How to write useful service descriptions for your website
When it comes to writing website content, it’s the services pages that often cause the biggest headache.
The Home and About Us get all the careful copywriting love, and the services pages end up as the poor relation. Websites that have carefully avoided jargon and over complicated language in their top line pages kind of give up and just let it all hang out in the services area.
Not paying such close attention to the words here is a wasted opportunity. Your services pages will benefit from telling the same customer focused story as the rest of the site. Make them engaging. They’re crucial, they’re where you sell.
Why are services pages hard?
Because this is the crux of your business. This is your offer, it’s what you do.
What are we actually selling? What services are we delivering? How will people engage us? What do we charge? What’s our process?
If you’re finding this tricky, you’re not alone. For many, these questions are not as easy to answer as you might think. But you need clarity on them if you want to write service pages that are clear to read, and prompt the right customers to take action.
Whether it’s products or services or programmes, get clear on what people are buying from you and how you’re going to deliver. Put time into this before you try and start writing.
Be bold about what you offer, and the value you’re delivering. If you’re feeling woolly or under-confident, chat through your business model with a coach.
How to make writing services pages easier
Services pages are hard too because they need to get granular. People are looking for more detail here. On your home page you’re looking to capture key messages in a few words, while on your services pages you have more room to expand. The pace is different, but that doesn’t mean the tone of voice should change altogether.
Here are some tips to make writing your service pages easier.
1. Focus on your ideal customer
The easiest way to avoid a jarring jolt between the top pages on your website and the deeper ones is to maintain a steely-eyed focus on your potential customer and what they’re looking for. Remember they’re interested in what you can do specifically for them, not what you do generally for the whole world. It can be easy to slip into ‘we we we’ on service pages, but the best and most customer focused ones make sure they keep talking more about ‘you.’ Try this brilliant Customer Focus Calculator to see how ‘we we‘ your service page is: www.customerfocuscalculator.com]
“The easiest way to avoid a jarring jolt between the top pages on your website and the deeper ones is to maintain a steely-eyed focus on your potential customer.”
2. Answer all the big questions
The best service and product landing pages answer all the big questions for the ideal client – who, why, how, what, where, what next – and also add some personality/humanity. They overcome all the stumbling blocks in the reader’s head, gently persuading them that this service is exactly what they’re looking for.
3. Use a conversational tone of voice
Even though you’re necessarily going to giving more detail here, you can still make use of good conversational tone of voice tactics. Don’t lose all the words that give your top level pages their personality. Even though you’re definitely talking business here, there’s still room for conversational words that radiate warmth and intimacy. Active verbs, and unexpected adjectives that tickle the senses keep people reading. A good metaphor that makes people smile and feel understood has as much of a place on a service page as it does when its trying to make that first connection on a home page. And framing what you do in terms of client questions, rather than third person statements makes these pages feel customer focused.
It’s the difference between leading with ‘Optimisation services to increase online revenue. Choose your package here.’ and ‘How can I get customers to add more to basket? Here’s how our revenue-boosting optimisation services work.’
Leading with specific, client-focused language grounds what you do in the real everyday world so it’s easier to feel the value you deliver.
Examples of customer-focused structures to try
a) Short and sweet (covers most bases)
Who this is for
Why they need it
What it is
How it works
Next steps
b) Client question led (for more complex services)
Service title.
One line summary of service in client focused language. Get the most important information up front. Make it short yet compelling, like Evernote, above.
Call to action for the people who are already convinced.
Your questions. A list of up to 8 client challenges that your service solve
Who is this for? Summary of who exactly this service is aimed at. Job title, role, challenge, personality traits.
Benefits of this service. What people will get from buying this service.
Overcome objections. Tackle the objections you know will be on your ideal clients mind.
How it works. Your process in brief.
Credibility check. Link to relevant case study. Glowing client testimonials.
Expertise check. Link to relevant blog or other valuable content
Call to action. If they’ve read this far they’re interested in learning more, so give them a named person to ring (with photo that doesn’t make them look like a serial killer) rather than a soulless email contact form.
Try writing an About You page
A really good way to bridge the gap between About Us and Our Services is to write an About You page as an additional top level menu item.
We’re big fans of About You pages as a way of filtering the right people towards your services. This is a page where you focus completely on your customer and their challenges, and guide them towards the relevant services.
Digital marketing consultancy Newfangled does this really well – check their About You page out: .
Here’s some guidance on how to get that ideal customer crystal clear in your mind.
Look indispensable and buyable
This is the place you sell, but keep the tone helpful and engaging. Showing an empathetic understanding of a client’s challenge, and how, exactly your services meet that challenge is the point of a services page. Your aim is to make your services look both indispensable and buyable.
Learn from the pros
Look at the way web writer Henneke Duistermaat does it. She’s a genius in the art of persuasive, personality filled sales copy.
Good luck!