How to Write a Services Page That Converts

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. Erin Ollila 0:00 You might think that the Services page is generally one of the easiest pages to write on a website, considering how you know what your offers are. But that’s not actually the case. In fact, one of the pages that my done for you clients, and my done with your clients struggle with the most is that darn services or work with me page, and I get it, the Services page carries a lot of weight. It’s one of the two places on your website where your audience makes a firm decision about whether or not they want to work with you. The services page needs to define what type of services you’re offering to your audience, and why you or your business should be the one to perform those services for your audience. But the thing is, most of the clients that I work with, whether they be the DI wires, or the people who hire me to write all of their website words for them, they don’t necessarily have just one single solidary service that they’re offering to their clients, they might have multiple offers. And some of them may be products, some of them services, some of them courses, and some might be a combination of all of those things. So figuring out how to offer those products, services courses, or whatever it is that you are selling on your services page can be overwhelming for even the most experienced copywriter. Never mind the small business owners who are writing their own copy. So that’s what we’re here to talk about. On today’s podcast episode page. What does an ideal services page look like? How can you make the decision whether or not you need one or multiple services pages? And then when you do that make when you do make that decision? How do you go about designing those pages to showcase your offers in the best possible light and make the conversion from lead to customers? So before we talk about copy, and we talk about conversions, let’s first make a decision about how many services pages you need on your website. So there’s no obvious answer for this that will work for every entrepreneur. But I generally have three recommendations that I’ll work through with my clients to help them make the decision on what to do for their own websites. So in most cases, I’ll recommend either one services page, a services page plus secondary services pages for their offers, or I’ll recommend that they create offer specific pages that also get listed in their navigation bar, that standalone and are not reliant on a general services or work with me page. So let’s break that down and talk about each one of those. For the clients that might be just starting their business, or are not able to very clearly articulate the offers that they have for their clients, I generally recommend that they start with one services or work with me page that list out the type of ways that they will like to work with their clients. So when I mentioned this, I don’t necessarily suggest that this needs to be just the brand new entrepreneur either, I see that a lot of coaches will start their websites with one services page. And that’s for the reason that their offerings tend to be very customized for the clients that they work with. Meaning they can’t just throw an offer on their webpage, and people can click to buy it, because they need to meet one on one with a potential client, learn whether they would be the right person to help them. And then they need to individualize and customize a package that will work for that client. So in that case, having all these services pages or even specific offer pages in their navigation bar would be a little bit too confusing to offer, because they don’t have the details that a customer needs to make decisions. What they can do though is they can explain generally how they work with clients, generally what they offer to clients, and then encourage the audience member to schedule a call with them, where they can listen to their individual needs, and develop either a proposal for them or some type of customized package based on the way that they work with most of their clients. And that itself can all be done on one services page. So I mentioned that a coaches as an example but it is also helpful to have a single services page if you are new to business. So if you are let’s say you’re going to be a virtual assistant usually I started your own business and you don’t have a framework for how you work with your clients, maybe you’re testing out the different ways that you could serve the businesses that you work with. What I would recommend for them is just have one single services page. And on that page list a few of the ways that they like to work with clients, and end the call to action, again, to either book a service, excuse me book, a discovery call, where the sales part, or the proposal part can happen on the call. And it can be customized, or to have people potentially click an application where they can tell you how what they’re looking for in a virtual assistant. And then you can customize a proposal for them. So two examples, coaches, or virtual assistants could do well working with one single services page that does not link out to any other pages. But it generally list excuse me, it lists what they generally do when working with their audience, so that the reader can scan through the content, which will help them learn about whether or not they want to work with the small business, and then take that next step to connect to determine how the relationship could work on an individual level. I think it’s easy to assume that there are many fields where proposals need to be created for individual clients, because everyone has different needs. copywriting is one of those, I have a general idea of what most websites will cost clients. So on Discovery calls, I can easily quote them for what I’m assuming they might need. But because every project is different, it’s really difficult for me to be able to put pricing on my website, for my web copy, excuse me, my done for you web copy projects. You know, take for example, I might meet with a photographer, who is looking to have a homepage about page services page with maybe a few secondary services pages. And that’s it, then I might meet with, let’s say, a local nursing home. And they might have maybe 10 services pages, and about page that has the bios of all of their staff, maybe some processes pages or data collection pages when they need information from individuals who are interested in potentially placing family members there, you know, those two projects vary greatly, and the amount of copy that needs to go on the pages, or the amount of interviews that need to be done for the staff versus the photographer. And all of that affects the pricing that I would put on the proposals for that work. So just to sum this one example up using the examples of myself as a copywriter, a virtual assistant and a coach, one single services page may work if you have to put a lot of customization into your proposals. If you do not know your exact services that you’re offering, maybe because you’re new to business, and you’re still testing things out. Or if you really are dependent on relying on information from your clients in order to give them a quote, which is similar to the first example I just shared. So that’s one services page. The second option I had given you is probably the most popular and what I would recommend to people who actually what I’d recommend to most of the service providers or creative entrepreneurs that I work with, and that is creating one main services page that had secondary services pages for each service, product, or course or anything that they’re offering. So for example, if you are a small business owner, let’s say you’re a website designer, and you offer have the full package have done for you websites, but you also offer like a template shop. And maybe you do website reviews for accessibility, and just tech issues and stuff like that. That would be a lot of information to list on one services page. So what you could do is have one services page that explained the general idea of who you are as a business and what your ideal clients needs are. And underneath that maybe have the design have three separate boxes that link out the things that you do. Again, one of them being done for you web design, one of them being a template shop, and then the third one being that website audit. And then when your audience clicks on any of those boxes, they would then be delivered to a separate web page that explained that service or that product. So if they clicked on the done for you websites, they would go to you know a new page Did that explained the exact process of working with you, what you offer in your done for you web websites, which again, would have details like how many pages what the timeline looks like, maybe there would be a frequently asked questions. If they were to click on the template shop, it would bring them to a new page where they could scan through the template templates that you’ve created, and then potentially purchase them right from that page. And then the other option was the audit page. And on that page, it could be set up similarly to the design page, you’re going to want to explain things like the process, the pricing, the details included, and then the calls to action for that could either be to purchase directly from the website, or to apply with you, however, it works best for your business. Again, most small businesses, or actually, I should say most service providers that I have worked with that have online businesses tend to take this route, I think that it works well, because a customer that’s interested in one type of your services may not be interested in the other using myself again, as an example. My website is set up similarly to this, one of which being done for you, Seo, website, copy, and another page being copy coaching. And that’s just because I have a business where I have more than one ideal client, you know, one of my ideal clients wants to be able to hand off their knowledge and information about their business, and then have me take the marketing reins and do the writing for them. And another type of my clients are the people who do want to have some of the reins in their hands and to be able to DIY their copy. They just need the guidance from a copywriting coach to be able to do the work themselves and have the guidance and help as they need it. So I, I mean, I could have that on one services page. But so that it does not become confusing my overall message, I have decided to go this route of the second option of having one main services page, and then additional separate pages for each into individual service that I offer. And besides messaging, there’s also other reasons why having secondary service pages is helpful for your website. One of them is SEO. You know, from an SEO perspective, the more pages or posts that you have, the more opportunity that you can use varied keywords and keyword phrases to attract your ideal audience. So if I had my website copy and my copy coaching on one services page, the SEO keyword phrase that I chose for that page would not necessarily work for both of those services, right? I mean, maybe I could use a keyword like website writer. But it’s not that evident to the DIY errs, that they could work with me. Since a lot of people who write their own copy are not aware that they can hire copywriters to help them in like a coaching or editing perspective. So in my case, I separated them for messaging. So it’s clear to my audience who reads my website, the different ways that they can work with me. But I’ve also separated it from an SEO perspective. So that way, I can attract the people who are looking for the coaching, mentoring and editing on one page. And then the people who are looking to hand off their website copy to an experienced writer on another page. I think that what I’m sharing here is pretty self explanatory. But if you do learn best by seeing something visually, hop on over to my website, you’ll see that in my navigation bar, what you what’s listed, it says services with a downward arrow directly on the side of it. What happens when you hover over the word Services is a drop down menu appears. And my additional offerings are populated on that menu. So some people just click right into those offerings, especially if they know what they’re currently looking for. Like if they found me because they were recommended to me from one of my former clients, they might just click right on website copy. But what you’ll what you’ll learn if you’re scrolling through my site is that you can actually click right on that services page. And it works as its own page. It shares some information about what my ideal clients would be looking for and where they’re struggling. And then it offers ways that I can help them and the ways that I can help them are those additional pages that come up in that drop down box. So again, if you just want to take a peek at how I’ve set this up, hop on over to my any page on my website, look at that navigation bar. And then as of this recording, there are three additional dropdowns and one main services page. So Any of those four pages could be an example on how to use this second option in your own business. But besides my website, let’s talk about the third option I mentioned. And that option is the offer pages. So instead of having something in your navigation bar that said services or work with me as an example, what you’d have is the types of offers that you’re listing on your website. Usually, if you’re going about this route, you would do it because you have two pretty different offers that you want to make very clear are separate things. I have worked with a bunch of coaches before. And what they’ll do is they’ll separate their coaching page from either a facilitation page, or maybe a consulting page, because they might coach their clients individually. But they may also be willing to go into enterprises and do some like team building activities, or maybe team coaching with those type of enterprise clients. So instead of having one services page that listed both of those things, they’re making it very clear to their audience, that they work with people both individually and on the enterprise level. Another example is a law firm that I worked with last year. The law firm is owned by one lawyer in particular. So there is a page about the law services that the firm offers. But then there’s also a speaking page, because the owner of the firm does public speaking on a national level, and is regularly sought out to speak on some pretty large pages. So instead of hiding a speaking page, under the About page, we decided to just prominently prominently display it in that navigation bar. So I will actually, in the show notes share the examples of those two different types of clients that I have. So you can see what it looks like on their website. Again, the coach had their services separated. And in the navigation bar, it said something like home about coaching, facilitation and contact. And for the the law firm, it was home about us because it also listed information about the other lawyers that worked for the firm. And then the rest of the pages were lost services, speaking and contact. So just you can I’m using these two examples. So you can see how businesses that have different types of services, or potential ways they can work with their clients can have those secondary pages exist in a bigger hierarchy exist right there in that navigation bar. So the different types of audiences that they have, can choose immediately how they want to work with them, and not be bothered with the rest of the messaging that truly has nothing to do with their intent on the site. So those were the three different ways that you can have service pages on your website. And again, you know, I mentioned those three, because they’re the most popular that I’ve seen. But that does not mean they are exhaustive. One of the suggestions I gave was for I think it was the second option. I had mentioned that maybe the web designer have that template shop on their services page. And I guess if you’re asking me what a potential fourth way to do this would be to have on that hierarchy of your navigation bar, you have a services page and a shop page. So that way the actual services that you offer, whether it be the design, or the audits could live on the services, and it’s clear to your end users who are going to purchase something could go directly to the shop. And the same thing goes here if you offer like a program that people can join, or maybe you have like a monthly membership, instead of having a services page and a say a shop page, excuse me, what you would have is a services page if you offer them and a page that was like the the title of your program. One person or actually one company that does this off the top of my head is Angie True Blood’s the pod wise group. on her website, she has a services page, because her business does do services for clients in regards to podcast pitching, but she also has a membership program and that you can also find in her navigation bar. So it’s very clear that like when you’re coming to her site, you can learn about the one on one services that she has, but that you can also join her membership by clicking on that page. So I guess there really are are different types, even though types, three and four are very similar. Like I said before, there is no one true way to do this, I’m sharing these three or four types of services page pages as examples for how you can set up your own website, or what you want to think about before hiring a copywriter. But that does not mean that one is better than the other, it really just depends on what you’re offering, the amount of things that you’re sharing and how they they relate to each other in regard to your user experience and how they’re being presented on your site. Okay, so we talked about the three or four different ways that you can present your services or work with me pages on your website. But now let’s talk about what goes on these pages. Now, obviously, depending on the choice that you made, whether you have one main services page or secondary services pages, it will depend on the design, right. So generally, any page that’s created will still have that impact section at the top, which is generally known as the hero section. And in that will be a header that really clarifies why the person has landed on the page and what is being offered to them. And then we’ll be able to factor in the messaging, any voice of customer information that needs to go in the copy, the copy itself, the structure of the page, the SEO to get people to the page and the design and how that plays into the messaging and what’s being presented to the audience based on user experience. So let’s start with what’s above the fold. Now, obviously, this changes depending on whether you have that one services paid page that has everything there or if you have secondary services. But the first thing you’re going to want to do is allow your audience to self identify that they’re in the right spot. So let’s say you are offering wedding photography, the information you share in the above the fold might be a statement that gets them excited about working with you, and a subheading that clearly indicates that you are a wedding photographer, and potentially maybe the style of photography that you do. What comes below the fold will not always but on occasion be a small copy section, which explains what we share to them in the header. So if you are a wedding photographer to stay with the same example, and you want to explain that maybe you work in a certain location, maybe you have anything in particular to your business that needs to be shared with your audience, like maybe you work in a certain style or you only work certain months of the year, that would go in a potential copy section. Below that we want to have any package specifics. Sticking with the photographer here, maybe they will have two or three packages that they offer. You know a very robust one that comes with things like scrapbooks, not scrapbooks, wedding photo albums, scrapbooks. That would be so funny, I really if you are a wedding photographer and you are making scrapbooks for your clients, I will say I certainly missed out on getting that when my with my wedding photographer, that would have been so fun. Excuse me. So what I meant was fancy wedding albums. If you’re creating them for your clients, maybe that goes in more of a robust package. Maybe you also include engagement photos, and that’s in the more robust package. And then maybe another package that you’re offering is very stripped down. And it only includes, you know, two to four hours of photography on the wedding day itself. So you would want to introduce the type of packages that you’re presenting to them. Now, the service page differs from other pages in that the way that we lay out the information that we’re sharing might vary from business owner to business owner. So using the wedding photographer, if you’re going to go from the above the fold that indicates like why they should be excited to work with you, below the fold copy that might just explain some details about your own business and then presenting the offer that might work well. But if you are, let’s say a coach, because I think I used that example before, you might need to do a little bit more of an explanation that you understand where they are in the moment and how you can make that transformation. So there might need to be some more messaging besides one teeny tiny copy section that needs to be done before you introduce any offers. I would never say that a services page is like a sales page but they are very related in that we want to present an offer in a way that can be understood by the audience, right? Like we wouldn’t just on the top of our services page have a list of prices and then below that, maybe have some copy. And then below that, have some testimonials before we even address the pain points of our audience, right? We want to make sure that the way that we’re sharing information is strategic. And that it, like I said, is more of a customized thing. But if you’re listening to this episode, and you are not a coach or a photographer, think about what information needs to be shared to get people to quickly decide whether they want to work with you, before you offer your your actual product or service to them, right. So that will determine how much coffee that you need to write. And that will determine what type of message that you need to share. And a lot of that is based on your audience awareness. Like what level? Are they coming to you? Are they very aware and eager to purchase? Are they very aware and nervous about purchasing because they don’t know if it’s right for them? Or do you need to make them aware before you present your offers to them? Alright, so we’ve talked about the copy that helps them self identify that they’re in the right place that you’re presenting your offer to them. And you are explaining what goes into the offer. But there are a few other things that need to go on your services pages. One of them is proof and like we’ve talked about this before on our different website, page episodes, but proof comes in a lot of forms. One that is wonderful for services pages is testimonials. If your clients had said lovely things about you absolutely put them on those services pages, fees work especially well if you’re going the route to have like one main services page with secondary services page for each of your offers. So using my example of my say, on my website, copy page, the testimonial that I’m sharing are from my clients who specifically hired me for the done for them web copy. On my copy cook coaching page, I’m putting testimonials from clients who have hired me for copy coaching, whether it be collaborative work, or that they were completely DIY, and I was mentoring and editing. So match the testimonials to secondary services pages if you have them. And if you only have a small number of testimonials, don’t worry, put them on, spread them throughout your website, right, put them on the main services page, put one on the homepage, maybe one on the about page. Testimonials come in time, if you have a ton of them, great use them on secondary services pages, if you don’t just put them wherever it fits best. But there is more to proof than just testimonials. One great thing to put on a on a services page is the logos of clients or that you’ve worked with, or maybe if you’ve been featured for your services in the media. So that could be a logo strip, or you could share statistics, if you are maybe addressing some case studies, put them in there. Talk about the benefits and the the wins that came from those case studies. So basically, it’s just kind of like a way to to convince them that the proof that you have makes a great decision for them to purchase. Frequently Asked Questions also are great to put on your services pages. Because what you’re doing there is you’re anticipating the questions that they might answer and you’re answering them before they have a chance to, to ask them of you, right. And another way to get the answers on the page is to insert them in the copy and the messaging. So you don’t necessarily need a Frequently Asked Questions section of your services page, you can simply get that information into the way that you’re presenting your copy. So basically, it’s anticipating what they might ask and using your messaging to answer them without the Frequently Asked Questions section. So but either way that you do it, it’s really great to anticipate the types of questions people will have, because that informs the sales process. Right. And that informs how we’re presenting our services to people. All right, let’s talk process. Process is something that’s absolutely important for secondary services pages, but could be very valuable for a main services page as well. Your clients want to know what it will be like working with you. They will use that information to compare you with your competitors, to see if they’re comfortable working with you, and ultimately to make a decision. So explain your process on your services pages. But don’t feel like you need to write a complete proposal on your services page. You just simply need to have a very quick overview of what the process of working with you will look like. This can be done via bullet points, teeny tiny paragraphs or even visuals of like a timeline or experience that your clients will receive when they work with you. Now when you’ve printed center all of that information, I need you to start thinking about your calls to action, which more for most cases are usually buttons on your site, you know, and they’ll say something like by now, yes, I want this, sign me up things like that, that indicate that when pressing the button, they will move to a different stage of action. Instead of just reading and reviewing, they’re taking an action like it says call to action. In the calls to action on your services page, I really want to be clear that actually, I want to be clear that clarity is way more important than cleverness, of course, you can inject a little bit of personality into your buttons. I have a great example of one of my clients who has some very personality driven calls to action on her site. His executive coach, Jennifer Nash, I will link to her page in the show notes. So in addition to being an executive coach and working with Fortune 50 executives, what she is doing personally is she is a ballroom dancer, and it’s a major part of her life. It is something she does competitively. So we have introduced some of that dance language into her website. So it where someone might say like, let’s do this, hers says Let’s dance. But because it is a theme that runs throughout her website, and she addresses her competitive ballroom dancing as part of her about page, it makes perfect sense for the audience. Why she is using that phrasing and her calls to action. So use phrasing that shows personality. Absolutely. I highly recommend that. But just make sure that whatever you do, you’re thinking to yourself, Does this call to action have a clear? Meaning? Will people understand it? Or am I trying to be too cute and clever here, that the meaning itself is being lost in the message that I’m sharing. And the final one that I want to talk to you about for your sales page, what needs to go on it? This is such a truck tricky thing to answer, it is the pricing, I have two different methods on my current website for some of my services or productized services, I have my pricing clearly listed because it costs the same for everyone. An example of that is my copy coaching power hours, the phone call itself is the same for everyone, it’s 60 minutes we I have a list of things that we can accomplish during that timeframe. And the pricing doesn’t change regardless, regardless of what we cover. That being said, My done for you websites, I cannot have a specific price listed. Because everyone’s needs are so different. There might be a company that has 15 employees that they want to have bios for on that About Us page. And they also have 12 services. So I’m writing 12 services pages, that’s completely different than a solopreneur, who has just themselves as the face of their about page. And maybe, let’s say two services pages. So what you can do in this instance, using myself as an example is you can list a starting price. And I think that’s really helpful for people to be able to understand that the budget will increase based on their needs. But that’s the general beginning price for working for you working with you, excuse me. So pricing is really important. I mean, I have also had periods of running my business where I did not list pricing on my website. But what I see that tends to happen in that case is that the leads are a little bit harder to qualify. If you’re not indicating your pricing range, you might end up getting on calls or getting applications to work with you. And they cannot afford your services or they just weren’t budgeting they might be able to afford it. But they didn’t have the budget at that moment to work with you. So I do think pricing is very important to have a services page if possible. And again, you can do a starting price, you can do range, if you have fixed products or services, you can have the actual amount, or what I’m seeing a lot of people do now, which I in some ways I really do like is having downloadable service guides. So in order to get the pricing for the different offers that they have, you would fill out a form and it would get emailed to you. The reason this works is the people who are filling out that form are obviously interested in the pricing because they want to work with a professional in most cases. But the only reason that I would say I am a little pricing hesitant and I think this is a conversation that every service provider should have with their copywriter or strategist or themselves if they’re DIY is because sometimes clients might be a little bit price anxious, but that does not mean that they are not ready to work with you. They may simply just need some more information from you or maybe want to have a conversation with you to make sure that you are the actual service provider that they want to work with. And that’s okay. Right. You know, if it’s like $100 product, you can imagine that if price is a problem, in general, they’re not going to be an ideal client for you. But if you’re selling something for, let’s say, $8,000, you know, a 15 minute conversation with someone just to qualify whether you’re the best case to work with them is absolutely something that’s understandable. So pricing is helpful. If you’re, if you have clientele who might be a little bit more pricing anxious, I would just say put a little effort into your messaging to help ease their anxieties, or be willing to have a, you know, dedicated time to talk to these people through an introduction or discovery call. Alright, so we’ve gone over basically everything that needs to go on your services pages. And I just want to address whether or not an opt in should be on your services page. I usually hear this a lot of from my clients who are DIY in their copy, you know, they’ve put a lot of effort into the lead magnets that they’ve created. And they want to make sure that it is everywhere on their website, so they can get the most email signups as possible. But I recommend that you don’t put your opt in on your services pages, we want our services pages to show our offers or our products as clearly as possible. And we want to have as few as possible calls to action. So that way, we can actually encourage people to take action on our site, based on the user journey that we have provided for them. So when you have offers on one page, and you’re encouraging people to purchase, or to contact you to learn more about those offers, as well as an email opt in, it’s muddying the waters a bit right, like which action should they take? Should they just join your list, or should they buy from you. And I would think that anyone who has a website that’s trying to make conversions would really want someone to book a call purchase right there on the site or fill out an application instead of just getting someone on their email list. Now, you’ve done all the hard work, you have decided how you would like your page set up to be, you have figured out what needs to go on the page are all of the pages, and you have taken the time to review your the way that you’re presenting your offers, there’s two more quick things you need to consider. One is designed. Now if you’re working with a web designer, they will absolutely take the lead on this for you. But if you’re not, I just want to recommend that you consider the layout in how you’re offering these services, you want to make sure that you have enough whitespace. So all of the information isn’t crammed together. Remember that people skim the page. And that’s how they absorb information. And at the same time, when a bunch of text is just smushed together on the page, it’s going to make skimming a lot easier. And people could miss a valuable part of the message that you’re sharing with them. And I think in regards to design, it can be helpful for the layout to showcase the most important pieces of the messaging. So maybe that you put things in bullet points where you’re showcasing the details of what goes into the product or service you’re offering. The headlines could be helpful to help people work through the way that you’re presenting the information. Images, break up the text, and they’re very valuable for people to perceive things in a way that they can see in their mind. And again, those buttons on those calls to action are visual indicators that you want someone to make a move and you know, like, again, fill out an application by the service right there, or maybe contact you to learn more. So consider design, after you figure out the messaging and just make sure that the layout helps to present that message in the clearest way possible. And finally, you’ve got the messaging, you’ve got the design, I want you to consider reading the message and thinking to yourself, what is the promise that I am making on my services page or pages? What what offer am I sharing, and then what promise comes from that offer, and make sure that any promise that you’re making has information about how you can back that up. Sometimes that’s done with testimonials, like we’ve talked about. Sometimes that’s done with process like we’ve talked about. And sometimes that’s just simply done with a copy of addressing why you can move someone from, again, a pain point, even though I don’t I need to find a better way to say that to a place of transformation. And I think that’s the best way to review the Services page. After you’ve already figured out that you have everything you need on the page. It is visually set up for conversions, and that the message is clear. I think the promise factor is what people forget to do. And it’s a really easy way to edit your own work to make sure that whatever you’re presenting as an offer or a product is received in the best way possible by your own audience. Again, the user journey is one of the most important things on a website. And by making sure that your messaging and your copy covers all of the things that we’ve talked about, your design makes that message very clear for your audience. And that any promise you have created can be fullfilled is the easiest way to make those conversions and make your audience move from being just a lead to an actual client. Alright guys, so that was it for our services conversation today. We will be back next week to finish up our website pages series with talking about all of those additional pages that you have on your website.