Most small and mid-sized business websites carry the same copy. It opens with “As your competent partner”, it contains “holistic” and “tailor-made” somewhere in the middle, and by the end the reader knows less about the company than a single sentence about what actually happens after an enquiry would have told her. This is not carelessness, it is uncertainty: without a marketing department, people reach for the phrases that appear everywhere else. The cost is real, because self-praise answers no question — and people decide on the basis of answers, not adjectives. This article shows how a business without a copywriting team writes pages that get understood: with readability rules that can be measured, a six-block blueprint for the service page, a list of phrases to delete, the limits set by advertising law, and a sober way of using AI drafts.
Why self-praise does not produce enquiries
Comprehensibility is not a matter of taste. It can be calculated. The University of Hohenheim has been measuring the formal comprehensibility of texts for years with the Hohenheim Comprehensibility Index. The scale runs from 0 (University of Hohenheim) for formally hard-to-understand texts to 20 (University of Hohenheim) for formally easy ones. The research group provides two anchor values for orientation: abstracts of political science dissertations average 1.2 points (University of Hohenheim), while budget speeches held in the German Bundestag in 2023 reached 15.0 points (University of Hohenheim). The party manifestos for the 2025 federal election averaged 7.3 points (University of Hohenheim), up from 5.6 points (University of Hohenheim) in 2021.
The interesting part of those figures is the range. Between a text only specialists grasp on first reading and a text that works when read aloud lie neither talent nor budget, but a handful of craft decisions: How long are the sentences? How many clauses are packed into each one? How often does a verb sit in the passive voice? How many words have to be translated before they mean anything? Any business can make those decisions. A service page is not a literary work, it is a piece of information — and information is judged by the same standard as directions to an address: do they get me there or not?
Then there is the question of who is actually reading. Around 6.2 million (University of Hamburg) adults between 18 and 64 in Germany read and write at a low level of competence; that corresponds to 12.1 percent (University of Hamburg) of German-speaking adults. This is not a fringe group, it is roughly every eighth person landing on your home page. Add to that people whose first language is not German, people with reduced vision, people skimming a page on a small display in a stairwell, and everyone who is simply in a hurry. Copy that only works under ideal conditions rarely works on a website.
Your copy does not compete with a rival business
Aktion Mensch sums up how broadly plain language pays off in three figures: accessibility on the web is indispensable for ten percent (Aktion Mensch) of the population, necessary for around 30 percent (Aktion Mensch) and helpful for 100 percent (Aktion Mensch). Simple texts appear on all three levels of that list — as a precondition, as a relief and as the reason a message lands at all. Writing clearly is therefore not an extra service for a small group, it is first of all a service to your own customers.
Comprehensibility is measurable
The index combines four established German readability formulas — the Amstad formula, the first Vienna non-fiction formula, the SMOG index and the Lix readability index — with a set of text parameters (University of Hohenheim). Among the things measured are average sentence length, the share of sentences with more than 20 words, average clause length, the share of clauses with more than 12 words and average word length (University of Hohenheim). You do not have to recalculate those formulas to benefit from them. It is enough to know which levers they describe — and those can be checked by eye in any word processor.
How closely sentence construction and comprehensibility are linked shows up within a single text genre. The manifesto with the shortest average sentence length of 10.4 words (University of Hohenheim) achieved the highest index value in 2025 at 10.5 points (University of Hohenheim); the one at 16.2 words (University of Hohenheim) per sentence came in at 6.6 points (University of Hohenheim). The gap in sentence construction is just as clear: the share of nested sentences with more than two clauses ranged from 7.7 percent (University of Hohenheim) to 23.8 percent (University of Hohenheim), the share of passive sentences from 5.6 percent (University of Hohenheim) to 21.2 percent (University of Hohenheim). The longest sentence measured there ran to 69 words (University of Hohenheim).
Overly long sentences make comprehension harder, above all for infrequent readers. Wherever possible, a sentence should carry only one piece of information.
That sentence is the most practical rule in the whole topic, and it costs nothing. If you notice while writing that a sentence carries two statements, make two sentences out of it. The text does not become childish, it becomes faster to read. That applies to describing a boiler replacement just as much as to explaining a maintenance contract or announcing a price change.
Sentence length: under 20 words
A sentence with more than 20 words should be split. A workable rule is an average of 12 to 15 words; the formally clearest text in the Hohenheim study sits at 10.4 words (University of Hohenheim) per sentence. Practical test: read it out loud. Wherever you run out of breath, a full stop is missing.
Clauses: two at most
Nested sentences with three or more clauses force the reader back to the beginning. Between the best and the weakest text examined lay 7.7 percent and 23.8 percent (University of Hohenheim) nested sentences. Commas, relative clauses and parenthetical insertions are the usual culprits.
Active verbs instead of passive
“The installation is carried out” hides who is doing anything. “We install” names the actor. The share of passive sentences in the study ranged from 5.6 percent to 21.2 percent (University of Hohenheim) — a difference you feel immediately while reading.
- No sentence longer than 20 words, with an average closer to 12 to 15
- One statement per sentence — wherever “and”, “whereby” or “which” appears, check whether a full stop would serve better
- Active verbs instead of nominalisations: “we check” rather than “the performance of an inspection”
- No compound monsters assembled from more than three parts
- Technical and foreign terms either explained or replaced
- Paragraphs of no more than four or five lines, with a subheading every two to three paragraphs
- Numerals rather than spelled-out numbers: “3 days” is grasped faster than “three days”
- Read every page aloud once — every place you stumble is a place to cut
Write from the customer's view, not the company's
The most common mistake on service pages is not a question of style but of perspective. The copy describes the company rather than the customer's problem. It names values instead of processes, attributes instead of outcomes, and self-description instead of answers. The switch happens with one question asked before every paragraph: what does the person reading this get out of it? If the answer is “our good reputation”, the paragraph is not finished.
| Common version (company view) | What the reader does not learn | Better version (customer view) |
|---|---|---|
| “We are your competent partner for plumbing, heating and air conditioning.” | What the business actually does and does not do | “We replace boilers, renovate bathrooms and service heating systems — within 30 kilometres of our workshop.” |
| “Our many years of experience speak for themselves.” | What that experience actually helps with | “We have worked mainly in period buildings since 1998. Narrow stairwells and old pipe runs are everyday business for us.” |
| “We offer tailor-made solutions for every requirement.” | What is on offer and roughly what it costs | “A bathroom refit takes us 10 to 15 working days. Depending on size and fittings, the range is usually between 12,000 and 25,000 euros.” |
| “Contact us for a non-binding quote.” | What happens after the enquiry | “Send us a short description. We reply within one working day and arrange a site visit. The written quote follows after that.” |
| “Quality is our highest standard.” | How that quality becomes visible | “We sweep the site clean every evening. Additional work is agreed in advance, before it reaches the invoice.” |
The four questions every service page has to answer
The third question is the most uncomfortable and the most effective. Many businesses avoid prices because every job is different. That is true, and it does not change the fact that the reader needs an order of magnitude before making contact at all. An honest range with the three main cost drivers is not a binding commitment, it is orientation — and it pre-sorts enquiries, which saves time on both sides. Staying silent produces either no enquiry or one that does not fit the business. How that pre-sorting continues into the enquiry itself is covered in the article on contact forms that produce usable enquiries.
The blueprint for a service page
A service page needs a sequence rather than creativity. The following six blocks answer questions in the order in which they arise in the reader's head. Work through this blueprint once for your most important service and you can reuse it for every further page. Which pages a business needs in the first place is covered in the article on the page structure of a company website; this blueprint fills the individual page.
1. What we do, in one sentence
The first sentence names the service, the object and the area: “We replace boilers in single- and two-family houses in the Hildesheim district.” No greeting, no mission statement, no company history. This sentence decides whether anyone reads on.
2. Who it is for — and who not
Two short paragraphs draw the boundary: typical jobs, typical buildings, typical size. Plus one sentence on what the business does not take on. That self-limitation reads as more trustworthy than any promise and spares you unsuitable enquiries.
3. The process in four steps
From enquiry to handover, with a time indication per step. The process removes the biggest worry before an enquiry: not knowing what you are getting into. Four to five steps are enough; hardly anyone reads more.
4. Duration and price as a range
A time range and a price range with the three factors that move them. Plus one sentence on what is included and what is not. This is the point at which most pages fall silent — and precisely therefore the point with the greatest effect.
5. What we need from you
Access, photos, a floor plan, a meter reading, a decision by a given date. Say it up front and you receive more complete enquiries and come across as organised. Three to five bullet points are enough.
6. Next step, one click
One route, not three. Phone number or form, plus the response time as an expectation: “We reply within one working day.” The final block does not repeat benefits, it makes acting easy.
Text belongs between the blocks, but the sequence stays. Photos belong where they support a statement — a picture of the team next to block 2, a picture of finished work next to block 3. Which subjects are worth photographing and what has to be observed legally is covered in the article on photos on your website and image rights. External evidence — feedback from earlier customers, for instance — works hardest immediately before block 6; the formal requirements for that are set out in the article on customer reviews on your own website.
The phrase list to delete
Empty phrases are words any business could write about itself. They cost space, they cost comprehensibility, and they create the impression that whoever wrote them had nothing concrete to say. The most reliable test is the reversal: would any business write the opposite about itself? Hardly anyone writes “We are inexperienced” or “We deliver off-the-shelf solutions”. If the opposite is unthinkable, the statement says nothing — and can either go or be replaced by something checkable.
| Empty phrase | Why it says nothing | What can stand there instead |
|---|---|---|
| competent | Self-attribution without evidence; nobody would write the opposite | The evidence: master craftsman's business since 1998, 12 employees, focus on period buildings |
| holistic | Promises completeness without naming the scope | The list: planning, removal, installation, connection, handover, first year of servicing |
| tailor-made | Only says that jobs differ — which everyone assumes anyway | The decision space: three specification levels with price range and delivery time |
| full service | A term without a defined scope; leaves open what is missing | The boundary: “We handle planning and installation. Tiling and painting we coordinate but do not carry out ourselves.” |
| innovative | Judges your own work instead of describing it | The method: “We measure the heat demand on site and size the system accordingly, rather than using a rule of thumb per square metre.” |
| from a single source | Describes an organisational form, not a benefit | The benefit: “You have one contact and one invoice. We coordinate the electrical and screed appointments.” |
| your reliable partner | Pure assertion with no link to a service | The checkable commitment: “We reply within one working day. If an appointment shifts, we call.” |
The swap test
Deleting regularly leaves a gap — and that gap is the actual gain. Delete “holistic” and you have to write down what is included. Delete “tailor-made” and you have to name the variants. Exactly that work turns a website into a source of information. As a side effect it helps discoverability, because people search for objects and places, not adjectives. How that plays out in your own catchment area is described in the article on being found locally.
Explain technical terms or drop them
Technical language does not come from showing off, it comes from habit. Inside the business the term is precise and saves time; on the website it meets people reading it for the first time. The Hohenheim study names four categories in which the most frequent breaches of comprehensibility rules occur: foreign and technical words, compound words and nominalisations, anglicisms, and sentence length (University of Hohenheim). Compound words are explicitly described there as “word monsters” that restrict both readability and comprehension (University of Hohenheim).
For your own pages this does not produce a list of banned words but a decision per term. There are three clean routes — and one bad one: leaving the term unexplained because it sounds professional.
- Replace: the term has an everyday equivalent. “Hydraulic balancing” becomes “adjusting the heating so every radiator warms up evenly” — written out on first use.
- Explain: the term is needed because it appears in the quote, in a funding scheme or on the invoice. Then it stands there, followed by half a sentence in everyday language — and is used without explanation from then on.
- Drop it: the term is only there because it sounds technical. It goes without replacement. If nothing is lost when you delete it, it carried no information.
A test that works on the first attempt
What plain language contributes
Leichte Sprache, the German easy-language standard, is a format of its own with fixed requirements — a website in easy language is something different from a clearly written website. Netzwerk Leichte Sprache names as foundations, among others, familiar words, short sentences, large and clear type, images and photographs, plenty of paragraphs and headings, and sufficient line spacing (Netzwerk Leichte Sprache). The procedure also requires that two or more (Netzwerk Leichte Sprache) people with learning difficulties review every text before it is published.
For an ordinary business page the principles can be adopted without claiming the format. The benefit is the one Aktion Mensch describes: simple texts are easy to understand for people who are not native speakers and for people with limited reading skills — and at the same time they make sure the message reaches everyone else (Aktion Mensch).
- Prefer familiar words; explain technical terms on first use
- One thought per sentence, one topic per paragraph
- Statements rather than conditionals: “We are coming on Tuesday” instead of “We would be coming on Tuesday”
- Positive phrasing: “Please get in touch by Friday” instead of “Do not fail to get in touch”
- Write out abbreviations or resolve them on first use
- Headings that name the content rather than play on words
- Sufficient contrast and a type size that stays legible on a phone
- One outside test reader before publishing — the most effective measure on this list
How wide the gap between intention and execution is in practice shows in the third test report by Aktion Mensch from 2025: of 65 examined (Aktion Mensch) websites with a complete ordering path, only 20 (Aktion Mensch) met the basic criterion of keyboard operability, that is 30 percent (Aktion Mensch) after 21 percent (Aktion Mensch) the previous year. On meaningful labelling of form fields — linguistically the closest relative of the copy question — only 6 out of 20 (Aktion Mensch) examined sites met the criterion. In addition, an analysis of one million home pages found that 79 percent (WebAIM) of them contain text with insufficient contrast. Understandable copy and legible presentation belong together; the legal requirements are covered in the article on accessible websites under the European Accessibility Act.
Where advertising law draws the line
Promotional copy has a legal problem on top of its effectiveness problem. Under section 5 of the German Act Against Unfair Competition, anyone who engages in a misleading commercial practice that is likely to cause a consumer to take a transactional decision they would not otherwise have taken acts unfairly (Bundesministerium der Justiz). Explicitly covered are statements about the essential characteristics of goods or services, about the price and the way it is calculated, and about the characteristics of the trader (Bundesministerium der Justiz). A superlative without evidence falls squarely into that category.
Providing essential information in an unclear, unintelligible or ambiguous manner also counts as withholding it.
That half-sentence connects both halves of this topic. Phrasing essential information unintelligibly is legally equivalent to withholding it (Bundesministerium der Justiz). Comprehensibility therefore stops being a stylistic question as soon as prices, contract terms, rights of withdrawal or limits of service are involved. Bury those details in a nested sentence and, in the eyes of the law, they have not been given adequately — however formally complete the sentence may be.
| Wording | The problem | A defensible version |
|---|---|---|
| “The best painting firm in the region” | Claim of unique standing with no checkable basis | “Working in the district since 1998, focus on period property renovation, 12 employees” |
| “We keep to every date, whatever happens” | An absolute commitment that cannot be kept when something goes wrong | “We confirm appointments in writing and get in touch as soon as anything shifts” |
| “Permanently the lowest price” | A price-related absolute claim that would have to be evidenced continuously | “Fixed price after a site visit, extras only after written approval” |
| “Award-winning quality” | Sounds like an award; misleading without naming who granted it | The specific award with awarding body, year and source — or delete it |
| “from 49 euros” with nothing further | A price without a reference quantity or scope | “from 49 euros net per service, for appliances up to 24 kilowatts, parts not included” |
Two kinds of wording that can become expensive
The practical way out is the same as with empty phrases: replace assertion with information. Instead of “highest quality”, the material specification. Instead of “fastest response time”, the actual response time. Instead of “comprehensive service”, the list of services. That is legally safer, easier to understand and more convincing — three results from one measure.
Using AI drafts as raw text
Language models are useful for website copy, but not at the point where most people apply them. They are good at structure, first drafts and rephrasing. They are weak at everything only the business knows: price ranges, processes, catchment area, exclusions, quirks. Publish the draft unchecked and you get exactly the kind of text this article describes — smooth, interchangeable, free of detail. The draft is raw material, not a result.
From a search perspective that is the right order too. Google Search Central states as a basic principle that content should be created for people rather than primarily for search engines, and explicitly names well-written, easy-to-read and clearly organised text as a quality signal (Google Search Central). The same documentation lists as warning signs content produced mainly to attract visits from search engines, and extensive automated production of content across many topics (Google Search Central). The difference lies not in the tool but in whether somebody checked at the end that the details are correct.
What the draft can do
Structuring along the six-block blueprint, three versions of an opening sentence, shortening an overlong paragraph, turning passive into active, a first pass at the six FAQ questions. All tasks where form matters more than knowledge.
What the business has to supply
Figures, ranges, timings, area, exclusions, responsibilities and the points where things get stuck in practice. None of that can be derived. Collect it once in a list — that list is the briefing every page is built from.
What stays handwork
Your own voice. A business that says “We'll come and take a look” on the phone should write that too — rather than “We conduct an initial assessment of the existing situation”. Read every sentence aloud and ask: would I say it like that? If not, rewrite it.
In practice that means: assemble the briefing, generate the raw text, then sharpen it sentence by sentence. That is exactly what the way XICflow is built is designed for — the details about your business turn into raw copy per page, edited in place in the editor rather than living in a separate document. What that process looks like from the first question to the published page is shown step by step on the page how it works.
One side effect of understandable copy is gaining importance: answer engines and AI assistants reproduce pages with clear statements more readily than pages full of self-description. A sentence such as “A bathroom refit takes 10 to 15 working days” can be quoted, “We offer tailor-made solutions” cannot. What follows from that for discoverability is covered in the article on visibility in AI answers; the wider question of what AI does and does not achieve in website building is covered in the article on building a website with AI.
Implemented in eight steps
Moving a website over to understandable copy is not a project, it is a series of small decisions. You can start on an afternoon and continue page by page — beginning with the page that produces the most enquiries.
- Open your most important service page and read it aloud. Mark every place where you stumble or run out of breath.
- Delete every empty phrase — competent, holistic, tailor-made, full service, innovative, from a single source, reliable partner.
- Fill the resulting gaps with information: what exactly, how long, roughly what cost, what you need from the customer.
- Split every sentence with more than 20 words and unpack every nested sentence with three clauses.
- Rewrite passive constructions and nominalisations as active verbs: “we check” instead of “the performance of the inspection”.
- Go through the technical terms and decide for each one: replace, explain or drop.
- Swap superlatives and absolute commitments for checkable details, and add the price as a range with its cost drivers.
- Read the page to somebody from a different trade and ask for a summary in their own words. Whatever is missing gets rewritten.
After that comes maintenance. Prices, lead times and responsibilities change; copy that was accurate three years ago may be wrong today — and wrong details weigh more heavily than missing ones. A half-yearly slot of 30 minutes per main page is usually enough. In XICflow that maintenance happens directly in the page rather than through a ticket; the demo websites show what the results look like, the page on plans and credits sets out what a business has to budget, and the comparison with other routes to a website puts it in context.
The sentence everything depends on
Sources and studies