Stop Using Fancy Words: Why Your Website Copy Should Sound Like a Human

Have you ever sat down to write copy for your website and felt a sudden wave of anxiety?

You stare at that blinking cursor on a blank Word document or inside your Webflow editor, and you think: “I need to write something profound. I need to sound professional, high-end, and untouchable.” So, you start piling on words you would never use in a real conversation: “industry-leading solutions,” “empowering digital transformation,” “holistic excellence in user experience.”

Stop right there.

Over the past few years, while building more than 50 business websites for clients around the globe, I’ve discovered a brutal truth: When you try to sound “sophisticated,” you are actually pushing your customers out the door.

Today, I want to talk about the “right way” to handle copywriting. It’s not just about the words you choose; it’s about how you understand your visitors and how you view the very nature of the internet.

The Internet’s Original Sin: Information, Not Decoration

Let’s start with a quick experiment. Take a look at the first website ever created: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

No images, no gradients, no fancy buttons. Just pure, structured text.

Do you think it’s ugly? Maybe. But it is incredibly efficient. It exists for one reason: to tell you what the World Wide Web is and how to use it. Thirty years later, even though we have Tailwind CSS, Three.js, and technologies that make websites look like sci-fi movies, the core mission of the internet hasn’t changed—it is a tool for transferring information.

The problem today is that we have too much information.

Statistics show there are over 1.1 billion websites online. Every minute, 175 new websites are born. But the harsh reality is that 83% of these websites are essentially “zombies”—no traffic, no conversions, no life.

Why? Because most websites fail at the very first step: delivering information clearly. They either say too much, or they say things that mean nothing.

Cognitive Load: Don’t Let Your Copy Become a Barrier

When people visit your website, they aren’t “reading.” They are “scanning.” Their brains are equipped with a built-in filter designed to ignore anything that looks like marketing fluff or unnecessary noise.

If a visitor can’t find the answer to “How does this help me?” within 3 seconds, they close the tab and head to your competitor.

When you use words like “empower,” “disruptive,” or “end-to-end,” you are increasing the cognitive load on your visitor. Their brain has to pause and translate your corporate-speak into something tangible.

• Bad Copy: “We leverage innovative distributed architectures to provide holistic synergy solutions for SMEs.” (Visitor: “Wait, what?”)
• Good Copy: “We built a tool that helps your team communicate twice as fast.” (Visitor: “Oh! I want that.”)

Remember: People are never persuaded by your website. People are persuaded by themselves.

Your job isn’t to “sell.” Your job is to provide enough clear, honest information so that the visitor can reach their own conclusion: “This is exactly what I need.”

The Practical Guide: How to Write Like a Human

If you feel like your website’s conversion rate is low, or if your copy just feels “off,” try these four core laws:

1. Forget Fancy, Aim for Simple (The “Non-Native” Test)

This is the most important advice I give my clients: Use words that even a non-native English speaker can understand easily.

If you can use a three-letter word to explain something, don’t use a ten-letter one. This isn’t about dumbing down your content; it’s about respecting your reader’s time. Simple language is the most piercing.

• Don’t say “Utilize,” say “Use.”
• Don’t say “Facilitate,” say “Help.”
• Don’t say “In the event of,” say “If.”

When I work with international clients, I often find that the most successful landing pages are written in the plainest language. Simple means unmissable.

2. Less is More: Let the Visuals Do the Heavy Lifting

As a developer and designer, I’ve seen too many “walls of text.”

If you need 500 words to explain a single feature, there is a problem with your product design or your communication strategy. On the modern web, a great image is worth a thousand words, and a demo video is worth ten thousand images.

The trend is clear: concise copy + powerful visual cues. Words should be the finishing touch, not the background white noise.

3. Focus on “Benefits,” Not “Features”

This is a classic copywriting rule, yet 90% of businesses still get it wrong.

Customers don’t care what language your code is written in or how many machines you have in your factory. They care about one thing: How does this make my life better?

• Feature-focused: “Our kettle is made of 304 stainless steel and supports 24-hour heat retention.”
• Benefit-focused: “Wake up whenever you want; your hot water is already waiting for you.”

Shift the subject of your sentences from “We” to “You.” Your website isn’t your autobiography; it’s an invitation to your customer.

4. Keep the Personality: Speak Like a Real Person

Many business sites try to look “professional” by adopting a cold, robotic tone that sounds like a legal contract.

But remember, there is a human behind the screen, and there is a human behind the keyboard. I always recommend that my clients write the first draft themselves. Don’t hire a cheap agency that uses templates. Only you know your business inside and out; only you have the passion that solved the problem in the first place.

It’s okay to be a little humorous or a little emotional. As long as it’s sincere, visitors will feel it. This “human touch” is the hardest thing for AI to mimic right now, and it is the key to building brand trust.

Speed is Still King

Finally, I want to add a technical perspective: The length of your copy directly impacts loading speed.

It sounds strange, but bloated content and unfiltered fluff not only drain the visitor’s mental energy but can also affect rendering efficiency in extreme cases. In the age of mobile browsing, every millisecond of delay is a potential bounce.

Keeping your copy lean is actually a form of performance optimization.

Conclusion

Writing website copy isn’t about creating a masterpiece for a literature prize. You don’t need a Nobel; you need a lead.

The next time you’re about to write something, imagine you’re sitting in a coffee shop across from your target customer. He’s busy. He only has two minutes to listen to you. What would you say?

Write that down. That is your best copy.

If you’re struggling to build a business website or refine your messaging, feel free to reach out. I don’t just write clean code; I help you find the business logic that actually moves people.

References:

• Web Stats: How many websites are there?
• The First Website - CERN
• Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug (A must-read UX bible)