Writing “Services” pages for a website may seem fairly straightforward, but ask a non-writer who has tried to slog through the process and they’ll probably tell you just how difficult the process was…….. or how poor visitor engagement is, or how they’re failing to convert qualified leads
So where are these businesses going wrong?
Well, most have forgotten that the content on Services pages is more than simply describing what products and services they are offering. In fact, it’s more about lead generation and lead nurturing than anything else.
The 5 Goals Of A Service Pages
A “Services” page should achieve 5 key goals. It should:
- Tell visitors why you’re valuable
- Demonstrate your professionalism
- Reveal your experience and expertise
- Showcase your reliability
Communicating these via your Services pages isn’t necessarily easy, and needs to be subtle. But regardless of what business niche in which you operate, you can increase visitor engagement and lead conversions by:
Showing That You Understand Their Challenges
When describing your services or products, demonstrate a clear understanding of what their problem is. You can then begin to introduce why your particular service or product solves that problem. If you aren’t sure what challenges your target clients face, ask them directly or scope out your competitors to see what their clients’ pain points are.
Not Just Listing Features, but Describing the Benefits of Those Features
Where many businesses go wrong is that they get into a long spiel about the features of their product or their service rather than focusing on the benefits. Once you make the benefits clear to your potential customers, they’ll then be able to better understand why they should choose your service or product.
Think about things like their pain points, how your customer’s life can improve when they use this product or service, and what makes you different from the competition. For the customer who wants more detailed information, like specifications, you can take them to another page, or ask them to initiate a contact (email or phone call) for those details.
TIP: When creating titles for your services or products, consider creating benefit-oriented titles to really engage visitors, if appropriate.
Including The Most Important Information Above The Fold
Just as the biggest news of the day is on the front page of the newspaper, the most important information about your services should be the very first thing that a customer will see (often referred to as ‘above the fold’) when visiting a Services page. The more your customer has to scroll for information, the less likely it is that they’ll read it.
TIP: This is also why having a simple sentence such as “Below is a list of our Products and Services” as the first line on that page isn’t going to cut it. It doesn’t hook the reader or hold their interest. Demonstrate that you understand your customers’ challenges, and invite them to your Services page “….for a quick, pain-free, inexpensive, long lasting (and so on and so on), solution to xyz..”.
No Page should be CTA-Free
With every page on your website, you need to consider where a lead will likely be positioned in your sales funnel. If you have visitors hitting up your Services pages, they are much further along in the sales funnel than a visitor who may be checking out your “Home” page or “About Us” page.
They know at least a little bit about your company or they’ve heard about your products/services. These are people who are interested in what you have to offer, so don’t beat around the bush – tell them what they need to do next in a clear ‘call to action’ (CTA). An appropriate CTA may be:
- Pointing them to an order page
- Offering a limited time promotional offer
- A free consultation or estimate
- A free trial period
Your CTA on a fantastic “Services” page, can be key to converting those leads into sales. Lose a customer here and there’s a good chance that they’ll be buying from your competition instead.
Don’t Forget To Optimise Your Pages
As wonderful a writer or business owner you may be, if you don’t use the terminology that your clients are using in their search queries, they are not going to find you. Fortunately there are a number of resources online that will be able to help you find those traffic-targeting long-tail keywords that can have that organic traffic rolling in to your page in droves (see the Keyword Research Report I recommend).
Once you have a set of initial keywords you can grow this over time with more sophisticated research if necessary.
- Use keywords in product and service descriptions – but naturally, not forced
- Tag any images with appropriate keywords – but only if the keyword really does relate to the image
- Include keywords in meta content
Your keyword optimisation will need to be tweaked and updated as new or more appropriate search evolve for your niche. As long as you continually refine and improve your content, you’ll be able to stay ahead of your competition.
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