Everyone tells you that if you have a service based business you must have a website to build your online presence. That is 100% true.
An online presence in this day and age will enhance competitiveness in your industry and build trust and authority.
But just having a website isn’t enough. You must have a website that will convert those leads and sell your services.
In a day and age where people are busy, no one wants to waste time landing on your website if they can’t find the information they need quickly.
In today’s short and sweet blog, I’m going to share 5 key features service based websites must have to covert leads.
1. Contact Numbers
As a service based business (eg. plumber, physio, coach) you need to be easily contactable for potential clients. Some people hate dealing in forms and prefer to speak to a human. You need to make it easy for these people to contact you, or your office, and make an enquiry. Your contact number should be clearly visible and listed several times throughout your website for easy access.
Places your contact number should appear:
- In the header or top bar of your website – as the first thing people see
- In the footer of your website – it’s common for people to scroll looking for contact details
- Contact Us page – your number should be prominent on this page
Tip: Make your phone number a clickable link so your customer can just tap and dial 😉
2. Contact Form
Your website should have at least one contact form for people to email you their enquiry. Just as some people prefer to call, some people are busy and prefer to send an email and deal with email correspondence after hours or at a convenient time. Your contact form should have enough fields to give you some basic details of the enquiry so you know what the client needs. You should also make your form easy to use with clear fields and easy to read fonts. That feint grey text does nothing for aging eyes at 11pm.
Tip: If you only have the one contact form, make sure you have several call-to-action buttons throughout your site so your potential customers can access said form easily.
3. Easy Calls-to-action
Speaking of call-to-action buttons, these are a must on a service based website – or any website actually. A call to action button is a button that prompts the site visitor to take an action! Common call to actions are “Call Now”, “Book An Appointment”, “Get Your Free Quote Here” etc. These encourage an action and in turn generate a lead or enquiry.
You can make your call to actions stand out a little more with coloured backgrounds, or make the action your encouraging a stand alone section rather than just a button. For example, you may make your request for quote action a section on your homepage that is dedicated to a quote form and some text to encourage the customer to submit an enquiry.
The image below is of a site I built a couple of years ago for a plasterer in Canberra. It’s a good example of a clear call to action that appears above the fold, where people first see it before scrolling. It’s easily clickable for immediate action. Of course, the visitor has the choice to scroll and look at the site before making contact with several options to make contact through the site.
Tip: Click on the image below and you will see the full home page for this site, complete with all the things you must have on a home page as covered in this blog.
4. Testimonials
Nothing says trust and “pick us” like a bunch of praising testimonials from your happy customers. Testimonials reinforce to people that you’re a real business and that you’re good at what you do. When people are looking for a service, they’re wary that they won’t get value for money or they’ll be scammed. Sadly, we live in a messed up world. But show people how good you are and they’ll come running.
5. Your location!
This might sound super obvious, but you’ll be surprised how easy it is to forget to put your location clearly on your website. In some cases, locations are right down the bottom in the footer. This is a great place to put it as a lot of people go to footers to get addresses and phone numbers, but it’s frustrating as a customer if you scroll to the bottom and find the business is located on the other side of the country!
Be proud of your location and use it to your advantage as you have the opportunity to become a leader in your local area. Make sure your location, or locations you service, are clearly displayed at or near the top of your home page. This helps Google rank you when someone searches “plumber in Ipswich” and it helps you attract the right customers first time.
Check out this home page I referenced earlier in this blog for Patch a Hole Plastering. It has all the key info and call to actions on the home page, ready to convert and attract people in Canberra looking for a plasterer.
How’s your website homepage?
Feel free to contact me for an audit if you feel it’s lacking or needs a few of these key features added.
