Business Writing, Website Writing, and Other Writing Services by a Professional Writer

All Writing is not Created Equal

By Dan Furman

I have permission from my client to tell this story:

I did a website rewriting job recently. The website sold an inexpensive audio/video product. My client came to me because the conversion rate was terrible, and wanted me to rewrite it.

Originally, he wrote the site himself (and still touts that, so he wishes to remain anonymous), and like most business owners, was very particular about what he said. In other words, he had to mention X, you needed to know about Y, let's not forget about Z. Etc etc.

So I went to work. Took me about a week to do five pages for him.

I e-mailed him his pages, and at first, he was under-whelmed.

In fact, his exact words were "these don't sound all that different - you're basically saying the same stuff I said. You're only saying it a little differently, in less words, and formatting it differently"

Yea, I changed it from unreadable to very readable.

(we have a relationship where I can get away with saying this)

I also told him exactly why I changed what I changed, and even though my pages and his pages conveyed the same thoughts, mine was much more likely to be read and understood.

Lastly, I told him to try it.

He did, and I got an e-mail three days later. Here's what it said:

Dan,

You were so right and I was so wrong. I got more orders in the last two days than all of last week. I always had the visitors but for some reason my message wasn't getting across. Yours is obviously getting across.

I guess just seeing my pages rewritten made me think what you did wasn't a big deal, that I could have done the same thing. But I didn't do it and you did. So thanks!!!!

That last part is important - listen, we can all write words. It's easy to say after the fact "I could have done that". Even I still do it sometimes.

Same overall thought.

Different writers.

Different results.

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