Three Words That Sell Nothing

Open ten company websites in a row. You will meet the same three words: innovative, high-quality, user-friendly. They sound safe. That is the problem. A word that no competitor would ever argue with does no work for you. It fills space and moves nobody.

Take innovative. No company calls itself old and slow. So the word tells the reader nothing new. Replace it with the thing you actually did. Our app opens in one second, not eight. That sentence cannot be copied by your competitor, because it is either true or false.

High-quality has the same problem. Every seller claims it. Quality is not a claim; it is a detail. The stitching is doubled at both handles. We test every unit for four hours before it ships. A reader can picture those two lines. Nobody can picture quality.

User-friendly is the hardest one to give up, because it feels helpful. It is not. Show the reader the friendly part instead. Three taps from open to paid. No account needed for the first order. If you cannot name the step you removed, the word is hiding an empty promise.

Here is a quick test for any line you write. Ask: would a competitor ever say the opposite? If nobody would ever say slow, low-quality or hard to use, then your word is not a claim at all. Cut it. Put a number, a step or a fact in its place.