Is your website an online newspaper? If you haven’t thought about the relationship between your website and a
newspaper come to grips with it now because I have other shocking news. Neither high school nor university will prepare you for writing to customers.
As a former English teacher in Canada and Australia, and as a Copywriting graduate, I know formal education doesn't prepare you for business writing.
(By the way, I’m not attacking secondary and tertiary education institutions at all. I love formal education—it’s how you learn to think creatively, and reflectively; it’s a necessary foundation for building the rest of your life.)
But in business, you don’t have time to wade through abstract concepts and formal, academic language. You might have noticed popular magazines are now rarely formal or academic. Colloquial (slang, informal) language is rife; second person (“you”) is the standard narrative point of view (i.e. we don’t write phrases like “one must always…” anymore). So follow the lead of popular culture content because if there's anything you want your website and business materials to be: it's popular!
Not convinced? Look at the nitty-gritty differences between academic writing and business writing.