Every week, good Perth businesses lose customers they never knew they had, beaten not by a better product but by better words. The culprit is almost always the copy, and the repair is almost always simple. Here are the seven mistakes we correct most often, and the change that fixes each one.
Why Weak Copy Quietly Loses Sales
Picture someone with their card already out, ready to buy, who hits one confusing sentence and closes the tab. You never see them. You never hear the objection, so you never get to answer it. That is the quiet damage weak copy does: it loses the sale in silence, and it does it every single day.
The reassuring part is that none of this is a mystery. These common copywriting mistakes are predictable, and every one is fixable. Nearly all of them trace back to a single habit: writing for yourself instead of your audience, then hoping the reader fills in the gaps. Whether it is website copy, an email or sales copy on a landing page, the same tips apply, and it all begins with knowing your target audience.
Our Approach: We build every piece around one reader, one idea and one action. Say it in plain language, keep the focus on the customer as the hero, and give them a reason to act. Clever copy nobody understands is not clever, it is just money spent to confuse people.
Since 2017 our Perth copywriters have spent years writing copy for websites, ads and blogs, for businesses from Fremantle to Joondalup. Below is each mistake, with its fix and a real example, so you can spot them in your own copy today.
● 99%: of copy centres on the business, not the reader
● Year 7: the reading level most adults are comfortable with
● 94%: act on a request when you give them a reason
1. Making Yourself The Main Character
The most common mistake in copywriting is simple: you talk about you. Around 99% of copy is too me-centric, wall to wall with “we are the leading provider” and almost nothing about the person reading it. Cast your customer as the hero of the story instead, and yourself as the guide who gets them there, the shift Donald Miller made famous with StoryBrand.
There is a reason nearly everyone falls into this. Psychologists call it the curse of knowledge: you are so close to your own business that you forget how little a stranger knows. So flip every line to answer the question every reader is silently asking, which is really just how does this help me? Speak to the user in front of the page, lead with their problem, and the same message earns far more attention. It stings to watch a genuinely good business describe itself in words its customers do not care about, when the value is right there waiting to be said plainly.
2. Selling Features When People Buy Benefits
Features describe what your product is; benefits explain why it matters. A feature informs, a benefit persuades, and it is the benefit that nudges someone toward purchasing. A genuinely life changing product still falls flat if the copy only lists specs, because features rarely make emotional sense on their own.
So make the translation a habit. Turn every technical detail into a real gain, then say what that gain lets the customer do. Do not just claim a service is fast; show them the Saturday it hands back. When you make it obvious how your product or service improves someone’s life, you create a genuine emotional response, and that is what makes them choose you over the business next door. A quick test: add “which means” after any feature and keep going until you reach a benefit worth caring about.
3. Hiding Behind Jargon
Industry jargon and fancy words make the writer feel clever and leave the reader lost. The average adult reads comfortably at around a Year 7 level, so dense language and empty phrases quietly push up bounce rates, especially on the small screen where most people now read. Clear communication beats clever wording every time.
Write the way you are talking to a customer across the desk. If you would not say it out loud to them, keep it out of your marketing copy. Most people literally skim, so plain words make sure they are aware of your point and your message is actually heard. We run drafts through the Hemingway Editor and check the Flesch reading score to keep things simple. It matters even more here: in a resources-driven economy where plenty of work still starts with a handshake, Perth buyers can smell a sales pitch a mile off, and over-polished copy reads as a warning sign, not a badge of quality.
4. Letting Your Brand Voice Wander
Your brand voice is your personality on the page, and it should sound like what your business actually is. An inconsistent brand voice leaves people unsure who they are dealing with and quietly dents your credibility. Warm or precise, playful or plain, use the same language across your website, your blog and your emails.
Brand voice shifts by industry, a mining services firm sounds nothing like a Cottesloe day spa, and a steady, recognisable voice is a real difference competitors cannot copy. Settle on how you want to sound, capture it in a one-page guide, and hold all your writers to it. Get it right and customers start to recognise you before they even reach your logo.
5. Writing Weak, Passive Copy
Passive writing feels distant and limp, while clear, specific copy beats clever, vague language every time. A pile of adjectives waters down your message, and generic verbs leave the reader feeling nothing at all.
Usually a subtle shift is all it takes. Move from passive to active voice, tighten your sentence structure, and let strong verbs carry the load. Specific claims land; vague ones fall flat. “Saves you two hours a week” beats “innovative time-saving solution” because the reader can picture it in a real context. Read each line aloud, and if it sounds like a brochure, rewrite it until it sounds like a person. Here is the part that takes nerve: the copy that converts best often looks almost too plain, and it takes confidence to leave it that simple.
6. Ignoring How People Actually Read
Even strong copy fails when it arrives as a dense block. Most web traffic is now mobile, and heavy paragraphs on a phone wear people down and send them back to the search results. How you lay the words out matters as much as the words, which makes formatting essential rather than decorative.
So break it up. Nielsen Norman Group’s eye-tracking research shows people read screens in an F-shaped pattern, skimming the left edge and the first words of each line, so front-load what matters, including the keywords people searched for. Short paragraphs, clear subheadings, the odd image and well-placed bullet points let people scan and take it in. This lifts your SEO rankings too, because search engines reward pages people stay on, so clean formatting quietly supports your SEO while you craft content readers actually finish.
7. Forgetting To Ask For The Sale
You have earned attention and made your case, and then the copy just trails off. A vague or absent call to action is the costliest mistake here, because it wastes everything that came before it. Every page needs one clear call to action that tells the reader exactly what to do next.
One is the magic number. Two or three competing calls to action pull in different directions and drag response down, so pick the single action that matters most and make it unmissable. Then give a reason: a famous Harvard study by Ellen Langer found 94% of people say yes to a request when you simply add the word “because”. Tell them why to act, put the ask where the eye lands, and you encourage users to move from reading to doing.
Copywriting Case Studies From Our Perth Team
Fixing these mistakes is not theory. Here is what it did for three Perth businesses, each one tangled in two or three of the errors above, with every figure taken from their own analytics.
Project Concrete (Trades, Perth)
Results: +52% Enquiries; -27% Bounce Rate.
Mistakes: a homepage full of “we” and industry jargon that barely mentioned the customer.
What we did: rewrote the copy around the customer’s problem, led with benefits, and gave the page one obvious next step.
Result: more enquiries and visitors reading far further down the page.
Wholistically Healthy (Health And Wellness)
Results: 2.1x Conversions; +35% Time On Page.
Mistakes: dense, passive copy and a confusing tangle of competing calls to action.
What we did: tightened the writing, broke the text up with subheadings and bullet points, and set one action per page.
Result: conversions more than doubled as visitors finally read and acted.
Loan Warehouse (Finance Services)
Results: +44% Lead Quality; Clearer Brand Voice.
Mistakes: an inconsistent brand voice across the site that undercut trust and credibility.
What we did: defined one brand voice, used the same language everywhere, and focused each page on a single benefit.
Result: a more consistent brand and noticeably better quality leads.
Frequently Asked Questions
Straight answers to the questions we hear most about common copywriting mistakes and how to fix them.
What Is The Most Common Copywriting Mistake?
Writing about your business instead of your customer. Most copy is far too me-centric, so the quickest win is to make the reader the main character and lead with what they stand to gain.
What Is The Difference Between Features And Benefits?
A feature is what your product or service is; a benefit is why it matters to the customer. Features inform, benefits persuade, so translate each feature into the real-world gain it delivers and your copy starts to sell.
How Do You Keep Your Brand Voice Consistent?
Decide how your brand should sound, write it down as a short guide, and use the same language everywhere, from your website to your blog to your emails. A consistent brand voice builds trust and sets you apart from competitors.
Does Copywriting Really Affect SEO?
Yes. Clear, well-formatted copy that weaves in relevant keywords keeps people on the page, and search engines reward that engagement with better SEO rankings. Good writing and good SEO pull in the same direction.
How Many Calls To Action Should A Page Have?
Usually just one. Two or three competing asks split attention and lower response, so pick the single most valuable next step and make it impossible to miss.
Small Fixes, Bigger Sales
None of these seven fixes is hard on its own. Put the customer first, sell the benefit, ditch the jargon, hold one voice, write with strong verbs, format for real readers, and always ask for the sale. Do that and the same page that was quietly losing people starts keeping them, then converting them. Good copy is not magic; it is clear thinking that respects the reader.
You do not have to fix everything today. Even rewriting your homepage around the reader and sharpening a single call to action can lift enquiries and SEO at the same time. That steady, unglamorous work is what our copywriting and content marketing team does for Perth businesses every week.
Ready To Stop Losing Customers To Your Own Words?
Book a free copy review and grab our free guide, and our Perth team will show you exactly where your words are leaking customers and how to plug the gaps. No jargon, no pressure, just a clear, practical plan you can act on straight away.
