This is obviously a very important page or group of pages for your site. This is your website’s sales pitch. The overall goal of these pages is to provide visitors with enough information to entice them to inquire about your service or to buy your product. Ideally you want to sound convincing as well as provide facts to back up your claims. Modern day consumers are well-informed and do their research before making a purchasing decision so definitely bare this in mind when writing this pages.
Service Businesses
For a service-based business you obviously need to outline what the services are that you offer. Ideally you should write about your services in very simple terms without using too much industry jargon or technical terms. If a teenager can read it and understand what it is you offer then you are on the right track.
How to write about your services to make sure they promote you properly:
- Keep the sentences simple and straight forward
- Avoid industry jargon, acronyms or other technical terms that will make it difficult to understand the service. If your service revolves around a term that isn’t very well known then it would help to explain the term well – this helps illustrate your expertise in the area
- Focus on the benefits your service can bring a potential client – will it save them money, time or hassle? What other need does your service address or make easier on the client?
What should you write about to make sure you are understood:
Above we covered how to write your service pages, but what exactly should you write? Well, exactly what you tell people when they ask you what your services are!
Imagine that you had to prepare a stand-up presentation on what it is that you offer and how you offer it. You would probably prepare a few slides with key points regarding your services – perhaps one slide per major service with the key points being what is included in the service or the manner you deliver it. You might include some images that help illustrate the service and then you would present your points verbally.
On your website, your task is to take those key points, combine them with what you say and then write it all down on the site so you don’t have to give the presentation every time someone lands up there. That being said though, taking the time to create a 2-3 minute video that concisely presents your services is extremely helpful for your visitors and increasingly popular and important online. Of course, some of those same graphics you might have used in your presentation would also work well on the website.
Product Businesses
Obviously for product businesses there are a lot of options on how to present your products. Will you have a full online catalog, only outline your major categories or even sell your products online? At minimum, you will at least need to have an overview of the major categories or ranges that you provide. Do you sell 6 different kinds of skin creams? Perhaps just describe the full range and then mention what the differences are.
Some ideas on how to present your products are:
- Create comparison tables to make it easy for the client to compare slightly different products within the same range
- Show clear pictures of your products – many people are very visual in their communication and decision making and will need to see what the product looks like to help them decide.
- Categorise and tag your products properly so casual browsers are easily turned into customers because they find something they want so easily.
- Differentiate products that are on sale for bargain shoppers – perhaps show a crossed-out old price with a bigger sale price next to it. This can be done quite elegantly with a good theme in conjunction with WooCommerce.
- Keep the voice of the descriptions in line with your brand – if your brand is informal, make the descriptions informal, if technical make them technical but still easy to read
What to write for your products and the ranges they form part of:
- Describe the use / benefits of the overall category with some more information on what need it fulfils.
- Write original and accurate descriptions of your products if you are showcasing them online
(important note: original product descriptions mean that your business wrote them specifically for the site – copying and pasting suppliers’ descriptions is usually not helpful to your customers and is also bad for SEO. In the eyes of Google this is seen as duplicate content and can have your site pushed very far down if not removed from search results) - Use mini diagrams or illustrations to convey technical specs if possible – this is much more user-friendly than merely listing a number of properties
- Describe the product’s look, feel, use & interaction or anything that can make the user feel like they’re already interacting with the product without needing to actually have it in hand
- Compare and refer to other products in your catalog – this will help users discern differences between products and perhaps also get them shopping around your site more.
Writing for your product or service pages is arguably the most important content of your site. This is the evergreen content that will be looked at for months and years to come. Re-visit this content every few months to ensure it remains accurate and still includes everything that is important to your business. You may even see some messaging that you could possibly improve to help increase your sales!
