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. 

1. Your opening statement – get to the heart of the pain point 
2. Features AND benefits – get into the nooks and crannies of your service 
3. The cost – yep, you need to give a price 
4. The process – what’s the process of working with you 
5. Case studies or testimonials – for social proof 
6. A bit about you – why do you do what you do? 
7. Who it’s right for – explain who it is/isn’t for
8. CTAs throughout 
9. 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…

1. What problems were you having before working with us?
2. Why did you hire us specifically over other companies?
3. How did working with us solve your original problem?
4. What results have you had since working with us? 
5. 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…

• • 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. 

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post The 9 Essentials of a High-Converting Service Page appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

So how do you take advantage of your About page? How do you get people to connect with you and, ultimately, buy from you?

What NOT to do on your About page

Simple: make it all about you

We see this (or something along these lines) quite often:

“Hi, my name is Bob and I graduated from university in 1987 with a 2:1 in Engineering.” 

Yawn. Your reader’s gone.

Now, we do understand why a lot of people do this on their About page. After all, it says About ME! What else are you supposed to be talking about?! It’s only natural that you’ll want to talk about yourself, your experience, and what you do.

And of course, writing your About page in this is also very easy. Because you know yourself and your story very well. But (and we’re sorry to break this to you), your life story may not be a great way to connect with your readers.

So what do you do instead?

Flip this on its head and talk about how you can help your readers.

When you come to write your About page, instead of ‘About Me’ at the top of the page, write ‘About how I can help you’.  You should still call it ‘About Me’ (or ‘About’ or ‘About Us’), but when you’re writing copy for the page, thinking about how you can help your reader will reframe your mind and encourage you to write content from your audience’s perspective (rather than your own perspective).

What do you write at the start of your About page?

The start of a new piece of content is always the trickiest part, and if you write regularly, you may have your own ways to help you get into it.

But here’s what we do and advise our clients to do.

At the start of your About page, reaffirm to your readers that they’re in the right place.

So you could use questions like,

“Are you looking for X? Then you’re in the right place.”
Or:
“If you need X then you’re in the right place.”

Think about ways to make your audience feel secure in the knowledge that this website (and the content they’re reading) is for them.

The best way to do this is to empathise with your reader and with their potential problems or what they’re searching for. Give them the information straight away, rather than making them sift through the boring corporate story of how you started and how long you’ve been in business.

Don’t miss an opportunity to talk about what makes you unique.

For example, here’s what we say on our website:
“If you’re looking for a web designer who gets your business, who isn’t afraid to say what works and what doesn’t, then you’re in the right place.”

This statement doesn’t just tell someone who can relate to those words that we’re right for them. It also tells our readers that, depending on what they’re after, we may not be right for them. And while that may seem like a bad thing, it’s not. Because this actually stops people who don’t feel we’re the right fit for them from getting in touch with us. And this saves our time as well as theirs.

If you want to dig deeper into this topic, have a listen to this podcast episode: How To Attract Your Ideal Clients Through Your Website.

Remember, people click on your About page to decide whether they actually want to work with you. So use the opportunity to find your ideal clients and filter out anyone else.

What else should you include in the About page?

When landing on your About page, your prospective customers or clients want to know how you can help them.

There’s no better place to show your readers that you know and understand what problems they’re facing and that you can help them solve them.

So how do you know what problems your customers and clients are experiencing?

Just listen to them. Hear what they say. Pay attention.

Because often, talking about their struggles will be the very first thing they say to you in their email or when they call you up to make an enquiry.

So think about…

What are your prospective clients having a nightmare with?
What is it that they desperately want to change?

And make sure you talk about this on your about page.

How to structure your About page

You’ve got so much information to include. How do you make sure it all fits together without overwhelming your reader?
You could simply list the problems that your ideal clients are having in an FAQ-style section on your About page. Using bullet points helps you reduce the amount of text on the page, gives your reader some breathing space and helps people find digestible information to consume quickly and easily.

So, for example, on our About page, we explicitly acknowledge the problems our ideal clients are having, sympathise with them, and then tell them how we can help. And don’t forget to add a call to action directing people to your relevant products or services.

How to use your About page to build trust with your audience

We talked a lot about connecting with your audience. So what other elements can you include on your About page to build trust with your prospective customer and clients?

Testimonials

Testimonials, links to your previous work, and awards help you build trust and credibility with your audience.

Add testimonials from previous clients that show the kind of results that your clients got from working with you.

Portfolio

Add links to your portfolio to showcase your previous work. Don’t be tempted to put everything on there, but have something that gets people to explore other pages of your website.

Awards

Have you won any prestigious awards? We’re not huge fans of going on about the awards you won, but your about page is an opportunity to show them off! This is your chance to show them off. Don’t be like us – Jammy Digital won The Best Blogging Awards at Content Marketing Academy in 2018, and we didn’t add it to our website!

How to include some personality on your About page

So what about you then?

Yes, it’s important to focus on your audience first, but you still have to tell people about you. And when you do, you don’t want to lack personality!

Your About page is a great place to tell your readers who you are. So don’t be afraid to show some personality.

1. Include photos of you (and your team, if you have one).
   People buy from people and need to see your face. If you don’t have your face on your website, get your face on your website.
2. Talk about yourself.
   Your readers want to know who they’re dealing with – just make sure the information you share is quite succinct and doesn’t take over the whole page. Having too much information about yourself too soon may mean you lose an opportunity to connect with your readers, so cover all the rest first and then talk about yourself.

This is where nailing your tone of voice becomes really important, so head over to this post or this podcast episode to learn more about how you can add personality to your About page.

Would you like our help?

If you’re looking for some personalised, tailored feedback on your About page or your website, we’re still doing free website critiques over on our Facebook group. So make sure you join and put your name down for a critique.

We also help personal brand entrepreneurs build and grow successful business websites inside our signature membership community, Make Your Mark online. The doors are currently open, and you can join for as little as $39 a month or $390 a year if you join as an annual member. So come and check it out!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How To Write Your Website About Page appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Have you ever read a novel and heard a voice in your head? A voice that wasn’t your own. That was distinctive and unique?

That’s tone of voice.

It’s essentially how you sound through your business writing. Tone of voice is the way you say something. It is your personality, your language, the rhythm and pace of your sentences. It’s what differentiates you from other companies and your competitors.

Ann Handley, author of Everybody Writes (and my absolute superhero) says, ‘If the label fell off, would they know it was you?’

In other words, if your logo disappeared, your images, your colours – everything, would people still recognise who you were from your writing? Or does your writing sound like everyone else’s? Does your writing blur into insignificance?

Why is tone of voice important for your business?

We’re business owners, not novelists, so why on earth should we care about tone of voice?

Tone of voice helps your target audience connect with you, it helps build trust and relationships. It helps differentiate you from your competitors.

Think about it. When reading anything, don’t you want to connect with the writer? Don’t you like it when you feel they’re talking directly to you?

It also helps attract your ideal clients. You speak in a way that attracts the people you want and repels the ones you don’t. You can’t appeal to everyone, otherwise, you’ll just end up being boring and forgettable, and no one wants that.

For personal brands, tone of voice is vital. You are the business and people need to get a sense of who you are and what you stand for.

Where should you use tone of voice?

It’s not just in web copy you need to think about your tone of voice. It’s everywhere. Your social media, content marketing, and even in your emails. Every piece of writing should have your stamp.

How do you create a brand voice?

Okay, so we’ve established that tone of voice is important. But the question is, how do you come up with your voice?

Below, I’ve gone through the ways you can nail your tone of voice, with examples throughout.

Your Brand Personality

Let’s start right at the beginning. You can’t establish your tone of voice without first establishing your brand personality.

Your brand personality is a set of characteristics that make up your brand. For personal brands, this is much easier to establish than other businesses. Our brand personality tends to be closely linked to our own personalities.

If you’ve never thought about brand personality before, you’re probably doing a lot of it subconsciously. We all have personalities, don’t we? And you’ll act a certain way with your clients or customers and speak to people a certain way in email or on social media.

The key is to do this consistently, with purpose and across all your channels and platforms.

How To Establish Your Brand Personality

The topic of brand personality could take up its own book! However, for the purpose of this blog post, I’m going to quickly outline how you can establish your brand personality.

The easiest way to come up with your brand personality is to jot down some descriptions of your brand. Are you…

Straight-talking
Geeky
Ethical
Bold
Honest
Sarcastic
Humble

Try to avoid words like friendly or professional. These are ‘meh’ words, that don’t add anything to your brand. The minimum we should expect from someone is to be professional and friendly!

Don’t be someone you’re not

If I could give one tip about establishing your brand personality, it’s don’t be someone you’re not!

We see this quite often in our industry, where suit-wearing guys aged 50+ try to be cool. Don’t be the embarrassing dad in business. If you’re a serious, suit-wearing, straight-talking kind of guy, then that’s fine. Don’t try to be fun or quirky or cool when you’re not.

Think about your target audience

Another thing to consider when establishing your brand personality is your audience. You want to make sure there isn’t a disconnect between who you are and who you want to attract.

We once spoke to someone who wanted a pink and ‘girly’ website that reflected her fun and sassy personality. Her target audience was uber professional, corporate types. Now sometimes this is fine, it’s not as if uber professional corporate types aren’t people with their own personalities, however, this lady quickly realised that it wasn’t going to work. There was a disconnect between her brand personality and her audience.

5 Ways to create your brand voice, with examples!

So the key question is, once you’ve established your brand personality, how do you create your brand voice?

Below, I’ve gone through the ways you can use your writing to reflect your personality and connect with your reader.

1. Stop with the stuffy language

I get it. When it comes to writing our backs go up. We’re sent back to high school where everything had to be prim and proper. No starting a sentence with And or But. And no writing how you speak.

It’s no wonder that our writing sounds stuffy and formal. The problem is, it’s difficult to connect with our readers this way.

I see this all the time. People have great connections with their potential clients over the phone or face-to-face, but when it comes to their writing they automatically stiffen up.

I’ll give you an example of an accountancy firm.

So many accountancy firm websites are prim and proper, but wouldn’t it be refreshing to see language like this:

Does the date January 31st cause sleepless nights and sweaty palms?

Don’t worry. Just drop in anytime this week to discuss how we can help you. Decent cuppa’ guaranteed.

Of course, this is all dependent on your brand personality. If you are formal, then fine. Sometimes there’s a place for formal language, but often, and particularly with personal brands, an informal ‘chatty’ route works much better.

When you sit down to write, just remind yourself that you’re talking to another human. Think about how you’d speak to your clients or potential clients. This should be enough to avoid that formal, stuffy language that’s so off-putting for your reader!

2. Using Humour

Using humour is a wonderful way of expressing your personality and building trust with your audience.

There are lots of different types of humour you can use, from sarcastic to self-deprecating to silly. What works for you will all depend on your brand personality. But it’s important to remember that when using humour, it should be something that comes to you naturally. Do you use that humour with your clients or customers? And do they appreciate it?

An Example of Humour: A Little Bit of Something

I love this guy. It’s a testament to how much we like him as he is a fellow web designer!

His website copy cracks me up. Will he appeal to large corporate businesses? Possibly not, but that’s most likely not his target audience.

The way he uses humour attracts a particular type of client. It’s also likely to repel a lot of people too. But that’s okay.

Most importantly, his humour helps you connect with him. It builds trust and loyalty. It makes him likeable and familiar.

3. Swearing

Swearing is a controversial one. Some people are adamantly against it. Some people love it.

But if swearing is a natural part of your speech, if you swear with clients or customers and your target audience responds well to it, then why shouldn’t you use it in your copy?

An Example of Swearing

I love how Amy from Joy Junkie uses swearing in her copy. You immediately get of who she is from this – no-nonsense, fun and relatable.

Like the example above, some people will hate it, others will love it, but either way, you’ll remember her.

She doesn’t just drop in a random swear word here and there, you can tell this is a natural part of her speech. She even swears in her drift message, which makes me love her even more!

4. Regional Dialect

Regional dialect works extremely well if you have a local audience who use the same words and phrases as you.

We’ve all heard the phrase, familiarity helps build trust. This is why using regional dialect in our copy works so well for a local audience. It’s familiar to them and immediately that builds a connection to you.

An Example of Regional Dialect

Dotted throughout the Gillis and Mackay website are regional words and phrases and it really gives you a sense of place when you read their copy.

They build sheds for people throughout Scotland so this kind of phraseology works well for them in connecting with their readers.

5. Using your own phrases

This is a neat idea we’ve stolen from the guys at Atomic – Andrew and Pete. Creating your own unique set of phrases and words makes you memorable, and it’s amazing how often you’ll hear people repeat them!

These phrases will stay in your reader’s ears and they will immediately think of you when they hear them.

An Example of Using Your Own Phrases

We started using the phrase ‘Website Shame’ to reflect how people often feel about their own websites. People have repeated this to us and on social media. We’ve even had emails with people asking for us to help them because they’re experiencing ‘website shame’.

The key for this to work is to use something your audience can relate to. Don’t just make something up completely. We used the phrase ‘website shame’ because people repeatedly told us they hated their websites and felt they couldn’t promote their business because of it.

So I hope you found that useful. I would love to hear your comments below on how you use tone of voice. And don’t forget to take our SEO quiz. Once you have all that wonderful copy on your website, you want people to actually see it!

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post How to Nail Your Brand Tone of Voice for Your Business [With Examples] appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.