You know the feeling. You read your own website and it’s fine. The grammar’s right, the pages load, nothing’s broken. But it doesn’t sound like you, and it doesn’t seem to bring in much work. When a small business owner sits down with me and describes their site, the phrase I hear most is “it’s fine, it just doesn’t do anything.”
Your copy, the actual words on your pages, probably reads a lot like your competitor’s. Not because you copied them, but because everyone in your industry reaches for the same safe phrases: “Quality service you can trust.” “Your local experts.” “Passionate about excellence.” None of it is wrong, but all of it is invisible.
Then AI showed up and made the problem impossible to ignore. Ahrefs studied 900,000 new web pages from April 2025 and found that 74.2% of them contained AI-generated content (Ahrefs). Graphite tracked the shift and found that AI-written articles briefly overtook human-written ones in late 2025, at 50.9%, settling back to roughly half by early 2026 (Graphite). The web filled up with copy that is competent, tidy, and completely interchangeable. Which is oddly good news for you, because specific, human, plainly-written copy now stands out more than it has in years.
Sounding like yourself again won’t cost you anything to start.
Why does so much website copy sound the same?
Most generic copy is written from the inside out.
You know your business too well. You’ve been living inside it for years, so you describe it the way you’d describe it to another owner: your values, your history, your process. The trouble is the reader doesn’t care about any of that yet. They arrived with a problem and not much patience, and “we’ve been proudly serving the community since 2009” answers a question they haven’t asked.
There’s also fear. Being specific means excluding people, and excluding people feels like turning away money. So the copy hedges. “We work with businesses of all sizes.” “Solutions for every need.” Every hedge sands off another edge until what’s left is smooth, safe, and identical to the shop next door.
And now there’s a third pressure. When you ask an AI tool to write your “about” page, what comes back reads, to me, like the average of everything it has read. Researchers are starting to name this. A 2026 paper in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences describes large language models as “drivers of cultural homogenization, operating at scales and speeds that exceed all previous technologies” (SAGE Journals). The way I see it, ask the average machine for copy and you get average copy. It will be clean. It will also sound like everyone.
The left column could belong to any business, and the right column could only belong to one. That’s the whole difference.
Does generic copy actually cost you anything?
Yes, in two ways: it loses the reader, and it doesn’t even win the search you wrote it for.
When your headline could describe any business in your field, you’ve quietly handed the visitor a job: work out for yourself whether this is the right place. A stranger with a burst pipe or an overdue tax return won’t do that job. They’ll hit the back button and try the next result. Being specific does that work for them. It tells the right person “you’re in the right place” and the wrong person “keep looking,” which feels like a loss but is actually a kindness to both of you.
One of the older findings in web usability backs this up. When Nielsen Norman Group rewrote a page in concise, scannable, objective language, stripping out the promotional “marketese,” measured usability rose by 27% for the objective-language change alone and by 124% when all three improvements were combined. Their finding was blunt: the exaggeration, subjective claims, and boasting of promotional “marketese” were exactly what dragged usability down (Nielsen Norman Group). People have never liked being sold to in vague, self-congratulatory language. They just have more alternatives now.
Now the search angle, because this is where a lot of owners assume more content is the answer. It isn’t, if the content is generic. Google’s own guidance is built around content “created to benefit people” (Google Search Central), and it is explicit elsewhere that there’s no guarantee changes you make to your website will result in a noticeable impact in search results (Google Search Central). The data backs the warning. When Graphite analysed roughly 12,000 ranking pages, the ones with little to no AI content made up 88% of the top 20 positions (Graphite). SE Ranking ran the experiment directly, publishing 2,000 AI-written articles across 20 fresh domains and tracking them over 16 months: 28% of the pages were in the top 100 in the first month, but only 3% were still there about three months after publication, and after a later update, 20% were back in the top 100 (Search Engine Land).
The lesson is that the flood of average copy raised the bar for standing out, and generic doesn’t clear it, for readers or for Google. If you want to read more about AI search, I’ve written about that in what GEO actually is. And if your problem is really that people arrive but don’t contact you, the copy is only one of the leaks worth checking first, which I’ve laid out in seven enquiry leaks to check before you pay for SEO.
How do you tell if your copy is generic? The swap test
Before you rewrite anything, run these four quick checks on your own homepage, out loud if you can, to find out whether you have a problem.
1. The swap test. Take any sentence on your homepage and mentally swap your business name for your biggest competitor’s. If the sentence is still true, it’s generic. “At Smith Plumbing we’re committed to quality workmanship” works just as well for Jones Plumbing, which means it works for nobody. This is the fastest tell I know, and it costs nothing.
2. The stranger test. You are the worst judge of your own copy because you already know what you mean. So ask something that doesn’t. Paste your homepage into an AI tool and ask it to describe you cold.
3. The “we” count. Read your homepage and tally how many sentences start with “we,” “our,” or your business name, versus how many start with “you” or name the reader’s problem. If it’s mostly “we,” your page is a monologue about yourself. Buyers want to read about their world, not your history.
4. The specificity scan. Paste your text into a free readability checker like Readability Check. It won’t judge whether you’re specific, but it highlights the long, hard-to-read sentences that generic copy hides in. Clarity and specificity travel together.
Try this: paste your homepage headline and opening paragraph into ChatGPT or Claude and ask, “Read this as someone who has never heard of this business. In one sentence, what does it do and who is it for? If you can’t tell, say so.” A vague or hedged answer is your copy failing the stranger test. It’s the same “corporate Mad Libs” the tool would write itself, which is exactly why it recognises it.
| # | Check | What it reveals |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Swap test | Could this sentence belong to a competitor? |
| 2 | Stranger test | Can an outsider tell what you do and who for? |
| 3 | “We” count | Is the page about you or about them? |
| 4 | Specificity scan | Are you hiding behind vague, complex sentences? |
If any of these trip on your own homepage, you’ve got a list of free things to fix this week.
How do you fix it? Three moves that work
You don’t need to be a copywriter. You need to stop writing like a brochure and start writing like a person who’s actually met the customer.
Move 1: write to one person, and name them
Generic copy is written to “customers.” Good copy is written to a person. Before you touch a sentence, picture the exact human you want to reach, the plumber who dreads BAS time, the couple redoing their kitchen, and write to them by name where you can.
Before: “We provide comprehensive bookkeeping solutions for businesses of all sizes.”
After: “Bookkeeping for tradies and sole traders who’d rather be on the tools than buried in receipts.”
The second one loses the enterprise client. It was never going to call you anyway. What it gains is the sole trader who reads it and thinks, finally, someone who gets my situation.
Move 2: replace claims with proof
“We’re reliable” is a claim. Claims are free, so nobody believes them. Swap the claim for the specific thing that makes it true.
Before: “Fast, reliable emergency electrical service you can count on.”
After: “Licensed emergency electrician covering Geelong and the Bellarine. Most callouts answered within 30 minutes. Fixed price quoted before I start.”
Same promise, but now it’s checkable. Numbers, place names, a licence, and a concrete commitment do more than any adjective. If you’ve got real reviews or a membership number, this is where they earn their keep, right next to the words, not buried on a separate page.
Try this: open your homepage and highlight every adjective - “reliable”, “quality”, “trusted”, “professional”. For each one, either swap it for a checkable fact (a number, a place, a licence) or delete it. If nothing’s left when you’re done, that sentence was never doing any work.
Move 3: lead with their problem, not your history
The strongest structure I know is almost embarrassingly simple. Lead with the reader’s world, bridge through what you do, and land back in their world. It’s the four-step shape I use on every page that has to bring in work: what problem are they experiencing, what do they actually want, where do you step in, and what changes for them afterwards.
Before: “Established in 2009, Acme Legal is a full-service firm offering a wide range of legal solutions with a commitment to client satisfaction.”
After: “Sorting out a will shouldn’t feel like homework. I’ll walk you through it in plain English, keep you posted at every step, and you’ll leave knowing exactly what happens next. No jargon, no billable-hour surprises.”
If you want a named framework to lean on, there are three worth knowing, and they all say a version of the same thing. PAS (problem, agitate, solution) belongs to the direct-response copywriting tradition. AIDA is usually credited to advertising pioneer E. St. Elmo Lewis, and a three-step version of the formula was already in print in 1898. And StoryBrand casts the customer as the hero and your business as the guide. Pick whichever one sticks in your head. The point they share is the point that matters: make it about the reader, not about you.
Should you use AI to write your copy?
Yes and no, and the line between them matters.
AI is genuinely useful for the scaffolding. Getting unstuck from a blank page, tidying a clumsy sentence, checking whether your meaning survives a cold read, turning your rambling voice note into something structured. I use it for exactly that kind of thing every day.
Where it falls down is the part that makes your copy yours. Ask a model to write your positioning and, in my experience, it reaches for the middle of everything it has seen, which is the same middle your competitors landed in. The homogenising pull is real, and it’s now in the published research, not just grumbled about (SAGE Journals). The specific detail, the strong opinion, the phrase only your customers would recognise, that has to come from you, because the machine has never met your customer.
So the honest workflow is this: bring the specifics, let AI help with the shape. Write the true, specific sentences yourself, then use a tool to make them clearer, not to invent them. And whatever you do, don’t let it slip in claims you can’t stand behind. “Award-winning” and “industry-leading” that never happened are the sort of unsubstantiated claim Australian consumer law expects you to be able to back up. If it isn’t true and specific, cut it.
When is this worth paying someone for?
Most of what’s above you can do yourself, this week, for nothing: run the four checks, apply the three moves and read it aloud. That alone will lift a lot of small-business sites out of the sameness.
Where it gets genuinely hard is the part you can’t see from the inside. Deciding what you actually stand for when you’re too close to it. Working out which of your customers to write to when you serve a few different types. And the bigger question underneath all of it: is the copy even the real problem, or is it the offer, the layout, or the fact that the right people aren’t finding the page at all? Answering that honestly is harder than rewriting a headline, and it’s the bit worth a second opinion.
Free orientation vs paid diagnosis
This article can help you spot the shape of the problem. It isn’t a full diagnosis of your website, your messaging, or why enquiries aren’t coming in.
A Digital Health Check is different. I look at the actual pages, the way people arrive, and what happens when they get there, then tell you what matters, what can wait, and what you can genuinely fix yourself.
If you want a second set of eyes on whether your copy is the problem or a symptom, book a Digital Health Check. And if the honest answer is that the whole site is fighting you, not just the words, that’s web design territory, where the copy and the build get sorted together rather than one after the other. I cover this in How much does a small-business website cost in Australia?.
Tools & Resources
Free tools
- Readability Check - runs your text through six readability formulas at once and gives a consensus grade. Aim for something a busy, distracted customer can skim. Generic copy loves to hide in long, vague sentences, and this drags them into the light.
- LanguageTool - its free version corrects spelling, simple punctuation and some style mistakes. Good for a plain-English second pass.
- Grammarly - free tier for grammar and tone. Useful as a final polish, not a substitute for having something specific to say.
Sample prompts
- The stranger test - paste your homepage and ask ChatGPT or Claude: “Read this as someone who’s never heard of this business. In one sentence, what does it do and who is it for? If you can’t tell, say so.”
- The de-jargon pass - paste a paragraph and ask: “Rewrite this so a busy 55-year-old with no marketing background understands it on first read. Keep every specific fact. Cut anything that could describe any business.”
- The you-not-we flip - paste your “about” intro and ask: “Rewrite this to lead with the customer’s problem instead of the company’s history. Don’t invent anything, only reorder and reframe what’s here.”
A five-minute copy self-check
- Run the swap test on your headline and your first paragraph.
- Count your “we” sentences against your “you” sentences.
- Read the page aloud. Anywhere you’d never actually say those words to a customer, rewrite them.
If the deeper worry is that people arrive and still don’t contact you, the copy is only one of the leaks worth checking, and I’ve mapped the rest in seven enquiry leaks to check before you pay for SEO. Fix the words first, though. It’s the one item on this list you can do this afternoon, for nothing.
Nathan Schram is a digital consultant in Melbourne. Through Nathan Schram Digital he helps small Australian organisations work out what’s worth fixing online and what can wait - built for results, not reports.