Seven essential ingredients of super service pages

Do you have a service-based business? When was the last time you reviewed the service pages on your site? Are they turning website visitors into dream clients or are they struggling to convert?

Today’s blog is all about the essential elements that make a great service page, so if your service pages need a makeover, I’ve got the lowdown on everything you need to consider.

What is a service page?

A service page is a page on your website that explains one or more of your services to potential customers. After reading the page, the target audience should feel confident about buying the service in question from you.

The challenges of creating a great service page

Many people find creating a great service page challenging, so don’t worry if you feel stuck right now.

Products usually have a clear list of features, whereas services are often adapted to individual clients. You may find it a bit harder to know how to present your offering, especially if you don’t offer one-size-fits-all packages.

There’s also the question of how many web pages you need. Should you have one service per web page, group them into a cluster of related services per page or list all of your services on a single page?

And what about visuals for a service page?

A product is easy to photograph, but if you sit at a desk delivering your service (for example, copywriting, accounting or some form of consultancy), what will make engaging images? How can you present the outcomes of your service visually if you don’t have a particularly visual service?

You may also be wondering how much information your service pages should include. Some marketing creatives still feel long-form copy is appropriate while others will tell you a single-page website for your entire business should be enough for a modern audience.

There’s no doubt that your service pages have a huge job to do. The content, feel and structure of the pages are entirely up to you and what you feel will best serve your audience.

There are some essentials that I think a service page should include though – read on to find out what they are!

The seven essential ingredients of a brilliant service page

1. A clear, benefit-focused opening statement

Research shows that 79% of people will skim-read a new web page, picking out keywords and sentences, rather than reading the copy word-for-word (more about what this means for the design of your service page in point 6 below).

Eight out of 10 people will read the main heading on a page, whereas only two out of 10 will read the rest.

This means that the headline of a service page has some serious heavy lifting to do.

The key is to aim for a benefit/outcome-focused headline that explains the service and reflects your focus for the page.

This is a lot to achieve in one sentence, so many businesses opt for a main heading that names the service and then a benefit-driven sub-heading.

A lot of websites sensibly feature the heading and opening statement in what’s known as the “hero” section at the top of the web page. Typically, this will include a large striking image or video and a call to action too.

If you’re not sure what I mean by a “hero” section, here are some examples from Justinmind.

While researching this blog, I came across a website for a Squarespace Developer called Devon Stank and was struck by how much he packs into the hero section of his website by featuring a video rather than a static image.

He has some great photography throughout the site too to showcase his services.

2. Copy that explains everything the service includes and how it will benefit the audience

The best service pages successfully walk a fine line between being informative and closing a sale.

We’ve seen above that people won’t read every word you write about a service, but long-form copy that explains what a service includes does seem to perform better than service pages with minimal copy, particularly for newer brands.

Indeed, QuickSprout says its research has shown that the less well-known the brand, the more copy you need. This is because people tend to have more questions and concerns about brands and services they don’t know.

My advice is to think about the vital information people need to know.

• What is the service?
• What does it include (i.e., what does the person get for their money)?
• Why is your business uniquely qualified to offer this service?
• What are the long-term benefits/outcomes?
• How do you add extra value? (Is there something you do differently? Are you particularly experienced in a certain area and has this experience given you a different perspective?)

However you choose to present it, your service page copy will need to communicate this information.

In my experience, using long-form copy will help you overcome more of your potential customers’ reservations. It’s also great for SEO as it gives Google a clearer understanding of what the page is about.

3. Social proof such as testimonials and reviews

As we’ve seen in recent blogs, Google is focused on ranking web pages that demonstrate experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust (E-E-A-T).

Think about how you can convey these things on your service pages.

One of the most frequently used and effective approaches is to feature plenty of genuine testimonials or reviews from your happy clients.

You can do this in different ways. Video testimonials are fantastic because potential customers see real people talking in their own words about how the service has made a difference.

Alternatively, you can feature written testimonials, short quotes or screenshot reviews from Google, social media or other review sources.

If possible, try to add the name, role and a photo of the person giving the testimonial as this adds a human touch and feels more genuine than a column of reviews from nameless entities.

You’ll want to consider other ways of showing social proof too. If you work in a B2B environment, you could feature the logos of companies you’ve worked with, especially if your audience is likely to have heard of them.

4. Information to overcome objections and reservations

When we haven’t bought from a business before, most of us will have reservations about committing to the purchase. This could be because we’re not 100% clear about what a service entails, we don’t know enough about the service provider, or we’re not entirely sure about the value of the service.

One of the main jobs of a service page is to overcome possible barriers that might prevent people from buying.

This is where an FAQs section can help.

Think about the questions that people often ask about your business – this can give some vital clues about information that is currently missing from your website and the barriers that are holding people back from making a purchase.

By including a short FAQ section on each service page, you can go deeper into what the service includes, its benefits and the value to the customer.

By the time someone has finished reading a service page, you want all of their reservations/barriers to have been broken down so that hiring you feels like a no-brainer decision.

5. Engaging visuals

Ideally, a great service page will feature some strong images that convey the benefits of the service in question. If photographs aren’t possible, you might want to use screenshots or striking graphics.

The visuals on a service page could show:

• Interiors of your business
• Screenshots of how a service works
• Your services in action
• Before and after shots for completed projects
• Portfolio images

You might also want to include videos on your service pages. You could talk about how a service works, how a service came about, what a service includes, or highlight the outcomes of a service for a recent customer.

6. Design features that convert

I mentioned this briefly in point 1, but it’s so important that it needs repeating – 79% of people will only skim-read your service pages.

The design has to highlight the key points to people who only want top-level information, but also lead people from one sentence to the next if they do want to read deeper into your offering.

There are a number of ways this can be achieved:

• Break up the copy with plenty of sub-headings. Yoast recommends having a maximum of 300 words between each heading tag. Use sub-headings that describe the section clearly such as “How it works” or “What the service includes”.
• Highlight key points in bold so that they stand out from less important copy on the page.
• Use bullet-pointed lists like this one because they’re easier to skim-read.
• Break the text up with photos or other visuals
• Break up longer paragraphs into shorter sentences and paragraphs
• Feature prominent calls to action throughout the copy (see point 7)
• Make sure there is plenty of white space on the page
• Use one or two fonts and colours for simplicity with plenty of contrast between colours to ensure the text is easy to read

7. A clear and strong call to action

Whenever someone visits a page on your website, you want them to be able to clearly identify what action they need to take next. This includes your service pages.

You can achieve this by featuring prominent calls to action throughout the page.

Generally, the best approach is to format your calls to action as clickable buttons that enable the visitor to complete an action. A call to action might be “Get a quote”, “Buy now”, “Let’s go” or “Get started” as just a few examples.

If you offer a high ticket service or you think your audience is still quite early in their buying journey, you might need to adjust the call to action to reflect this.

Instead, the call to action might be something along the lines of:

• Find out if we’re the right fit for your business >> Book a discovery call
• Discuss your needs with a member of our team
• Get your questions answered >> Book a free consultation
• Chat with a member of our team

The key is to meet your audience where they are on their buying journey.

If you have several services on one page, then you should ensure that there is a call to action for each service.

If your page is promoting a single service, then you should ideally include calls to action throughout the page. These could all be the same or you could experiment with different wording to see which buttons attract the most clicks.

SEO tips for a great service page

Although I’ve covered the seven essentials that I think every service page needs above, I do want to mention SEO here too.

· Have a focus keyword or phrase per page

It’s always advisable to have a single focus keyword or phrase unique to each page of your website. This applies to service pages too.

This is too important to leave to guesswork, so you’ll need to spend some time researching which focus keyword or phrase to use.

A good starting point is to think about what need might bring your audience to make a search (i.e., their search intent) and then brainstorm the Google search they might make to find your services.

When you make a search using the words and phrases you brainstormed, what search results do you see? Would your services sit comfortably within these results?

You’ll also want to look at how competitive a focus keyword or phrase might be. A really simple way to do this is to look at how many search results Google returns.

Here are some examples.

If we search for the term “web design services”, Google returns over three billion search results. If we make the phrase more specific, such as “ecommerce web design and maintenance services uk”, the search results drop to six million. Yes, that’s still a lot of competition but nowhere near the billions!

Equally, a search term like “wedding photographer” returns 161 million search results but “documentary wedding photographer devon” cuts the competition to just 12 million. And if we make the search even more specific – “devon wedding videographer” – it brings the results down to 353,000, which is far less competitive.

Once you have some lower competition keywords in mind, there are various tools you can use to see whether they’re the right ones to target:

• Although Google’s keyword planner is to help you target words and phrases in Google Ads, it’s a great starting point to look at potential search volumes and competition.
• SEMrush has a free keyword position tracker.
• You might also want to try the Moz Keyword Explorer.
• Ahrefs free SEO tools can be helpful too.

Single or multiple services on one page?

From an SEO perspective, it’s usually advisable to have a separate page for each signature/core service that you offer within your business. With this approach, you can target one keyword or phrase per service, and it’s an opportunity to create more content and pages for Google to index.

The exception to this is if you have a main service and then supporting services that can be booked as an add-on. For example, a web designer could offer a simple web design service for a five-page website, but then include additional services such as website hosting, website maintenance, GDPR compliance, Google Analytics and so on.

In this case, it would make sense to talk about the main umbrella service and all the add-ons on a single page.

In this scenario, the focus keyword or phrase will typically describe the main service.

Some extra hints and tips

· Simplify your website’s main navigation menu

If your website’s main navigation menu has too many choices, people may bounce away from your website. Try to keep the navigation as simple as possible, highlighting where your service pages sit. It’s often enough to have options such as Home, About, Services, Contact

· Have a contact page

Even if you have amazing service pages with clear calls to action, it’s important to have a contact page that’s easy to find and makes it easy to get in touch with you. With service-based businesses, people often want to feel they’ve connected with the people behind the business, so they know who they’ll be dealing with.

· Add links to your key services to your website’s footer

If you have a small number of signature services that you want people to find easily, you might want to include links to them in your website’s footer.

· Check out these examples for inspiration

• 44 Beautiful and Practical Examples (SiteBuilderReport)
• 22 Examples that give a Combination of Minimalism, Creativity and Originality (Colorlib)
• 43 Inspiring Examples + Templates (My Codeless Website)
• 27 Examples That Will Wow You (Dorik)
• 40 Inspiring Examples (Founder Jar)

Write for your audience

Above all, I believe the secret to super service pages is having a clear understanding of your ideal clients. Every time you get a review, or someone asks a question about your services, look carefully at what they’re saying. Questions tell you a lot about barriers that are preventing people from buying. Reviews tell you a lot about the benefits and outcomes that your services deliver.

As with all web pages, you will need to monitor how your service pages perform, so that you can refine them with time. Keep the essential ingredients above in mind though and you’ll be off to a great start.

Need some help?

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