Why 'We Help Businesses Grow' Is the Worst Headline on the Internet

“We help businesses grow.” “Your partner in success.” “Empowering teams to do more.” These headlines appear on thousands of websites, and none of them belong to anyone.

If your copy could be dropped onto a competitor’s site without anyone noticing, you do not have a positioning problem. You have a copy problem.

The swap test

Here is a quick way to diagnose generic copy. Take your homepage headline, remove your company name and logo, and ask: could this headline appear on a competitor’s site unchanged?

If the answer is yes, your headline is generic.

This is the swap test. It works because generic copy is always substitute-safe. There is nothing in it that only you could say, nothing that ties it to your specific customers, your specific problem, or your specific solution.

Generic copy does not communicate a position. It communicates that you have not figured one out yet.

Why generic copy happens

Generic copy is almost always the result of trying to appeal to everyone. The thinking goes: if we keep the message broad, we do not exclude anyone. More people = more leads.

In practice, the opposite is true. Broad copy connects with no one because it speaks to a fictional average customer who does not exist.

A cybersecurity firm that says “we keep your business safe” is speaking to no one in particular. A cybersecurity firm that says “we help law firms avoid the breaches that trigger GDPR fines” is speaking directly to a specific person with a specific fear.

The second firm will get fewer total visitors who relate to the message. But far more of them will convert.

Real examples, and how to fix them

Before: “We help businesses grow.”

This is the ultimate generic headline. Every business that has ever existed could use it. It says nothing about how, who, or why.

After: “We help independent accountants book five new clients a month through LinkedIn, without cold calling.”

Now you know exactly who this is for (independent accountants), what they get (five new clients a month), the channel (LinkedIn), and the pain they avoid (cold calling). A competitor cannot use this headline without lying.

Here is another one.

Before: “Innovative solutions for modern teams.”

“Innovative” and “modern” are words that have been used so often they carry no meaning. “Solutions” is not a product. “Teams” is not a customer.

After: “Slack is too noisy. We give remote engineering teams a single place to track decisions, not just conversations.”

Now there is a specific competitor named, a specific customer (remote engineering teams), and a specific contrast (decisions vs. conversations).

The fix: specificity beats cleverness

You do not need a clever headline. You need a specific one. Specificity is what makes copy feel like it was written for the reader, not broadcast at a general audience.

Ask yourself: what is the one thing my best customer would recognize immediately as their problem? Write that. If it feels too narrow, it is probably exactly right.

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Is your copy passing the swap test? Get a free copy diagnosis and find out what only you can claim at briefd.click.