It’s part two of Five Essential Pieces Of Content That Must Be On Your Website! Here’s part 1 if you missed it! Now I’m going to cover your service offerings and/or your products. This applies either way. You may also want to review part 1 if you haven’t yet, it focuses on your overall mission and will inform the way you set up your services page.
For some of you this is going to be pretty cut and dry, especially if you have only one or two products and services that you offer. For those of you that are like me and literally cannot stop yourselves from adding everything and anything to your website, this post is for you.
Create One Services Page That Leads Your Visitors On A Specific Path
There’s nothing worse than your potential customers landing on your website and leaving pretty quickly thereafter because they have no clue how you can help them. Again, a huge stumbling block for me. This is why I rely on my colleagues and coaches to help me grow my business!
If you looked at my website last week, you would have wondered what the hell I do and if I could even help you, simply because the path(s) I had created was so overwhelming. I had one going to creatives, one for solopreneurs, one for courses, one for free resources, one for retainer clients – it was a bit of a clusterfuck, not gonna lie.
Understand Your Audience Persona And Give Them Only What They Need
With the help of my pal Hollie over at Creative Solutions we nailed down my audience personas and began designing the flow of the website. I started by adding two buttons to the home page and the nav bar, “For Creatives” and “For Solopreneurs.” The idea here was to get people to self-select which path they fall under and then move through a services page matched to their specific needs.
What I began to realize was that my two primary audience personas (solopreneurs and creative entrepreneurs) would not always know where they actually fit. Aside from this, if they identified as both a creative entrepreneur and a solopreneur, they might feel like I’m saying one is better than the other, and may totally opt out.
I’m not saying that this isn’t a great idea for other businesses, and it’s something you should absolutely explore if you have more than one persona. For The Ultimate Creative, these personas are blurred and it made much more sense to guide visitors through a path based on what stage of business they’re at, instead of what type of business they have.
Here’s How I Set It Up
On the home page now, I have a stage-based section that outlines what I offer grouped into needs. It’s right up underneath my opt-in so it’s very simple to navigate.
The first option “I don’t know where to begin!” leads you to my blog, freebies and podcast – resources for businesses in an earlier stage that need help identifying where to start.
The second option “I’m ready to learn!” currently leads to the waitlist opt-in for my upcoming course Podcast Rocket and will eventually lead to a course page as this is built out. This is for businesses who have some budget and are in a position to manage their own content right now.
The final option is “I need your help!” and this leads you to my services page which ALSO has its own path! PHEWF!
But What Goes In The Services and/or Products Page?!?!?!?
If you land on my services page, you’re taken through a short and sweet sales pitch about moi and creative marketing as a medium.
I start by identifying my customer’s tangible needs (standing out online) and how the medium I use (content marketing) can help them accomplish this. “Creative Content Marketing Is The Most Effective Way To Stand Out Online.”
Next I take away some of the fear and overwhelm because I definitely know how stressful it can be to feel like you need to do 100% of the things 100% of the time!
Of course no services page is complete without a short bio and statement about why you give a crap! I also restate my mission here (see part 1 of this series!).
I’m Tellin’ Ya, It’s Hard Work But It’s Worth It!
Finally, I give you two options, each one opens up a new section on this page with information tailored to your selection.
Here, I have matched my service offerings with my customer’s needs. I start with the fundamentals, “I need to create a killer online presence” which brings up all of my one-off projects like websites, podcast super launcher, a one-on-one marketing session with me etc.
Second, I offer monthly video and podcast production as a subscription, so I give customers the option “I need to show up consistently every month.”
Both of these options also include an onboarding contact form which I will talk about more in part 3 of this series!
Wow, Did We Just Accomplish Something Amazing? I THINK WE DID!
Now you have the tools you need to map out your website services based on your audience! Again, huge shout out to Hollie at Creative Solutions for helping me figure this out! If you’re struggling with your personas like I was, drop a comment below and let’s work it out together!
