September 20, 2007

Great Copywriting—Not for Robots

So the fine folks at Smashing Magazine did a showcase piece on 404 error pages and included the 404 page at Luminous. If you haven't seen this page, it's written entirely in haiku. As is my About page, by the way. I like haikus.

I mention this not to discuss haikus but copywriting, specifically copywriting for websites. Why does so much of it suck? Actually, I think I know why. It sucks because copywriters read what other copywriters write and conclude that website copy is supposed to sound like it was composed by robots.

Now, in fairness to copywriters everywhere, copywriting is hard. For me it's harder than any other kind of writing. This is why I turned to haikus on my About page: they helped me circumvent the constraints of the form and to do so in a way that expresses who I am, which is the underlying point of any About page.

Mind you, I'm not advocating haiku as the one-size-fits-all seventeen-syllable solution to the problem. But a little personality, a little humor, some subtle indication of one's status as a living and breathing and thinking human being, can go a long way toward improving one's copy.

The People of Flickr

When it comes to great copy, the first site I think of is Flickr. Whoever writes their stuff is definitely not a robot. Consider the opening sentence on the Flickr About page:

Flickr—almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world—has two main goals…

Sorry, robots don't write "almost certainly." "Almost certainly" is a non-robot giveaway and we're only three words in.

I know the counter-argument: Flickr is Flickr, and Flickr is cool. Whereas X Company is not cool, so it can't come off sounding like it employs any actual human beings.

I disagree. Flickr may have more leeway than some, but they created that leeway, they carved it out. Naturally you must know your audience; that's a given. But when dealing with a company, people want to feel like they're dealing with other people; that's a universal.

Of course it's not easy to find the words that convey the right kind of "personness." It's a conjuring act, really, one for neither the faint of heart nor the narrow of mind. But here's the thing: Robots can't do it.

Published in Content