26 Vanilla, Vague and Overused Words That Weaken Your Web Copy

“Words aren’t content, they are code. Code that tells people whether to pay attention, or not. Whether to listen to you, or not. Whether to buy from you, or not” Ashley Ambirge, Copywriter, TMF Project.

No matter what your organisation does, whether you sell a product or you champion a cause, you use words to connect with your audience.

So you want to use words that influence the way others, think, feel and act.

You can’t afford wishy-washy brand language or to say the same things as everyone else. The world is just too busy for that.

And if you do end up using the same words as everyone else? Then you will simply blend into the background and go ignored.

These 26 words and phrases in particular are so vague, overused or vanilla that they will not do your organisation justice and worse, may even prompt potential customers to click the ‘back’ button.

Very
Good
Awesome
Amazing
Great

Add value
Deliver ROI
High return on investment
Maximise return
Optimise
Accelerate growth

Pioneer
World leading / world class / industry leading
State of the art
Top class
To the next level

Superior
Quality
Great service
Professional
Efficient

Integration
Synergy
Solution
Fully integrated
Scalability


Confession time… we are guilty of having used these words too.

In writing this list we hope to remind ourselves of how stale they really are.

More than that, we want to inspire ourselves to reach further for more expressive, specific and creative language in everything we write.

We hope it helps you to do the same.

PS. Next week we’ll be sharing 13 wacky words that make you fade away, not stand out.