I am not a writer. Can I really do this myself?

Yes, because the task is not writing, it is answering. If you can explain your business to a competent stranger on the phone, you can produce website text. The trick is to record or type those answers rather than trying to compose something that sounds like marketing.

How much text does a small business site need?

Far less than people expect. Most five-page small business sites are complete in 1,500 to 2,500 words total. Our base build covers 20,000 characters of copy, which is more than the great majority of first sites use.

Should I write in the first person or the third?

First person, singular or plural, whichever is true. "I" for a one-person business, "we" for a crew. Writing about yourself in the third person on a small site reads as an attempt to look bigger, and buyers notice.

What do I do about the About page? I hate writing about myself.

Answer four questions instead: how long have you been doing this, what did you do before, why this trade or field, and who actually turns up when a customer books. That is an About page. It does not need a story arc.

Can I use AI to draft the text?

As a transcriber and tidier, yes — it is good at turning your spoken answers into clean sentences. As an author, no. Generated copy about a business it knows nothing about produces confident, generic, sometimes false claims, and under the Competition Act the burden of proving a performance claim falls on you [2], not on the tool.

How do I write about price without committing to a number?

Give a range, a starting figure, or the basis of charge, and say what moves it. Whatever you publish must be attainable — subsection 74.01(1.3) treats a price that cannot be paid because of fixed obligatory charges as false or misleading [2] — and say whether tax is included, since the rate depends on the place of supply [6].

What words should I avoid?

Anything you would not say out loud to a customer standing in front of you. "Solutions", "passionate about excellence", "industry-leading", "your trusted partner". They fill space, say nothing, and are invisible to someone searching for what you actually do.

Where does keyword research fit in?

Barely. For a small local business the useful version is simply naming your services and your towns in ordinary sentences, because that is the text a search engine or an AI assistant matches against a real question. Writing for a keyword list produces text no human wants to read.

How Do I Write the Text for My Own Website?

The sixty-second answer

Do not write. Answer. Take the questions customers already ask you on the phone, answer each one in the words you already use, and you have website copy. Read it aloud; if you would not say it to a customer, cut it. Editing your speech is far easier than inventing a voice.

Why the blank page is the wrong tool

The reason website copy stalls is that people sit down to "write a website" — a form of writing they have never done, with no model in their head except the corporate pages they half-remember. What comes out is stiff, vague and full of words like solutions. Then they hate it, delete it, and the site sits unbuilt for another six months.

The escape is to change the task. You are not writing marketing copy. You are answering questions you have already answered hundreds of times out loud, competently, in your own words. That skill you have. The only new part is putting it in writing.

This is the normal situation, not a personal failing. As of December 2024 there were 1.10 million employer businesses in Canada and 1.08 million of them — 98.2 per cent — were small [1]. In New Brunswick, 20,256 of 20,631 employer businesses are small [1]. Almost nobody buying a first website has a copywriter, and almost none of them need one.

The method, in four steps

Step 1: list the questions. Sit for ten minutes and write down every question a customer has asked you in the last month. Do you come out to my town? How much do you charge? How soon can you start? Do you do the small jobs? Are you insured? Do you take card? Aim for fifteen. You will get there faster than you expect, because they repeat.

Step 2: answer them out loud, and record it. Use the voice memo app on your phone and talk as if a customer asked. Do not perform. Do not edit while speaking. Fifteen questions takes about ten minutes.

Step 3: transcribe and trim. Type it up, or use any transcription tool, then cut the throat-clearing. "Well, I mean, it kind of depends, but usually what I'd say is about a week" becomes "Usually about a week, depending on parts." That trimming pass is where amateur copy becomes professional copy, and it is mechanical work, not creative work.

Step 4: sort the answers into pages. Service questions become the services page. Area questions become the service area section. Price questions become the pricing section or the FAQ. Personal questions become the About page. The rest becomes an FAQ block, which is quietly the most valuable text on a small site because it is written in the buyer's own words. Page structure is covered in what pages does a small business website need?

Page-by-page: what each one is for

Home. Three facts within the first screen: what you do, where you do it, how to reach you. One sentence each. Everything else can wait. This is also the page that decides whether you show up for your own name and town, so both must appear as ordinary text.

Services. A plain list, in the order that pays your bills. One short paragraph each, saying what the service is, who it suits, and roughly what it costs or what determines the cost. Resist writing an essay per service.

Service area. Name the towns. Not "the greater region", not "the province" if you will not drive across it. Named towns are what let a search engine or an AI assistant match you to a person standing in one, and they are what the Schema.org LocalBusiness type's areaServed property exists to restate [4].

About. Four answers: how long, what before, why this work, who shows up. Two hundred words is plenty. People read this page to decide whether to trust a stranger with a key, a tooth or a chequebook, not to enjoy your prose.

Contact. Phone, email, hours, and what happens after you get in touch. Say your reply time honestly, then meet it. See contact form or phone number?

Six habits that make plain writing read well

Put the answer first. Start every section with the conclusion, then explain it. Readers scanning on a phone, and machines summarising you, both take the first sentence and move on.

Use your customers' words, not your trade's. If buyers say "furnace" and you say "forced-air heating appliance", write furnace. Jargon costs you the search and the sale at once.

Be specific about numbers, towns and time. "Serving Sussex, Petitcodiac and Salisbury, most jobs booked within a week" carries more weight than a paragraph of adjectives, and it is the sort of sentence that gets quoted back to a customer by an assistant.

Cut every sentence you would not say aloud. Read the draft to yourself. Where you wince, delete. This single pass removes most of what makes homemade copy feel awkward.

Write it once, fix it later. Text on a live site is not carved in stone, and a page that exists and needs editing beats a perfect one that never launched. Making changes yourself afterwards is covered in can I update my own website?

The rules that apply to what you write

Claims. Section 74.01 of the Competition Act makes a representation to the public that is false or misleading in a material respect actionable, and requires a performance or efficacy claim to rest on an adequate and proper test, with the burden of proof resting on the person making the representation [2]. In practice: write what you can do on a bad week. "Same-day service across the province" is a promise; "usually same week, emergencies where we can" is a description. Fuller treatment in what can I legally claim on my website?

Prices. If you publish one it must be payable. Subsection 74.01(1.3) treats a price that is unattainable because of fixed obligatory charges as false or misleading, excepting only charges imposed under an Act of Parliament or a provincial legislature [2]. And state whether tax is included: CRA is explicit that the rate depends on the place of supply, illustrating a Vancouver store charging 13% HST on a Toronto delivery [6]. See how do I show prices with GST/HST?

Anything next to a signup box. If your text invites people onto a mailing list, Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation matters at writing time, not later: subsection 6(1) prohibits sending a commercial electronic message unless the recipient has consented, expressly or by implication, and unless the message complies with subsection 6(2), which requires prescribed identifying and contact information [5]. Write the consent line honestly and leave the box unchecked. Detail in what does CASL require on a signup form?

Write so a machine can read it too

One habit costs nothing and pays twice: put facts in text, never in an image. A phone number inside a JPEG cannot be tapped, cannot be read aloud by a screen reader, and cannot be quoted by an answer engine. The Accessible Canada Act names information and communication technologies among the areas where barriers are to be identified and removed, working toward a Canada without barriers on or before January 1, 2040 [3]. Short sentences, headings in order, and a direct answer at the top of each section serve a reader in a hurry and a machine summarising you, which are increasingly the same audience. See how do I get AI assistants to recommend my business?

When you get stuck

Two rescues. First, phone a friend who is not in your trade, ask them to interview you for ten minutes, and record it — an interviewer produces better material than a blank page every time. Second, write the FAQ first. It is the least intimidating format on a website, and once fifteen answers exist the other pages are mostly assembly. If you are wondering whether you also need ongoing articles, the answer for most small businesses is no: does my business website need a blog?

Where we sit

We do not need finished copy from you. We need answers. A maple.website build starts at $50, which covers 20,000 characters of copy, 4 custom images and 2 hours of work; past that, extra copy is $0.20 per 1,000 characters, extra custom images $2 each and extra hours $40 per hour, always quoted in advance. Hosting is $10 CAD per month including SSL, CDN and daily backups, on a domain you own, and the site is live within 48 hours of the brief. All prices CAD; HST extra where applicable. Send bullet points, send a voice memo, send a rambling email — we will turn it into pages and send it back for you to correct. Correcting is much easier than composing, which is the whole point. What to gather first is in what do I need ready before someone builds my website?

How do I write the text for my own website?