Sitting down and writing about yourself is one of those tasks that just about everyone dreads. Because writing about yourself is hard and writing your own website copy can feel damn near impossible. You want to come across like a professional and highlight your qualifications, but writing about your accomplishments makes you feel like a cocky bastard who thinks too highly of themselves.

And even after you’ve written everything down and go back to read over it, you may realize that instead of sounding like the lively, lovely human you are, you’re coming across like a corporate, robot reciting your resume, which is less than ideal.

It’s tempting to just say “screw it” and publish it anyway because at least it’s done, but here’s the thing:

Getting your personality across is sooooooooooooooo important.

(Yes, it did require that many o’s to make my point.) And if you’re wondering WHY it’s so important, grab a pen and some paper because that’s exactly what we’re discussing right here, right now. 

Why does personality matter in copywriting?

1 – It makes it easy for customers to connect with you

You probably know this already being a human and all, but we don’t connect easily with lifeless and dry robots. We do, however, connect very easily with things that have personalities (even if they are inanimate objects like children’s toys in Disney’s Toy Story.) Personality allows us to see where we are similar to someone and determine if we like someone or not. 

And because we tend to buy from people we like…

…showing your personality in your website copy is VITAL to getting your customers to like you, connect with you, and support your business. 

2 – Helps you stand out 

Let’s say someone is looking to hire a copywriter and they have three websites pulled up and all the copywriters have similar experience and pricing. They all get great results for their clients and their qualifications make each of them the perfect person for the job. 

So what’s gonna be the tiebreaker?

If you guessed personality, you’re 100% right. 

You might have the same qualifications (or even less experience than those who offer similar services or products), but what no one has on you is the way you show up, the exact things you care about, and the background that has shaped who you are. 

Your personality is the biggest edge you have on competition, use it. 

3 – Makes business easier

While I know that getting your personality across in writing can feel extremely challenging, being yourself in your business is the easiest way to go. Not only for the reasons we talked about above but because it allows you to let go of what you “should” be like as a business owner and just be your freaking self. 

This authenticity will resonate with your readers and will build trust with your audience because when they schedule a discovery call after reading your website copy and you sound exactly the same in person as you do online, there is nothing but green flags. 

Okay, so now that we know personality is important…

How do you figure out how to sound like yourself?

• Connect to your why 

This is something you want to do before you do anything else (and something to continuously revisit as your business changes and grows). 

• Why are you driven to do what you do? 
• What does it matter?
• What are you hoping to help others accomplish? Why is that important to you?

Journal on it. 

You want to go deep here, interrogate your why into you feel you’ve hit your core. (If you start tearing up, you’ve hit it although that’s certainly not required.) 

Getting clear on what drives you to do what you do, is foundational to everything you create. And although what you write regarding your why mostly likely won’t show up word-for-word in your website copy, you’ll likely unearth many important aspects of what you hope to help others with which can spark many ideas of what you do want to share. 

• Stalk yourself 

I know it sounds weird, but it’s exactly what copywriters do when they’re getting the hang of writing in their client’s voice.

Read through your captions, emails, and texts, and write down the phrases you use over and over again. (Seriously, open a Google Doc and write them down.)

A few specific questions:

• What adjectives do you use to describe something exciting? 
  • Brilliant? Fabulous? Cool? Wicked? Neat? Bloody?
• What specific words do you use over and over again? 
  • Freaking? Heck? Groovy? 
• With phrases like “oh my god” – do you spell them out or keep them abbreviated (OMG)? AF? WTF?
• Do you tend to write in long or short sentences? 

The goal is to write like you talk and not the way you talk when you’re being overly professional, but closer to the way you talk with your friends. 

• Start thinking about the things you do consistently 

The things outside of business that you’re passionate about could even play a part in your brand theme (like how my love of flavorful food spills into my brand’s theme of spicy copywriting). Your hobbies and interests are also great things to include on your About page and give you brand pillars that you can use to help generate content ideas.

A few questions for you:

• Do you have any specific routines, funny food aversions, an obsession with a certain item or habit?
• Do you have anything you do that your friends and family make fun of you for? 
• Do you have anything you collect?
• Do you have any particular guilty pleasures?

The trick here is to be hyper-specific. It’s not enough to say you like wine because everyone likes wine. But maybe you love French red wines. 

If you want to talk about food, don’t say you like tacos…

…say you’d kill for a chorizo taco topped with mango salsa.

If you have a particular habit or routine, share it. People like to be nosy and want an inside glimpse of what you and your life are like. 

Now that you’ve done some journaling, stalking, and introspection…get to writing, girl!

A few flavorful (and hopefully, inspirational) examples:

“And no, girl” is definitely a personality moment. Because my client uses “girl” all the freaking time it made perfect sense to use it in her website copy. It also helps the copy read like a conversation because it feels like she’s talking right to you by calling out a concern you might have about being a bad mom for needing help.

Loaf is a great example of an e-comm brand infused with personality. Instead of simply asking the question “love seat or snugglers?” and ending with “view all love seats,” they added in, “Call them whatever you want. Just sink in.” Not only does this give the copy a conversational feel, but it distinguishes Loaf from other furniture retailers. Compare it to the one below! 

Loaf’s personality comes across as chill and loungey while the other brand’s copy is fine but it’s generic. In other words, it could be any furniture company ever. 

This one’s me, but I wanted to share it to point out a specific word: “freak” – which is a word I use all the freaking time. I could have said: “Hi, I’m Alethea—and I believe infusing copy with personality is important,” or “Hi, I’m Alethea—and love copy with personality” – both of which would have gotten the same point across, but they wouldn’t have been as personality-fueled.

When it comes to infusing your copy with your fabulous personality, you want to share who you are (the things you care about, your routines and habits, and your backstory) and you want to write it the way you’d actually say it. So think critically about the words you use when writing your copy because choosing between “I love” and “I’m a freak for” will add up across your website to have one BIG impact. 

And if you need help sifting through what does and doesn’t sound like…um, hi!