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A buyer who has never heard of you lands on your homepage. They read the headline and a line or so underneath it, then scroll past the photograph. They haven't seen a price or spoken to anyone on your team, but they already have a rough figure in their head for what you charge, and your website copy put it there.
That guess shapes everything after it. If it sits well below your real fee, one of two things happens: they don't enquire, or they enquire and go quiet once the proposal arrives. You lose the work either way, and you lose it for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of what you do.
Most businesses write their website copy to describe what they do. Buyers read it for clues about what it will cost them, and that reading goes on whether anyone planned for it or not.
The website copy that makes you look cheaper than you are
It's rarely badly written. The problem is that it doesn't separate you from the cheapest option in your market.
"Quality service, competitive prices, friendly team" is the obvious example. Plenty of firms in Limerick could put that line on their homepage tomorrow and it would be as true for them as it is for you. When a reader can't find anything that sets you apart, they fall back on the one thing they can compare, which is price. "Solutions tailored to your needs" does the same damage more politely. Every serious supplier tailors the work, so the sentence tells the buyer nothing and uses up one of the most valuable lines on the page.
"We work hard to deliver for our clients" has a different problem. Buyers pay for results, and a paragraph about effort suggests there isn't a result you're confident enough to name.
Then there's the long list of services: web design, branding, print, signage, photography and social media. It's meant to show range. What a buyer tends to see is a small operation taking whatever comes in during a quiet month, which is the opposite of the specialist they'd expect to pay more for. "Affordable packages to suit every budget" works against you in a similar way. It puts a ceiling on what the reader expects to pay, and it draws in the buyers most likely to haggle.
None of these sentences is untrue, and nobody in the room ever objects to them, which is how they survive every website review. Search your own site for "competitive", "tailored", "affordable" and "work hard". Each one you find is a sentence to rewrite.
A free quote invites a price comparison
The call to action sends a signal too. "Get in touch for a free quote" frames the relationship as a price comparison before you've shown any value. It asks the reader to collect three numbers and pick the lowest, and a fair few of them will do just that.
An invitation to talk through the problem does a different job. It tells the buyer that the first conversation will be about their situation, and it gently puts off the people who only wanted a number for a spreadsheet. Put a plain account of how you quote and what a proposal includes beside it, and the buyer knows what happens after they get in touch.
Describe their problem better than they could
Copy that supports a higher fee has one habit in common. It shows the buyer that you understand their situation more clearly than they could put it themselves.
When a prospect reads an account of their own problem that's sharper than the one they'd have written, they reach the conclusion you want without being told: these people have dealt with this before. You don't need to claim experience when the description already demonstrates it. That's why the strongest opening line on a service page is rarely about the business. It's about the specific, slightly uncomfortable situation the reader is sitting in right now.
It's also why "with over twenty years of experience" does less than people expect. Longevity is worth mentioning, but on its own it describes how long you've been going, and twenty years of doing the same thing isn't obviously better than five years of doing it well. Put the number beside what those years have taught you to do for a client.
Specific copy costs an afternoon
Vague copy costs nothing to write and goes on costing you margin for years, which is a poor trade against one afternoon of hard thinking. Here are two ways of describing the same service. One reads, "We build websites that help businesses grow online." The other reads, "We rebuild websites for Irish manufacturers whose enquiry forms fill up with students and time-wasters instead of procurement managers."
The second sentence turns most readers away, and that's intended. The right reader stops scrolling, because it names something they've complained about in a meeting recently. A sentence like that brings in fewer enquiries, but more of them come from people who expect to pay properly for the work.
Brief the rewrite on commercial questions
Copy rewrites usually stall because the brief is about taste. The team wants the words to feel more modern and more like them, and arguments about taste tend to end when someone runs out of patience.
A commercial brief settles faster. Before anyone changes a word, get the people responsible for revenue to agree answers to these:
Who shouldn't enquire? Naming the buyer you want to put off is quicker and more useful than describing the one you want.
What does this reader already believe? Copy that argues against a belief it never mentions will lose, so name the objection and answer it.
What are they comparing you with? It might be another supplier, but it could as easily be doing the work in-house or leaving it for another year.
Roughly what should they expect you to cost by the end of the page? If nobody can say, the page has no commercial job and won't do one.
With those answers agreed, the writing goes quickly. Most of the arguments about individual words fall away as well, because there's finally something to judge them against.
There's no neutral version of your website
Every site sends a price signal, including the ones that say very little. Generic language sends one, and so does the stock photo of two people shaking hands across a desk.
The choice you do have is whether the signal is deliberate. Businesses that treat copy as decoration end up competing on price without ever deciding to, while the ones that write with the fee in mind tend to find the conversation about money gets shorter.
If enquiries keep arriving with the wrong budget attached, look at the headline and first paragraph of the pages people land on before you touch your prices. Book a call with Dave and we'll go through the wording on your main pages with you and show you where it's pulling your fee down.
Related Brainstorm services and work
Content strategy and messaging · Brand strategy and positioning · Discuss a brand or website project
Updated 24 September 2026. Dave Curtin, founder and Creative Director of Brainstorm, leads website strategy, brand direction and technical delivery for Brainstorm clients.
A buyer who has never heard of you lands on your homepage. They read the headline and a line or so underneath it, then scroll past the photograph. They haven't seen a price or spoken to anyone on your team, but they already have a rough figure in their head for what you charge, and your website copy put it there.
That guess shapes everything after it. If it sits well below your real fee, one of two things happens: they don't enquire, or they enquire and go quiet once the proposal arrives. You lose the work either way, and you lose it for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of what you do.
Most businesses write their website copy to describe what they do. Buyers read it for clues about what it will cost them, and that reading goes on whether anyone planned for it or not.
The website copy that makes you look cheaper than you are
It's rarely badly written. The problem is that it doesn't separate you from the cheapest option in your market.
"Quality service, competitive prices, friendly team" is the obvious example. Plenty of firms in Limerick could put that line on their homepage tomorrow and it would be as true for them as it is for you. When a reader can't find anything that sets you apart, they fall back on the one thing they can compare, which is price. "Solutions tailored to your needs" does the same damage more politely. Every serious supplier tailors the work, so the sentence tells the buyer nothing and uses up one of the most valuable lines on the page.
"We work hard to deliver for our clients" has a different problem. Buyers pay for results, and a paragraph about effort suggests there isn't a result you're confident enough to name.
Then there's the long list of services: web design, branding, print, signage, photography and social media. It's meant to show range. What a buyer tends to see is a small operation taking whatever comes in during a quiet month, which is the opposite of the specialist they'd expect to pay more for. "Affordable packages to suit every budget" works against you in a similar way. It puts a ceiling on what the reader expects to pay, and it draws in the buyers most likely to haggle.
None of these sentences is untrue, and nobody in the room ever objects to them, which is how they survive every website review. Search your own site for "competitive", "tailored", "affordable" and "work hard". Each one you find is a sentence to rewrite.
A free quote invites a price comparison
The call to action sends a signal too. "Get in touch for a free quote" frames the relationship as a price comparison before you've shown any value. It asks the reader to collect three numbers and pick the lowest, and a fair few of them will do just that.
An invitation to talk through the problem does a different job. It tells the buyer that the first conversation will be about their situation, and it gently puts off the people who only wanted a number for a spreadsheet. Put a plain account of how you quote and what a proposal includes beside it, and the buyer knows what happens after they get in touch.
Describe their problem better than they could
Copy that supports a higher fee has one habit in common. It shows the buyer that you understand their situation more clearly than they could put it themselves.
When a prospect reads an account of their own problem that's sharper than the one they'd have written, they reach the conclusion you want without being told: these people have dealt with this before. You don't need to claim experience when the description already demonstrates it. That's why the strongest opening line on a service page is rarely about the business. It's about the specific, slightly uncomfortable situation the reader is sitting in right now.
It's also why "with over twenty years of experience" does less than people expect. Longevity is worth mentioning, but on its own it describes how long you've been going, and twenty years of doing the same thing isn't obviously better than five years of doing it well. Put the number beside what those years have taught you to do for a client.
Specific copy costs an afternoon
Vague copy costs nothing to write and goes on costing you margin for years, which is a poor trade against one afternoon of hard thinking. Here are two ways of describing the same service. One reads, "We build websites that help businesses grow online." The other reads, "We rebuild websites for Irish manufacturers whose enquiry forms fill up with students and time-wasters instead of procurement managers."
The second sentence turns most readers away, and that's intended. The right reader stops scrolling, because it names something they've complained about in a meeting recently. A sentence like that brings in fewer enquiries, but more of them come from people who expect to pay properly for the work.
Brief the rewrite on commercial questions
Copy rewrites usually stall because the brief is about taste. The team wants the words to feel more modern and more like them, and arguments about taste tend to end when someone runs out of patience.
A commercial brief settles faster. Before anyone changes a word, get the people responsible for revenue to agree answers to these:
Who shouldn't enquire? Naming the buyer you want to put off is quicker and more useful than describing the one you want.
What does this reader already believe? Copy that argues against a belief it never mentions will lose, so name the objection and answer it.
What are they comparing you with? It might be another supplier, but it could as easily be doing the work in-house or leaving it for another year.
Roughly what should they expect you to cost by the end of the page? If nobody can say, the page has no commercial job and won't do one.
With those answers agreed, the writing goes quickly. Most of the arguments about individual words fall away as well, because there's finally something to judge them against.
There's no neutral version of your website
Every site sends a price signal, including the ones that say very little. Generic language sends one, and so does the stock photo of two people shaking hands across a desk.
The choice you do have is whether the signal is deliberate. Businesses that treat copy as decoration end up competing on price without ever deciding to, while the ones that write with the fee in mind tend to find the conversation about money gets shorter.
If enquiries keep arriving with the wrong budget attached, look at the headline and first paragraph of the pages people land on before you touch your prices. Book a call with Dave and we'll go through the wording on your main pages with you and show you where it's pulling your fee down.
Related Brainstorm services and work
Content strategy and messaging · Brand strategy and positioning · Discuss a brand or website project
Updated 24 September 2026. Dave Curtin, founder and Creative Director of Brainstorm, leads website strategy, brand direction and technical delivery for Brainstorm clients.