Why Your Content Isn't Converting (It's Probably Not the Writing)
When content underperforms the instinct is to rewrite it. Usually the copy is fine and the targeting underneath it was wrong.
Jesse FarleyFounder & CEO
The usual diagnosis is wrong
Content underperforms, so someone rewrites it. New headline, tighter copy, stronger call to action. Performance moves slightly or not at all, and the conclusion is that content doesn't work in this category.
In most cases the writing was competent. The problem sat upstream: the page was written for an audience that was assumed rather than verified, so it hedges - broad enough to apply to everyone, specific enough to persuade no one.
Three questions that diagnose it faster
- Who specifically is this page for? If the answer is a job title or an age range, that's the problem. If it's a behavioral group you can size, you're in good shape.
- What do they need to believe before buying? Every purchase clears some hesitation. If you can't name the one this page addresses, the page is probably addressing none of them.
- What would make this page wrong? Content written for a real segment makes claims that could be contradicted. Content written for everyone is unfalsifiable and unpersuasive.
Generic content is a structural outcome
It's rarely a writing failure. It's what happens when the brief says "write about X for our target audience" and the target audience was defined in a workshop two years ago. The writer does exactly what was asked and produces something that can't convert, because the input was already too vague.
The diagnostic that actually works
Take an underperforming page and rewrite it twice - once for a specific behavioral segment, once for a different one. If both versions clearly outperform the original, the problem was never the writing. If neither does, you have a different issue: wrong traffic, wrong offer, or wrong page in the journey.
What changes when targeting is right
Specificity. A page written for someone who converts at full price leads with durability and construction and never mentions a discount. A page written for a threshold buyer leads with savings math and a deadline. Both are good writing; each would fail completely in the other's role.