague feels safer than saying something a competitor might disagree with.
- Legal and leadership “just take a quick look.” Five rounds of internal review later, every interesting sentence has been sanded down to nothing.
- You went “inspiration hunting” on competitor sites. Which usually means you copied their blandness right along with their layout.
- You’re too close to your own business. The obvious, plain thing you’d say feels too simple to be worth saying out loud.
- You’re treating your website like a brochure. Brochures get glanced at once. Your website has to do this job every single day, forever.
Figuring out which one of these is yours is usually the fastest way to understand why your copy currently feels like it’s wearing a suit two sizes too big.
A Full Before-and-After, Because Seeing It Helps More Than Hearing About It
Here’s an illustrative homepage intro, run through the full fix, so you can actually feel the difference instead of just nodding along.
Before:
“We are a leading provider of innovative business solutions, committed to delivering best-in-class service to our valued clients. Our team of experienced professionals leverages industry expertise to help organizations of all sizes achieve their goals.”
After:
“You didn’t start a business so you could spend your Sundays fighting with spreadsheets. We build stupidly simple finance tools for small teams who’d rather be doing literally anything else on a Sunday.”
Notice what happened there. The jargon’s gone, the passive distance is gone, and an actual specific reader shows up by the end of the first sentence. That’s the whole job of a personality rewrite, done once and then repeated across every page on your site.
The 2-Minute Website Personality Self-Audit
Before you hire anyone, run this on your own site. It’ll take less time than your next coffee refill.
- Delete your logo (mentally, not literally). Could this be a competitor’s copy?
- Count the jargon. “Synergy,” “leverage,” “best-in-class” — how many show up?
- Read your About page. Does an actual human show up anywhere in it?
- Check your CTAs. Do they tell you what happens after the click, or just “learn more” into the void?
- Read a paragraph out loud. Did you run out of breath halfway through?
Two or more weak spots means it’s time for a rewrite, not just a fresh coat of design paint.
What Actually Fixes This (Hint: Not Just “Add Some Jokes”)
A good rewrite leans on a few proven structures instead of just winging it:
- PAS (Problem, Agitation, Solution) — name the problem, poke at what it’s costing them, then hand over your fix
- AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) — grab them, hold them, make them want it, tell them exactly what to do next
- Storytelling — lives on your About page and case studies, not forced into every single paragraph
- A tone of voice guide — a short doc listing words you use, words you ban, and a few example sentences so future-you doesn’t backslide
How Copywriting by Tony Fixes Website Copy That Lacks Personality
At Copywriting by Tony, you work directly with Tony Ajode, a competent and professional web copywriter who’s helped dozens of websites like Suites and Villas, Skilling, Private Jet Journeys and more scale online.
You can see Tony’s verified online reviews here before you consider hiring him for your web copy rewrite.
Every project kicks off with an audit against the ten signs above, so you know exactly what’s broken before a single word gets rewritten. From there, it’s about humanizing your brand without torching the credibility a B2B buyer needs to see before they’ll trust you with real money.
That means specific language instead of jargon, real proof instead of “great service!”, and a voice that actually sounds like your company instead of your entire industry’s group chat.
Copywriting by Tony vs Everyone Else Who’ll Take Your Money
| Factor | Copywriting by Tony | Educational Blogs | Generalist Agencies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Actual diagnostic process | Full audit against real signs | Advice only | Varies |
| You hire the actual writer | Direct, no middlemen | Not a service | Usually an account manager |
| B2B and SMB voice experience | Yes | Mixed | Varies |
| Pricing transparency | Clear ranges, upfront | N/A | Often “let’s hop on a call” |
| Verified reviews | 50+ on PeoplePerHour | N/A | Case studies only |
Blogs are great if you want to learn the theory and do it yourself. A rewrite is what you need when you’d rather hand the whole headache to someone else and get your weekend back.
Website Copywriting Services and Rewrite Packages at Copywriting by Tony
Full Website Copy Rewrite
Your home, about, and services pages all get rewritten together, so your voice doesn’t shift halfway through your own site like it’s two different companies.
Homepage-Only Rewrite
Tighter budget? Your homepage gets fixed first, since it carries the most traffic and the most first impressions by a mile.
Brand Voice Guide
A short reference doc covering your tone, your go-to words, and your banned words, so your copy stays consistent even if someone else ends up writing it later.
Website Copy Audit
A clear, written breakdown of which of the ten signs are showing up on your site, and exactly where to fix them first.
How Much Does a Website Copy Rewrite Actually Cost?
| Service | Typical Range (USD) |
|---|---|
| Website copy audit | $200 – $500 |
| Homepage rewrite | $400 – $1,200 |
| Full website rewrite (5-7 pages) | $1,200 – $4,000 |
| Brand voice guide | $500 – $1,500 |
A rewrite usually costs less than people brace themselves for, and it costs a whole lot less than months of visitors quietly bouncing off a page that sounds like absolutely nobody.
Do You Need a Quick Fix or the Full Rewrite?
Not every site needs to be burned down and rebuilt from the ashes. Here’s the simple way to figure out where to start.
| Situation | What To Do |
|---|---|
| One or two signs show up, mostly on one page | Fix that page first, probably your homepage or About page |
| Jargon and passive voice are everywhere | A full rewrite beats patching every page one at a time |
| You’ve never had a tone of voice guide | Start there before rewriting, so the new copy actually sticks |
| You just know something feels “off” | Start with an audit, since naming the problem is half the fix |
Remote Copywriter, Local Trust
“Copywriter near me” still matters for trust, even when the whole project happens over Zoom and shared docs. A good discovery call does the same job as a coffee meeting, minus the parking.
If you’re competing locally, keep your website’s personality consistent with your Google Business Profile too. The voice someone meets in a local search result should match the voice they meet on your homepage, not feel like two different businesses wearing the same logo.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the signs my website copy needs a rewrite?
Generic language, jargon, passive voice, vague CTAs, and a homepage nobody would ever quote out loud are the clearest giveaways.
How do I give my website more personality without sounding unprofessional?
Use plain, specific language and real examples instead of jargon. Personality comes from clarity and an actual point of view, not from cracking jokes everywhere.
What’s the difference between brand voice and tone?
Voice is your consistent personality across everything you write. Tone is how that personality shifts for context, like a serious support page versus a playful social caption.
How much does it cost to rewrite website copy?
Rates generally run from around $200 for an audit up to $4,000 for a full multi-page rewrite, depending on scope.
Can a remote copywriter really capture my brand?
Yes. A proper discovery process, interviews included, captures your voice just as well over a video call as it would in person.
How long does a full website copy rewrite take?
Most full-site rewrites take two to four weeks, depending on page count and how many rounds of revisions you need.
Ready for a Company Website Copy That Sounds Like an Actual Person Wrote It?
You’ve now got ten ways to spot problems in your company website copy, a few reasons it happened in the first place, and zero excuses left. The businesses people remember are the ones that sound like themselves.
Contact Tony Ajode today at copywritingbytony.com/contact for a company website copy that finally sounds like you, not your entire industry.
