Posted on Jun 22, 2016

Best DIY Websites, Part 3: How to Create a Services Page

Welcome to Part 3 of our “Best DIY Websites” series! The goal here is to help small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to succeed online but don’t have web design experience or a budget to spend on professionals who do. We’re here to debunk the myth that says “in order to build a beautiful, professional website, you need a lot of money or a lot of experience.” How? … With simple tips and step-by-step instructions that will help you do it yourself and still make it great.

In Part 1 and Part 2, we demonstrated how to create a stellar contact page and then add a map to it so that your customers can find you first and foremost. Now we’re getting to the fun stuff…the stuff that leads to business growth and a real financial return. First up: Your Services Page…

Regardless of your industry, your offering, or your even product, a Services page will be one of the most important pages on your website. When done right, it is the leading factor in persuading your customers toward signing up or placing an order. Additionally, a professional Services page builds trust between you and your customers, and demonstrates your the strength and quality of your capabilities or offerings.

Key Ingredients to a Successful Services Page

While there are a handful of elements you’ll likely include (all of which we’ll go over below), there are three key ingredients that are must-haves on a Services page:

  1. A Clear USP (Unique Services Proposition) – Your Services page should detail, clearly and concisely, what you offer as a business and what makes it (or you) special. What differentiates your services from similar ones in the industry? What sets you apart from your competitors? Answer these questions as early as possible, and reinforce the answers often.
  2. A Clear Customer Focus – Be sure you don’t get so caught up in talking up your services that you forget you’re talking to your customers. For example, don’t simply list features. Instead, imagine why your customers are reading this page in the first place and what they hope to walk away thinking when they’re finished. Put them first in all you say. What do they need? Why do they need it? And why is your business the one that can help them? Take this tip literally. As you write about your services, make sure you’ve answered these questions within your content.
  3.  A Clear Action Item – This is one of the most detrimental and commonly made mistakes with DIY websites, because it’s not mentioned nearly enough that one page should (almost) always lead to another (if not leading directly into a purchase flow). In this case, you must be clear about what a customer should do next after they’ve finished reading your Services page. Should they pick up the phone and call you? Should they make an appointment or reservation directly from the site? Should they browse your inventory? Make it easy for customers to understand what they should do next. Then make it just as easy for them to actually do it (via buttons, links, forms, etc).

Creating a Successful Services Page

Here’s how to implement all the right elements to a Services page that will succeed:

  • Lead with a headline: The opening lines of your page should be as descriptive as possible, but keep it to less than 12 words. You should also include the main keyword for the page and, if possible, a concise version of your USP (see above).
  • List your services:

    • Option 1 – List the different services that you offer with a headline and a short paragraph of text. If you choose this listing option, the paragraph of text is where you’ll describe the benefits to the customer and the USP for each individual service offering (see key ingredient above), so you can make the headline short and simple. If you have more than five services to list on the page, should consider breaking the content up into categories and create a separate Service page for each category.
    • List your services option 2 – If you offer a lot of services that are somewhat similar to one another (i.e., salon services, auto care and mechanic services), consider a straight list of them without descriptions. Instead, write a couple of paragraphs at the top of the list, summing up what you offer, outlining your USP, and including SEO-geared keywords. After your list of services, conclude with a short paragraph to book end the list. And consider using this section to tell customers what they should do next.
  • Let them know you’re great: Testimonials are a highly effective way to prove your value and convince customers that you can and will deliver on your offers. Your Services page is an ideal place to put these testimonials and send that message. Keep them separate from your services list, short, and to the point. And include an attribution (such as the first name of the reviewer and where they’re from). Don’t have any testimonials yet? That’s okay! Just keep this section in mind when building your page so you don’t need to reinvent the wheel and restructure the entire page when the positive reviews do start pouring in. And with a Services page like this one? Trust us, they will!
  • Lighten it up with pictures: Typically speaking, it’s always better to include an image on a web page than not. But more so than any other page on your website, it’s important to keep the images here relevant to the services your describing. Think about what might be a challenge to explain via words alone and use images that help support those explanation. For example, consider adding images that prove your abilities or to help visually describe a complex offering.
  • Lead them to the next step: As we mentioned above, an “action item” is one of the key ingredients to your Services page, so at the very minimum, be sure you include at least one call-to-action sentence on your services page. Not sure what it should be? Think of actions that are immediate, simple for the customer, and still pressure-free (this is not the time to push them to buy – that comes later – keep an eye out for Part 4 of this series). You could tell them to give you a call, send you an email, fill out a form, or browse your blog for more information.
  • Leave them with your contact info: Finally, include your contact details. Even though these details are also on your contact page, it’s best to also include them on your Services page to make it easier for your visitor to take immediate action if that’s what they decide to do next.

Check out some of these elements created using the Weebly Drag & Drop site builder with iPage:

 

What You Shouldn’t Include

Hopefully the above gives you all you need to create a stellar Services page. As far as anything else…Be intentional about leaving out anything that you would put on an “About Us” page – details about your business, history, mission statement, etc. There is a place for that — your “About Us” page! But here, keep all the content focused on your potential customer and what it is you can provide for them through your business.

Once you get your Services page published, you can start testing various elements to see which gets the best results. For example, feel free to test out a few different headlines and pay close attention to which is getting the most leads. We also highly recommend implementing an effective analytics tool in order to gauge what’s working (and what’s not) in your call-to-action buttons and links.

Finally, don’t forget to keep your services page up-to-date, particularly if your business is seasonal. This tells customers your website is live and active and paid attention to by its owner. And it also leads to natural growth and evolution throughout the year. And you know what that means — higher profit! Have any other questions about your Services page, or how to make your website a success? Leave us a question in the comments section below!

Good luck!

 

 

 

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