Imagine you’re looking for a business coach.
You go onto a coach’s website and click on their service page, excited to find out all about their amazing ‘VIP Coaching Package’. And on it, you find two paragraphs of text describing their service and a link to buy. The cost, by the way, is £6997+VAT.
🙄
There is no way in hell you’d buy that, right? I don’t know many people who would feel confident buying that package from just two paragraphs of information.
But this is an exact example of something I came across recently. And weirdly, it’s common on B2B service pages.
A lot of business owners don’t even dedicate an entire page to their service, instead opting to put all their services on one single page with little information.
Why do Bad Services Pages Happen?
Business owners often don’t put enough information on their websites because they want to speak to prospects on the phone or video call.
And that’s understandable. I wouldn’t buy something for thousands without speaking to someone first.
But even if you feel someone likes to talk to you before they buy your services, you still need to provide your prospect all the information they need.
Why Prospects Need Information Before They Speak to You
Your prospects want to understand your service are their terms, not yours. That means they do their own research–they read up everything there is to know about your service, your reviews and your pricing and decide themselves when and if they want to get in touch.
And if that sounds scary, just think to yourself what would you prefer?
Option One: To receive all the information (including costs) about a service
Option Two: Having to call someone to get the information we need.
Of course, it’s option one!
Giving your prospect everything they need to know about your service BEFORE they get in touch is just good customer service.
So with that in mind, what is everything your prospect needs to know? And how can you give them all this information and get them to buy from you? How do you create a high-converting service page that builds trust? I go through exactly how to do this below…
In a hurry? Grab the printable service page checklist you can use any time.
What Should You Put on A Service Page?
There are 9 key elements you should add to a service page.
- Your opening statement – get to the heart of the pain point
- Features AND benefits – get into the nooks and crannies of your service
- The cost – yep, you need to give a price
- The process – what’s the process of working with you
- Case studies or testimonials – for social proof
- A bit about you – why do you do what you do?
- Who it’s right for – explain who it is/isn’t for
- CTAs throughout
- Frequently Asked Questions Section
Let’s break these down a little further…
1. Your Service Page Opening Statement
First things first, do not open your service page with the word ‘I’. This isn’t about you (sorry). This is about your customer.
Secondly, don’t tell your customer something they already know. We see this a lot. People will open up their service page with something like, ‘Good website copy is vital if you want to connect with your reader.’ Or ‘A bookkeeper can save you time.’ Your potential customer probably already knows these things, and there’s no point reiterating the stuff they know.
How Do You Open a Service Page?
You need to get to the heart of the problem and show your reader you understand what they’re struggling with.
You can do this by simply asking questions such as – are you struggling with x? Or ‘does it feel like you’re constantly x?’ Or making statements such as ‘doing x thing is tough.’
This is all about empathising with your potential customer and stating you understand. And once you’ve done this (and you really don’t have to spend a long time on it), you create the opportunity to introduce your service–good eh! This is where you can say, ‘I understand your struggles, and this is how my x service can help…’
It’s the simplest strategy, but it works!
2. Outline the Features AND Benefits of Your Service
First things first, do not just talk about the benefits of your service. It used to be that we only talked about features (the nitty-gritty facts about our services), but now, we’re all about the benefits. Trouble is, sometimes we focus so much on the benefits we don’t actually get to the heart of what it is we do.
Ever read a service page like this?
‘You’ll have so much more time to spend with your family.’ That sounds great, but what is it you sell exactly?’
‘You will finally have financial freedom!’ Yes, wonderful, but what is it?
‘You will never have to struggle with such-a-thing again!’ Right, can you tell me what it is yet?
You get the picture! It’s highly frustrating when you don’t get a clear idea exactly what a service actually is. So yes, talk about the benefits, but also go into the ‘nitty-gritty’ part of the service – i.e. tell the reader what they actually get.
How Do You Talk About Your Service?
You need to explain succinctly what your service is. This can be tough if your service isn’t something well known or understood. Take our SEO transformation programme, for example, it’s a programme that people aren’t aware of or search for on Google. So we’ve had to explain it in more detail. Whereas something like ‘web design’ is much more understood.
It’s good at this point if you break down the features of your service and explain the benefits of those features. Go into as much detail as needed so your reader truly understands what they’d get if they invested in you and why it would benefit them. Below is an example from our SEO Programme, we’ve broken down what you get.
3. Put Your Prices on Your Service Page
Yup. We know it’s a controversial one, but we’re strong advocates of putting your prices on your website.
It’s vital you break down how much your service costs. Why? Because like I said in the introduction, people want all the information they need upfront. The last thing they want is to call someone and find out the price (and this goes for large businesses too!)
Plus, the last thing you want is to have calls or send out proposals to prospects who don’t have the budget to work with you. That’s just a giant waste of your time.
How to talk about pricing on your service page.
You don’t have to go into a lot of detail about your costs, but make sure they’re prominent on the page.
If your prices vary depending on the client and what they need, this may need a little more explanation. You may want to go into a little detail about why the price differs and what can make it increase.
A great example is from Automation Ninjas on their Marketing Automation Domination page.
4. The Process of Working With You
Many service pages don’t actually give an indication of what it’s like to work with you. Prospects don’t understand how you communicate, how much time they’ll spend with you directly, how long the process will take, etc.
But why is this important? Does a prospect really need to know in detail how you work?
In short, yes. People like to have an understanding of what happens next – it makes them feel comfortable and trusting of you. You can’t expect someone to hand over their cash without them your process.
Plus, showing you have an actual process shows that you’re organised and professional – it proves that this is something you do regularly and you’ve crafted a process for your clients that works.
How to Talk About Your Process on Your Service Page
All you need to do is give a basic overview of the main steps within your process.
You don’t have to go into too much detail (although we recommend you create a piece of content that goes more in-depth about your process). This is just to give someone a flavour of how you work and make them feel comfortable with your process.
You can make it look good too, like this example from Sara Bussandri, who gives her reader three clear steps on how her Podcasting Package works. It’s simple, yet effective.
5. Feature a Decent Case Study or Testimonial on Your Service Page
Having a testimonial that states ‘[Company name] was so professional and friendly. I can’t recommend them enough!’ is just not going to cut it. Words like ‘professional’ and ‘friendly’ aren’t impressive. In fact, that’s the minimum we should expect from a company.
What you want to do is show transformation–what were your clients like before working with you compared to after working with you.
Now, this can be tricky to get from your clients. They won’t automatically know how to give you this kind of testimonial. So to get this information from them, we ask our clients 5 simple questions…
- What problems were you having before working with us?
- Why did you hire us specifically over other companies?
- How did working with us solve your original problem?
- What results have you had since working with us?
- What did you like or didn’t like about us or our service?
You could ask your clients to answer these questions over a video call, that way you can write it all up and send it to them (asking your client to write this up themselves is usually more difficult and you get less detail than you would on video).
Better yet, ask them if they’d be happy to provide a video testimonial instead, you can always use the transcript for a written testimonial too!
Doing this should give you a really good testimonial that shows the problems your client had and how you helped them solve those problems. To learn more, we created a blog post on how to get a good testimonial from your clients.
How to Display Your Testimonial or Case Study
We embed videos on our service pages so they don’t take up as much room as text.
But whether you’re using text or video, make sure you display an image of the person giving the testimonial, their name and their job title. This makes the testimonial much more believable. The more detail you can give, the more ‘proof’ you provide to your prospect that you can really deliver results for your clients.
6. Include a Section About You and Why You Do What You Do
You’ll notice that this is low down on the list (sorry about that).
Although who you are and why you do what you do is important, it’s not the primary focus of your service page. Your reader wants to know about how you can help them. Once they’re engaged and looking to hire you, that’s when they’ll find out more about who you are.
So no, this section doesn’t come right at the top of the page but it’s still important. You’ll want to really connect with your reader at this point, building trust and loyalty.
How to Talk About Yourself on Your Service Page
Firstly, always include an image of yourself or you and your team, this helps your reader visualise who they’re going to to work with.
Then you need to explain what you do, why you do it and what motivates you. This is your opportunity to tell your origin story. It’s also an opportunity to showcase who you are and your personality. Have a little fun with your writing, and don’t be afraid to show your quirks too.
7. Explain Who Your Service Is Right For (And Who It’s Not Right For)
In all honesty, if someone asked you ‘is your service right for everyone?’ the likelihood is you’d say ‘no’. Our services aren’t right for 100% of people, they’re tailored to a specific audience.
It’s your job to explain who your service is right for (and who it’s not right for). That way you’ll prevent the wrong types of people getting in touch. But more than that, you’ll increase trust and loyalty with your ideal clients, who will identify themselves as the right fit for your business. They’ll feel exclusive–you don’t just take on anyone and everyone.
How to Explain Who You’re Right For on Your Service Page
You can do this by presenting a simple table with ‘Who this is right for’ on one side and ‘Who this isn’t for’ on another. Or you can keep it to a simple tick list. This isn’t meant to go into a lot of detail, it’s simply a skim read.
A good example is from the Membership Guys who include a ‘right fit/wrong fit’ table on their page.
8. Strong Calls To Action Throughout
Your end-user needs direction, and you should help them by including ‘Call To Actions’ across the page. A call to action is usually a button that encourages people to take the next step with you.
And no, this doesn’t mean sending them to your contact page! You should be specific and purposeful. A contact page is there for more general enquiries. This is different.
Your CTA will differ depending on your service, how much you charge and how much communication you need with your prospect. You wouldn’t have a ‘Book a Call’ CTA for something like a £10 book. But you would for a £1000 per month coaching programme.
Ultimately, your CTAs may change a few times before you find what works for you. You may find that your prospects aren’t booking a call because they’re not quite ready, in which case you need to think about getting them on your email list instead.
How to Display Your Call to Actions
You should scatter your call to action across the page under your relevant section. Try to keep to just one call to action, such as ‘book a call’ or ‘buy now’. Always make sure your call to actions…
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- Stand out (use a contrasting colour)
- Have plenty of white space around them – make them look important
- Use direct language like – Book Your Free Call Now or Buy Now
9. Include an FAQ on Your Service Page
What may seem obvious to you is not so obvious to your prospects. So it’s good to include an FAQ section that answers any questions your prospect may have.
Now some business owners make the mistake of including secret humble-brag questions in their FAQ. Things like ‘How many awards have you won?’ – I actually saw this once on Sky’s website!
As much as we would love to think that people care about our awards or when we were established, they care more about what impacts them–how long it takes, the cost, the way you’ll communicate, etc.
But how do you know what questions to include?
That’s easy–look at your emails and think back to conversations with your potential clients. What questions did they ask? Those are the questions you should include in your FAQ area.
How to Present Your FAQ on Your Service Page
FAQ can get a little text-heavy, so it’s a good idea to only show the question and have a clickable dropdown. Make sure it’s obvious where someone needs to click (otherwise they’ll miss it) but doing it this way makes it visually appealing to your reader.
If You Remember One Thing About Creating Service Pages
So that’s it. Your 9 Essentials of a service page. But if you remember one thing about service pages, remember this: you need to give your prospects all the information they need to make an informed buying decision.
What’s Next?
Are you ready to write your service page or re-write your existing one? Download the printable service page checklist to help you.
Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.
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