People write more formally than they speak and lose the clarity that made the spoken version work. Recording how you actually explain something, then tidying it, produces better copy than composing from nothing.

What happens at the keyboard

The same person who explains something clearly on a job site writes something stiff, general, and hedged when asked to put it on a page.

Three things cause it.

Formality as a proxy for professionalism. The belief that business writing should sound like business writing, which produces sentences nobody would say aloud.

Writing to nobody. Speaking happens to a person; writing happens to an imagined audience, which pushes toward the general.

Editing while composing. Trying to get each sentence right prevents the plain version from arriving at all.

The result is copy that is technically fine and reads like every competitor's, which is the actual cost.

The technique that works

Record yourself explaining it.

Talk through the subject as though a customer had asked, on a phone recording, for a few minutes. Then transcribe it and edit.

That produces the version where you use concrete examples, answer the actual question, and say things in the order that makes sense to a listener. Those are exactly the qualities that disappear when people compose at a keyboard.

The editing removes repetition, filler, and the places where you circled back. It should not remove the phrasing that makes it sound like a person.

What to keep from speech

What to leave behind

Speech has its own faults, and transcription preserves them.

Repetition, since spoken explanation circles. Filler and hesitation. Tangents that made sense in conversation. And the tendency to start three sentences before finishing one.

Editing is where those go. The aim is written English that sounds like you rather than a transcript.

The phrases that signal nobody wrote this carefully

Worth naming because they appear on almost every small business site and communicate nothing.

Committed to excellence. Passionate about quality. Solutions tailored to your needs. Second to none. Going the extra mile. Attention to detail. Customer satisfaction is our top priority.

The problem is not that they are untrue. It is that every competitor says them, they are unverifiable, and a reader has learned to skip them entirely.

The test: could this sentence appear on a site in a different trade. If yes, it is filler occupying space that a fact could fill.

Replacing them with facts

The substitution that improves most business writing immediately.

Attention to detail becomes a description of what you actually check. Fast response becomes a stated response time. Experienced becomes a number of years and a type of work. Quality workmanship becomes a specific thing you do that a cheaper competitor does not.

Each substitution is checkable, which is why it is believed, and each is something a competitor cannot copy without it being false.

Consistency across a business

Where more than one person writes.

Voice drifts as pages accumulate: one written by the owner, one by an agency, one by whoever was available. A visitor reads the inconsistency without identifying it.

What helps is not a lengthy tone document. It is a short note with three or four examples of sentences that sound right and three or four that do not, which conveys more than any amount of description.

Also useful: a list of words your business does not use, which is faster to apply than a list of ones it does.

The check

Read a page aloud.

Anywhere you stumble, run out of breath, or feel slightly embarrassed is a sentence to rewrite. Embarrassment reading your own copy aloud is a reliable signal that it does not sound like you.

The other test is handing a page to somebody who knows you and asking whether it sounds like you talking. They will say no, and where they point is where the writing went formal.

Where a writer is involved, this is the review question that matters, as described in when to hire somebody to write it.

Frequently asked questions

Why does written copy come out worse than speech?

Formality used as a proxy for professionalism, writing to an imagined audience rather than a person, and editing while composing so the plain version never arrives.

What technique fixes it?

Record yourself explaining the subject as though a customer asked, then transcribe and edit. That preserves the concrete examples and the sensible order.

What should be kept from speech?

Contractions, short sentences, direct address, concrete examples, plain verbs, and admitting uncertainty rather than hedging it into meaninglessness.

Which phrases signal careless writing?

Committed to excellence, passionate about quality, tailored solutions, second to none, attention to detail. Every competitor says them and readers skip them.

What is the test for filler?

Could this sentence appear on a site in a different trade. If yes, it occupies space a fact could fill.

How do I check a page?

Read it aloud. Anywhere you stumble or feel slightly embarrassed is a sentence to rewrite, since embarrassment is a reliable signal it does not sound like you.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Site that sounds like everybody else's?

We usually start by recording how you explain it on the phone, which is already the better version.

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