We Read 100 Brand Websites in One Day. Here’s What We Found.
Something started as research but ended as a cry for help.
Our team spent one full working day reading different brand websites across industries like retail, SaaS, professional services, food, finance, you name it. We were looking for patterns in how brands talk about themselves and what they actually communicate to readers.
What we found was… a lot. And not always in a good way.
Here is what happens when you read 100 websites back to back with a notepad and increasingly questionable faith in humanity.
We Started by Counting the Buzzwords
Multiple times. Different industries. Different logos. Almost identical sentences.
“We are passionate about delivering value to our customers.”
Value of what and delivered how? To which customers, specifically? Nobody knows. The sentence exists to fill space where a real description of the business should be. And the readers are still searching for genuine answers.
After going through many websites, we had a running tally.
“Solutions”, “Leverage”, “Holistic approach” were used so many times by separate businesses to describe completely different services, and holistic felt as if it’s a personality trait rather than a word that has lost all meaning from overuse.
Kid you not, we are not making this up. This is there on the internet.
The About Page Problem Is Even Worse
Almost all the About pages were primarily about the founders’ credentials, the year the company was established, and a mission statement that could have applied to any business in any industry.
Three sentences in particular appeared in some variation across multiple sites:
“We believe in putting people first.”
“Our team is our greatest asset.”
“We are committed to excellence.”
Not one of these sentences tells the reader anything about what the business actually does, who it is for, or why anyone should choose it over the alternatives. They are the written equivalent of a firm handshake and direct eye contact, reassuring in form, empty in substance.
The About page is one of the most visited pages on any business website. 96% of visitors are not ready to make a purchase when they first land on a website. They are there to figure out if they trust you. And most About pages spend that precious moment talking about the company rather than the customer.
The Homepage Had One Job
After reviewing a decent number, we started playing a game. The game was: read only the homepage headline and try to figure out what the business does.
We lost. Repeatedly.
“Transforming the way you work.” But what, exactly and how?
“Built for the future.” Of which industry?
“Where innovation meets excellence.”
Nobody has ever said this sentence out loud to another person.
A homepage headline has one job. Tell the person what you do and who you do it for, clearly enough that they know within seconds whether they are in the right place. The brands that did this, and some did, beautifully had homepages that felt like a relief after scrolling through the alternatives.
“Accountancy software for freelancers who hate spreadsheets.” Done. Clear. Specific. You know immediately if this is for you.
The One Website That Actually Made Us Stop
We were about to give up. Then we saw this. It was a small bakery. Their homepage said: “We make sourdough the slow way because there is no other way worth making it.”
No jargon and fluff. No synergy. No stakeholder value chains. Just a sentence that tells you exactly what they believe and exactly what you are getting.
We spent the rest of the afternoon using it as a benchmark. Every website after that got the bakery test: does this communicate something real, or does it communicate the performance of something real?
Most failed the bakery test.
The Pattern Behind the Problem
Here is what we actually learned from the day, beyond the running joke tally.
The businesses with the clearest, most human websites were rarely the biggest ones. They were the ones where you could tell one person or a small team had actually sat down and thought about who was going to read this and what that person needed to know.
The businesses with the most impenetrable corporate language were often the ones with the most resources. Bigger teams mean more stakeholders. More stakeholders mean more rounds of approval. More rounds of approval mean more carefully worded sentences where all the edges have been filed off and nothing genuinely controversial or genuinely interesting remains.
79% of leads never convert due to poor nurturing. A website that fails to communicate clearly is doing the opposite of nurturing. It is handing a potential customer every reason to go somewhere else.
What the Good Ones Did Differently
The websites that held our attention, and there were some, had a few things in common.
They wrote in the first person and sounded like a person. They were specific about what they did and who they did it for. They showed evidence rather than making claims. They trusted the reader to make up their own mind rather than spending three paragraphs insisting they were trustworthy.
They also did not try to cover everything. The temptation with a website is to explain every service, every differentiator, every award, every value. The good ones resisted this. They said the most important thing clearly and let that do the work.
What This Means For Your Website
You do not need a complete overhaul. You need an honest read.
Print your homepage. Read it out loud. Ask yourself: If I had never heard of this business, would I know what they do? Would I know if it is for me? Would I feel anything at all?
Then read your About page the same way. Ask: Is this about us, or is this about the person reading it? Because those are very different documents.
Good content writing is not about being clever or showing off smartness. The clearer and more transparent you are, the better your content is interpreted. And clarity, as it turns out, is the thing most brand websites are consistently missing without noticing.
At Waveink, we noticed. That is why we exist.