Tone of voice for your website: sound like a business

Key takeaways

Tone of voice is how your website sounds, and it changes how trustworthy visitors find you. Nielsen Norman Group's research found tone measurably shifted how users rated a company's trustworthiness and friendliness. Choose a tone that fits your buyers, write it down with examples and use it the same way on every page.

• Tone measurably changes how trustworthy a company seems.
• Set four tone dimensions: formality, humour, respect and enthusiasm.
• Plain, specific and conversational usually suits small businesses.
• Consistency across pages matters as much as the tone you pick.

What is tone of voice on a website?

Tone of voice is the personality expressed through a website's words: the vocabulary, sentence length, formality and attitude. Nielsen Norman Group describes four dimensions: funny or serious, formal or casual, respectful or irreverent, and enthusiastic or matter-of-fact. Every website has a tone; the question is whether it was chosen or happened by accident.

• How website design influences brand credibility
• Brand guidelines for your website: what to include

How does tone affect credibility?

Tone affects credibility because visitors infer character from words. Overblown sales language reads as pushy; stiff corporate language reads as distant; careless jokes read as unprofessional. In Nielsen Norman Group's tests, changing only the tone of otherwise identical content changed how trustworthy, friendly and desirable participants rated the company.

• Why specific claims convert better than adjectives
• Jargon on your website: why experts want plain words too

Which tone suits a small business?

Most small businesses do well with a tone that is plain, specific, warm and matter-of-fact: the way an experienced owner talks to a good customer. Regulated and professional services may lean more formal. Hospitality and consumer brands can be more playful. Whatever you choose, prefer specific facts to adjectives.

• Write as you would explain the service across a desk.
• Use 'you' and 'we', not 'the client' and 'the company'.
• Replace adjectives with facts: '24-hour call-out', not 'fast service'.
• Keep jokes rare and never about the customer's problem.

• Website copywriting for small businesses that sells
• Brand voice guidelines for social media, in one page

How do you keep tone consistent?

Write a one-page voice guide: three words that describe your tone, three that do not, and before-and-after examples. Use it for website pages, emails and social posts. Read new pages aloud before publishing; anything you would not say to a customer should be rewritten.

• Brand guidelines for your website: what to include

When does tone not fix the problem?

Tone cannot fix missing content. A warm voice on a page with no prices, proof or detail still leaves buyers unsure. Tone also cannot hide errors; typos undermine any voice. Get the substance and accuracy right, then polish the tone.

• Spelling mistakes on your website: what they cost
• Design or content: which matters more for credibility?

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: a firm's homepage promises 'innovative, best-in-class, bespoke solutions', while its blog is chatty and its contact page is curt. Rewriting the homepage in the plainer voice of the blog, with specific facts, makes the whole site sound like the same people.

• See client work
• Website Design & Development for UK businesses

Tone of voice checklist

• Choose your position on the four tone dimensions.
• Write three 'we are' and three 'we are not' words.
• Replace every adjective claim with a fact.
• Read key pages aloud.
• Use the same voice in emails and social posts.

• The website credibility score: rate your site out of 10
• Plain English on social media: drop the jargon, win buyers

Next step

Read your homepage aloud. Mark every sentence you would never say to a customer and rewrite it.