How to Match Your Website Voice to Your Real-World Brand
If you’re a small business or nonprofit in Wilmington, DE (or anywhere in Delaware County), you’ve probably spent time thinking about how your business looks — logos, signage, maybe even your storefront. But have you ever stopped to consider how your business sounds?
Your voice — the way you speak to customers online — is a huge part of your brand. And for a lot of local organizations, it’s an afterthought.
If you’re a small business or nonprofit in Wilmington, DE (or anywhere in Delaware County), you’ve probably spent time thinking about how your business looks — logos, signage, maybe even your storefront. But have you ever stopped to consider how your business sounds?
Your voice — the way you speak to customers online — is a huge part of your brand. And for a lot of local organizations, it’s an afterthought.
Why “Voice” Matters
Your website, your blog posts, your emails — they’re all digital stand-ins for a real conversation. If the tone is off, people notice.
Getting your voice right:
- Builds trust and makes you more relatable
- Helps customers understand who you are before they ever pick up the phone
- Makes your content consistent, even across different platforms
People don’t just want a service — they want to feel like they know you. Especially at the local level, where trust and reputation are everything.
What Voice Sounds Like Online
You don’t have to be a writer or a branding expert to recognize when something feels “off.” Maybe your website sounds too stiff. Maybe your social captions feel forced. Maybe your About page reads like it belongs to a bank, not your bakery.
Here are some examples of where your brand voice shows up:
- Headlines and page titles: Is your tone warm and human? Or cold and robotic?
- Social media posts: Are you speaking like a person, or copy/pasting generic marketing language?
- Blog posts and newsletters: Are you being helpful and conversational? Or just ticking a box?
- About pages and team bios: Do they sound like you, or like a generic template?
Every touchpoint is a chance to reinforce your voice — or lose it.
Common Mistakes I See
It’s easy to miss tone issues when you’re focused on the “what” — like getting a website launched or keeping your social channels updated. But these are a few patterns I see all the time:
- ❌ Overly formal writing for a casual brand
- ❌ Copy-pasted boilerplate from templates or other websites
- ❌ Trying to sound bigger or more corporate than you are
- ❌ Tone inconsistency across different platforms (email vs. social vs. web)
These things don’t just confuse your customers — they make it harder for people to connect with what makes your business unique.
How I Help Clients Find (and Keep) Their Voice
Tone is part of every project I work on. Whether I’m writing new website copy or helping a client build out their blog, I always start by learning how you actually talk about your business.
What I bring to the table:
- One-on-one discovery to understand your brand’s personality
- Rewriting web pages to reflect your real-world tone and energy
- Creating branded content templates for blogs, social media, and emails
- Making sure your website sounds like your storefront, your mission, your team — not just a template
You don’t need to be a writer. You just need someone who can translate your voice into something clear, helpful, and consistent online.
