Why Jargon Ain’t It
When I was a newly minted massage therapist I assumed that declaring my specialties to the internet at large was of paramount importance. I had worked hard to learn how to formulate treatment plants based on applying the numerous assessment techniques in neuromuscular therapy, and by gum if that didn’t sound official, what did?
I thought using the textbook terminology legitimized my efforts—making me seem more professional than I actually felt.
Did I know what I was doing?
Yes.
But I had no idea how to convince strangers that was the case. So I did what I saw everyone else doing—I made a long list, smack in the middle of my homepage, of all the types of massage I could do:
-nerumuscular therapy
-myofascial release
-prenatal massage
-Swedish massage
-trigger point therapy
….blah blah blah on and on.
What I didn’t realize was this common practice is not helpful, or even considerate.
Fast-forwarding to years later, after leaving bodywork I began delving into research on SEO. I started learning as much as I could about how to make website copy more effective for small businesses.
The process was incredibly daunting for one reason: fancy names for basic things.
Time after time I would come across a foreign, intimidating term only to discover it was something really obvious. Sort of like realizing “transparent dihydrogen monoxide containment cylinder” means “water glass.”
If I’d taken a shot every time I yelled aloud, “Why don’t they just say that?” I would’ve been too wasted to scroll 30 minutes in.
Frankly? I got a little mad. It felt like a special club was choosing deliberately exclusionary, opaque language to describe simple processes for the sake of keeping out the uninitiated. And no one wants to be the kid trying to guess the password to get in the clubhouse.
All too often jargon is used not to educate, but to intimidate, even if it’s unintentional.
In those early days I had been guilty of saying to the world, “Look at me! Aren’t I the smartest pants that ever pantsed?”
I no longer believe that kind of writing is the best way to help people, or even to establish yourself as a professional.
Of course, I do NOT advocate reducing massage terminology to, “I do squeezey squishes on your moving bits.”
The point is not to dumb down anyone’s field.
The point is to build welcoming bridges.
The welcoming bridges can be built into your copy in two steps:
Follow Erin’s Two Sentence Rule!
If a term takes longer than two sentences to effectively describe, drop it.
That’s a subject for a blog post, not something to have in your bio/menu/sales page.
Describe first, name-drop second.
With the exception of menus, which have their own conventions, start with the explanation first.
This leads your reader down a clear, friendly path, dropping them off at their destination with complete understanding.
To use my hyperbolic example from earlier, here’s how I would have introduced that term on a webpage, “Water is composed of two hydrogen atoms (we use the latin prefix “di,” meaning two), and one oxygen atom (using the prefix “mono,” meaning one), and is commonly kept in clear glasses for easy drinking. Since that’s were we typically keep the water, we call the glasses transparent dihydrogen monoxygen containment cylinders.”
Looking past the silliness, you can see how much nicer it is to share the understanding before the alarmingly complicated-sounding terminology.
And keep in mind, we the buyers generally have simple priorities when we’re shopping for services.
As the wise woman Kristen Kalp once told me…
When it comes to your business, people only want to know three things:
Can you help me
Are you available
Where is my coupon
Answer those questions as clearly and quickly as you can, and you’ll have a lot more sales in a lot less time.
No one needs to know in exacting detail what myofascial release is to understand it can help them, any more than they need to know what kind of lens you use on your camera, or the pros of using a particular financial software when processing a client’s books at tax time.
We just need to know enough to get that it works, and that you’re trustworthy. (More on that next week…wink, wink)
But rest assured, use too much jargon and you know what you’re giving people? Headaches and panic.
Asking for help is hard.
Please don’t make it harder by using unnecessarily complicated terms to describe what you offer.
(You can show off your smarty pants after they’ve clicked your Book Now button, you brilliant person you.)
Now go forth and be clear, cuties!