Writing a service page: what to say and in what order

Why a service page is usually written for the wrong reader

Open any service page at random and, more often than not, the first paragraph will be about the company: years in the market, the approach, the team.

The person who arrived on that page is deciding something else entirely: do you do the thing they need, roughly what does it cost, and can you be believed. They will ask about the years later, if at all.

This does not happen out of disrespect for the reader. The text is written by somebody who knows the service from the inside and starts with what matters to them. What matters to the client is the opposite.

Below is an order of blocks that answers questions in the order they arise. And a check that takes ten minutes and catches most of the problems.

The first screen: one question

The first screen has to answer exactly one question: is this the thing they were looking for.

The answer has two parts. What you do — name the service the way a client names it, not the way it is named internally. And who it is for, because renovation for a flat and for a factory are different pages.

Nothing else belongs on the first screen. Not the company history, not an elegantly phrased mission, not a list of twelve advantages.

The check is simple and unforgiving: close the page after the first screen and ask an outsider what this company does and whether it suits them. If they cannot answer in five seconds, the first screen does not work.

And one technical consequence. The first-screen heading should contain the same words the person typed into search. Not because a search engine likes it, but because matching words are the signal that says you have arrived in the right place.

The order in which people actually read

Nobody reads a service page in sequence. They scan it, and they scan in a predictable order.

The heading first. Then the eye runs down the block headings, skipping the text. Then it stops on numbers, prices and lists, because those stand out visually. Only then, if something caught, does the person go back and read a paragraph in full.

From which follows a practical rule: block headings must carry meaning rather than decoration. What the work includes is a heading. Our advantages is not a heading, it is blank space.

And a second: the important thing cannot hide mid-paragraph. If the text contains a figure, a timescale or a price, it has to be visible while scanning rather than only while reading.

Four blocks after the first screen

The order matches the order of questions in the reader's head.

What exactly is included. Not a description of the service in general terms but a list of what you will do. The reader is comparing you with others, and that list is what they compare.

What it costs. An exact figure, a range, or at least a starting point. More on this below, but the block cannot be skipped.

How it happens. Three to five steps from enquiry to result. This block removes the main fear — not knowing what follows once you write in.

Why you. And here, at last, is where writing about yourself belongs — not years in the market, but things that can be checked: examples, figures, names.

Price, when an exact figure is impossible

The most common excuse: everything is individual, we cannot state a price. This is almost always untrue, and it is expensive.

An absent price reads as risk rather than flexibility. Someone who cannot work out the order of magnitude more often goes to whoever named it than writes to ask.

Three options work. A range: from this to that, depending on scope. A worked example: a typical project of this size runs to about this. The cost of the first step: a site visit and survey is a fixed sum.

Any of the three beats silence, because all three filter out those for whom it is too much. That serves both sides: you stop spending time on conversations that end nowhere.

And say what moves the price. Two or three factors: scope, timescale, complexity. The range then stops looking like a dodge and starts looking like honesty.

How to write about yourself so it works

The about-us block is not useless — it is simply in the wrong place and written in the wrong words.

Does not work: years in the market, team size, the words professionalism, individual approach, quality. Everyone says these, including people who cannot do the job, so the words carry no information.

Does work: names of companies you have worked with. A result in figures. The name of the person who will run the project. What happens if it does not work out.

On testimonials specifically. One without a source does not count — everyone writes those. A testimonial works when it can be checked: a name, a company, a link.

A simple test: take any claim from the about block and ask whether a competitor could write it. If they could, remove it — it does not distinguish.

Words that mean nothing

A short list worth deleting outright, with nothing put in its place.

A wide range of services, a flexible discount system, a team of professionals, modern equipment, an individual approach to every client.

Each of these takes up a line and communicates nothing: they can be moved to a competitor's site without a single edit. That is the definition of empty text.

The test is the same: if a phrase could be pasted onto somebody else's site unnoticed, it works neither for you nor for search. Search engines can also see that there are thousands of such pages.

We tested this on ourselves. In our shop, product descriptions were assembled to a template from a name and a category — sixteen near-identical texts. The search engine responded predictably: it read the pages and declined to index them.

How to write about the process

An underrated block that removes the main barrier — fear of the unknown after pressing the button.

Three to five steps, one line each, with an honest timescale. Enquiry, reply within a day. A conversation to clarify the job. A quote. The work. Handover.

State what is required from the client at each step. People want to understand not only what you will do but how much of their own time it will take.

And write down what happens if something goes wrong. One paragraph on rework, deadlines and refunds is worth more than the entire advantages block.

Questions and answers: for doubts, not for search

The question section on a service page is usually written for the search engine and padded with formal questions. That is wasted space.

The real questions already exist — they arrive in email and on the phone. Collect the last ten and answer the five most frequent.

The awkward ones are the most valuable: why is it so expensive, what if I do not like it, how long is the wait, will you take a small job. An answer to an awkward question convinces more than any advantage.

Answer briefly and directly. An answer that begins with we always strive is not an answer.

And there will be a side benefit after all: those phrasings match how people ask in search, so the section brings traffic as well.

How much text is needed

A question people answer with a character count, and the character count decides nothing.

You need enough to close the reader's questions and not one line more. For a simple service that might be a few hundred words; for a complex one, several times that.

Length on its own does not help you rank. Completeness of the answer does: a page that answers the question better than the others wins regardless of size.

The danger of a long text is different: the longer it runs, the higher the proportion of filler, and the harder it becomes to find the price and the list of work. Scanning breaks before reading does.

A practical guide: if no paragraph can be removed without losing meaning, the length is right. If a third can go, remove it.

Checking a finished page in ten minutes

Six questions to put to your own page. Answer honestly.

Is it clear from the first screen what you do and who for, within five seconds and without scrolling.

Is there a price, a range or the cost of a first step anywhere on the page.

Could at least one paragraph be moved to a competitor's site unchanged. If so, that paragraph is surplus.

Are the list of work, the price and the timescale visible while scanning, without reading.

And last: does the page answer the question the person typed into search, or does it describe the company in general. That is the same mistake in different guises, and it costs more than the rest.