Your website is a place where your website visitors come to learn about your business/organization, but have you ever thought about who is behind the content of your website? Your visitors are reading and it feels like something is being said to them, but who is the one saying it? 🤔
The answer, for most businesses and organizations, shouldn’t be you, the owner or founder. While you should absolutely have a voice that you use for emails that come directly from you, LinkedIn posts, etc., your business/organization should have its own voice that is separate.
What is voice? 🗣️
You might be wondering what I mean when I refer to voice. In writing, voice is a combination of things that make the author’s writing identifiable. Things like vocabulary, tone, and syntax contribute to a cohesive voice.
Think about this course. Have you noticed any phrases that I tend to use a lot? Does a lot of this content have a tone, like light-hearted? Have you noticed emojis I seem to favor? This course is written in my voice, the voice of Amy the copywriter. When I write for the Valerian brand, I have a separate voice I use. There are bound to be similarities since I’m behind both of them, but having a sense of voice gives the person on the receiving end of the writing some sense of familiarity and what to expect. 😌
How does corporate identity play into this?
Your corporate identity is basically the way your business/organization presents itself to the public. It’s easy to see why your voice would be a part of this, especially when it comes to your website.
Depending on what your business/organization does or offers, you will want to have a voice that matches. If you sell something like costumes for dogs, you’ll probably want a playful and silly voice. If you are a consultant for fire safety, you will want a reassuring voice that is full of authority. If you fall somewhere in the middle—your business/organization isn’t silly or super serious—you can choose where you’d like your voice to fall.
For Valerian, we chose a very calm and friendly voice because we wanted to really play up our focus on well-being. 🌱