Building a website for a service business requires a unique approach compared to designing one for a product-focused business. If you’re hiring a marketing agency to create your website, ensure the agency understands how consumers search for and engage with the online presence of service businesses. Below is a detailed comparison of the strategies for each type of business.
Primary Objective
- Service Business:
- Focus on building trust, showcasing expertise, and converting leads into inquiries or bookings while capturing contact information for follow-ups.
- Encourage actions like phone calls, emails, form submissions, contact requests, and consultation bookings.
- Product Business:
- Focus on driving e-commerce sales, optimizing product discovery, and creating a seamless purchase experience.
Homepage Strategy
- Service Business:
- Emphasize trust factors (e.g., testimonials, certifications, helpful content, years in business).
- Showcase a clear value proposition for your target audience.
- Include a strong call-to-action (CTA) like “Get a Free Estimate” or “Schedule a Consultation.”
- Localized content and SEO for visibility in specific service areas.
- Product Business:
- Highlight featured or best-selling products.
- Use visually appealing product photography and offers (e.g., discounts, bundles).
- Clear CTAs like “Shop Now” or “Add to Cart.”
Content Strategy
- Service Business:
- Use case studies, project galleries, helpful content, or portfolios to show past work.
- Create educational content about the service process, such as blog posts, FAQs, or videos.
- Leverage local SEO through location-based pages or service area content.
- Offer lead magnets like checklists, guides, or process steps.
- Showcase project profiles filterable by categories.
- Product Business:
- Create product guides, how-to videos, and reviews.
- Focus on high-quality product descriptions and specifications.
- Use SEO to rank for product-related keywords (e.g., “best cordless drill”).
Design and Layout
- Service Business:
- Design around Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EEAT).
- Include testimonials, team bios, and a professional portfolio.
- Simple, clean, and intuitive navigation to direct users to contact forms or lead magnets.
- Intuitive website structure of pages and menus.
- Highlight local service areas prominently.
- Product Business:
- Prioritize product pages with robust filtering options.
- Focus on a fast, seamless checkout process.
- Include high-quality visuals and user-generated content like reviews or Instagram galleries.
Conversion Points
- Service Business:
- Offer lead generation forms for inquiries or consultations.
- Promote CTAs like “Call Now,” “Request a Quote,” “Book a Service,” “schedule a call back,” “Let us call you,” “Free Consultation”
- Use contact forms and lead magnets (e.g., free guides).
- The goal is to gather contact information so you can get them into a nudging drip campaign to encourage a conversion event.
- Product Business:
- Optimize CTAs for immediate purchase: “Add to Cart,” “Buy Now.”
- Include abandoned-cart reminders and retargeting strategies.
- Provide multiple payment methods and time-sensitive promotions
SEO Approach
- Service Business:
- Focus on local SEO with location-specific landing pages.
- Use service-related keywords like “plumber near me” or “lawn care in [City].”
- Leverage structured data for local businesses, including address, phone number, and reviews.
- Use helpful content to attract traffic and show Authoratitiveness
- Product Business:
- Focus on ranking for product categories and long-tail keywords.
- Optimize product pages for rich snippets, such as price, availability, and reviews.
- Create content for product comparison and purchase-intent queries.
Mobile Optimization
- Service Business:
- Ensure mobile-friendly contact forms and click-to-call buttons.
- Make it easy for users to find services and service locations.
- Product Business:
- Prioritize mobile-friendly shopping experiences.
- Streamline the checkout process and load times.
Trust Signals
- Service Business:
- Showcase reviews, case studies, certifications, associations, licences, and guarantees.
- Prominent “About Us” section to humanize the business.
- Add detailed project profiles with professional photos and descriptions of challenges, solutions, and outcomes.
- Product Business:
- Display secure payment badges, return policies, and product reviews.
- Include user-generated content, like customer photos and testimonials.
Email Capture
- Service Business:
- Use lead magnets like free guides, discounts for booking services, or consultation requests to capture contact details.
- Offer discounts on first-time services, such as a percentage off a consultation or a free initial assessment.
- Add contacts to a drip campaign to encourage conversions.
- Product Business:
- Offer promotions or discounts (e.g., “Get 10% Off Your First Order”) in exchange for email signups.
- Offer downloadable resources like product guides or style inspiration (e.g., “5 Ways to Style Your Living Room with [Your Product]”).
Analytics Focus
- Service Business:
- On the website track form submissions, click-to-call actions, click-to-email, click-to-sms,
- Track where you show up in local search terms (Google search rankings)
- Focus on lead conversion rates and which pages offer high conversion rates.
- Product Business:
- Track cart abandonment rates, average order value, and product performance.
- Focus on optimizing customer lifetime value (CLV).
What You’re Actually Selling
- Service Business:
- You are selling an upgrade to their life. Show them the life they want to live, and outline how you will help them achieve that life.
- Service businesses thrive on showcasing the end result—the transformation their services provide. Customers want to visualize the better life or improved circumstances they will achieve by hiring the business.
- Emphasize how your service helps clients achieve goals or reflect their personal success.
- Sell the cake, not the flour. People don’t buy a bag of flour because of the features of the flour. They buy a bag of flour to make a cake. Sell the idea of the cake. Sell the emotion of someone blowing out the candles on the cake. Sell the family time experienced by a birthday in the family. That is what drives someone to buy the flour. This is a very important concept. Think about what emotion your services actually provide.
- Product Business:
- While product marketing can also focus on the end result, it often highlights the experience or benefits that the product enables. Customers are looking for how the product solves their problems, adds convenience, or elevates their lifestyle.
- Focus on benefits more than features.
- Most customers aren’t looking to buy a product, they are looking for benefits that the product will bring them.
- The concept of selling the cake, not the flour is applicable for product sales as well.
Geographic Targeting
- Service Business:
- Service businesses often rely on local customers. Optimizing for local search and creating a connection with the community is essential.
- Use Service Area Pages or City-Specific pages.
- Include a map, linked to your Google Business Profile, in your footer.
- Add local memberships like Chamber of Commerce, city associations and other local affiliations.
- Product Business:
- Focus on shipping zones, global reach, and market-specific promotions.
Business Profile & About Page
- Service Business:
- Clients are looking for businesses they can trust. They want to feel that business has Experience, Expertise, Authoratitiveness and Trustworthiness (EEAT). A strong “About” Page should showcase the business, history, the team, mission, vision and values.
- Communicate your unique proposition, tell your customers why they should choose you over competitors.
- Product Business:
- Include a brand story, product development process, and mission statement.
- Highlight what sets your products apart, such as innovation or sustainability.
Follow Up after Purchase/Service
- Service Business:
- Personally reach out shortly after completing the service to ensure satisfaction and address any concerns.
- Ask for feedback and a review on your Google Business Profile and, if applicable, for permission to feature their testimonial and photos of the completed project on your website.
- Add clients to your newsletter with helpful and informative content, such as maintenance tips, seasonal advice, or service updates.
- Consider implementing a referral program to reward customers for recommending your business to others.
- Product Business:
- Encourage customers to leave a review about their purchase experience or the product itself.
- Email clients about complementary products they may need or want, based on their purchase.
- Send coupons, updates about new products, and sales notifications. Introduce a referral program where customers can earn rewards for referred sales, further incentivizing loyalty.
Moving Forward with Your Website Strategy
Building a website that aligns with your business goals starts with understanding the core differences between service and product-focused websites. Service businesses need to emphasize trust, transformation, and lead generation, while product businesses prioritize seamless shopping experiences and showcasing benefits.
To ensure success, work with a marketing agency that truly understands these differences and how your business operates. The right partner will tailor your website to connect with your audience, build credibility, and drive meaningful conversions. Whether you’re selling a lifestyle upgrade or a product that solves problems, a well-designed website can be a powerful tool to grow your business.
Investing in a website that reflects your brand and aligns with your customers’ needs is more than a smart move—it’s essential for long-term success.
