Building a service website might look simple on the outside but there’s a lot that goes into it. Some build a simple service website and think, “We are now Online folks!”.
This gives you a false sense of confidence and later you will encounter these common website problems.
To save you from them now, I have compiled the 10 common service business website problems and how to tackle them.
3 Reasons Why Your Service Business Needs an Online Presence
Let’s see this with an example. Imagine you have a veterinarian clinic. I give you three solid reasons why you will need a website as a business asset:
1. Get better insights to scale your service business
A service industry website offers you valuable insights into customer behavior. You get to know what pets they have, what services they expect, how much they’re willing to spend and much more. With Google Analytics, you get to know website traffic, views on your web pages, and bounce rates that help you in your next steps.
With tons of features, you can test variations of website elements such as headlines, CTA buttons, and pricing models. You can compare their performance and make data-driven decisions.
2. A website is an asset that converts
It’s 2023 and it’s a no-brainer that the top service businesses have a website. A service industry website for your clinic adds credibility to your brand that people can trust.
Highlight your professional accolades, show customer testimonials, and provide contact data to verify your authenticity.
Use contact forms to book appointments, get customized queries, and establish a good relationship with the pet owners. None of the conventional methods give you this option.
3. Bring in social media and unite your audience
The next step is to integrate your social media profiles into your service industry website. If you don’t have them, I suggest starting exploring because this is a sector full of untapped potential.
Pet owners are one DM away from you which makes you very close to them. It’s easy to cross-promote your services and boost traffic when you have a good social media presence.
Consider your service industry website and your social media as a combined unit to attract pet owners around you.
Top 9 Service Business Website Problems And Their Solutions
If you are still reading this, you probably have a service business website up and running. But it has flaws bad enough to impact your sales. Let us jump into the top 10 common service business website problems and their solutions.
1. Your Website Doesn’t Cover The Basics
Does your service business website cover the basics? If not, you have a serious problem at hand.
Here are some of the red flags of a poorly designed website:
- The navigation bar is cluttered and unorganized. Too many options at the top won’t help. Stick to 3 to 5 options in the navigation bar and organize them using drop-down menus.
- The contact page is missing. People want to reach out to you when they like your services. A dedicated contact page becomes essential for every service business website.
- Too much or too little white space. Balancing your use of white space is crucial. Too much then you need to add more details. Too little, then you’re left with a cramped webpage. Find the right balance.
- Is your website mobile-optimized? A responsive web design is critical to cover devices of all dimensions. Retain customers’ attention whether it’s a phone, tablet, or a MacBook.
- You don’t use your footer enough. Check out the Wall Street Journal’s way of efficiently using their footer space. They got all the essential links, easy-to-navigate, and an ad to boost their sales. Neat yet highly effective!
These are mandatory at all costs. If your service business website covers these then mazel tov! Next, I suggest digging deep and looking for this list of web design mistakes. If you find any of these red flags, fix them now or reach out to a service website design company.
2. Your Web Design Is Outdated
Why do you choose a generic web design for your service business website?
Some business owners designed their template years back and there’s nothing new to it. It looks just like how it was the day it was launched.
Does this sound like I’m talking about your website? If so, you have a big task in your hand.
Ask yourself: “What makes my services so special?” Your value has to be reflected in your service website as well. Plus, your service business is a specific niche. The website should replicate your line of business.
People who visit should be interested. Captivated. And that is how any website should be designed.
The best way to fix this is to hire a professional web design company. Explain to them what your business story is and they’ll get your service business website ready.
3. Your SEO Game Is Poor
Let’s run through some basic issues with a “bad” SEO plan:
- Your keyword plan is outdated
- You haven’t done the keyword research for your niche..
- You are stuffing keywords
If you’re doing any one of the above, time to revamp your SEO strategy. Research for new keywords and target your content towards them.
Be wise while choosing your keywords. Too general then you miss out on targeting your niche’s customers. Too narrow then you lose out on finding relevant fields and better traffic. Find the right balance.
Do not get consumed with the notion of “more the keywords, the better the traffic”. Google’s Webmaster guidelines do not support pages with irrelevant keywords so quantity won’t take you higher.
Your industry has the top-ranking keywords that you should be focussing on. Hire an SEO strategist. They can do the research for you and construct the best SEO strategy that works.
4. Your Website Isn’t Capturing Enough Leads
As a service business owner, you need all the leads on potential customers to thrive. Even the smallest piece of contact information helps. If your service business website isn’t bringing in leads, there should be an investigation.
Let’s imagine you own a yoga studio. To bring in new customers, you need a captivating website.
First, what are you doing to build leads?
“A contact form?” Just having a contact form isn’t going to help. People might reach out for general queries about your Yoga studio.
“Articles in my blog?” If you write generic titles, it’s not going to get people hooked. What are you doing that’s new?
On the other hand, owners go overboard and force people to give their phone number/email through an unavoidable pop-up. Literally, all visitors find this repulsive.
Newsletters are back in the game and go for a weekly newsletter to keep in touch and not be annoying. Cover the new trends and what’s happening in your studio to get people intrigued. Next, try ebooks. These establish credibility and show you’re not an amateur in the business.
People always talk about their new experiences at gyms and yoga studios. To retain customers and get potential leads from them, give them referral offers. This encourages them to tell you about you to their peers.
5. Your Web Pages Are Not On Point
Let’s take John. John has a job website where people visit, sign up and apply for jobs.
When you visit his website, the web developer jobs have links to graphic design jobs. The contact page doesn’t have a contact form. The About page is vague and doesn’t reflect his service business’s identity.
Will you sign up or at least visit his service website again? I already know the answer. Nobody will.
Every web page has a clear purpose. This has become a common website problem where owners have no clue about how certain pages look like. For example:
- The About page – describes your service business, what it does and your vision for the future.
- The home page – this is where most people land so it contains everything interesting that’s going on.
- Contact page – must contain ways to reach out to you. Whether it is a contact form or a virtual chatbot, the goal is to help visitors contact you.
- Services page – this is where you list your services. Add testimonials and leave the visitor speechless.
That is all they need to have. Nothing more. Nothing less. Don’t make the same mistake as John.
If you are building a website now, have a look at this web design checklist. Refer to this and make sure you get everything right.
6. Your Calls To Action Don’t Convert
So far, you have seen all the macros. Now we come to a critical detail: calls to action.
From the outside, all buttons look the same. But people’s perception is different than you think. SAP found their conversion rates improved by 21%. Do you know what they did? They used red for their buttons.
Common phrases won’t help anymore. Visits expect more from your copies and your average CTAs are a big problem for your service business website. If you are selling an ebook, “buy” and “download” won’t work. Instead, using “Grab my book now” adds a better touch.
Now there’s a new yet bad trend: CTAs in an image carousel. Benz tried this on their homepage and it looks like a set of moving targets and the user is confused about which one.
Just like with keywords, quantity doesn’t help you win. In fact, landing pages, do the opposite. Adding multiple CTAs will direct users to multiple options. They don’t have time to decide so you need to stick to one or two CTA buttons for better results.
7. You Pay Little Attention To Graphics
Images and videos make up 61% of what visitors expect from a website.
So are you still thinking about sticking to only text? This is a common website problem I find in many new websites that go with a “minimalist design”.
First off, the concept that images are only for product-based businesses doesn’t apply anymore. Hire a photographer and see how well they can photograph your business’s aspects even though you don’t have a single physical product to sell.
Yes, you don’t have a physical product to show images and videos of. But those are not the only ways to impress your customers.
Hire a graphic designer to design cool graphics for your website. Even if you want a minimal look, this elevates the UI experience to a whole nother level.
One last thing is to get creative. You have tools and all you need to do is try things out. Try lazy loading your pages and see how different it looks and the visit will like that little bit of animation. Image carousels, chatbots, 3D graphic design, the list goes on!
8. You Follow An Outdated Content Strategy
Content strategy is the x-factor for a website. It helps you plan and create awesome content that keeps visitors engaged and coming back for more. If you don’t have a content strategy, you should check out this guide to build one.
The problem with service industry website owners is that they don’t post enough or post at random timelines. You publish one article every other day and you vanish for 2 months straight. Then repeat the same again. This doesn’t help at all.
Consistency is key! Regularly update your content to keep it fresh and relevant. Whether it’s blog posts, videos, or guides, make sure your content is engaging, informative, and aligned with your brand’s voice.
I recommend posting 2 to 3 well-researched articles a month. Once that picks up heat, you add more volume.
Always pay attention to what your users want from you. Drop the content ideas that don’t get traction. Keep experimenting and cover all aspects of your business. Your readers will want more of something. Figure out what that is and capitalize on that idea.
9. Your Business Branding is Inconsistent
Branding is important for a service website because it’s like giving your business a unique identity. This identity is what connects you with your visitor and that is what they will remember about you.
What makes up a “brand”?
The colors you use, the graphics, the fonts, and your brand positioning all sum up to represent your business. Not being consistent and experimenting too much are some things you should avoid.
If people find it confusing, they find it hard to trust you.
Speaking of trust, for people to trust your services, they expect other people’s opinions on your business. This is why displaying customer testimonials and feedback on your service business website is essential.
This tactic reassures customers that they are making a good choice. It’s like asking friends for recommendations before trying out a new restaurant – if multiple people tell you it’s great, you’re more likely to trust their opinions. And the restaurant is most likely great!
Inspiring Service Industry Websites to Ignite Your Creativity
Check out these 3 service business websites for some visual inspiration:
1. Tasty Treats Catering
Source: Tasty Treats Catering
The catering service business showcases its menu options and testimonials from happy clients with a simple contact form at the end. They cohesively follow the same fonts, color scheme, and photography style to showcase their services. It’s like walking into a fancy restaurant and instantly getting hungry. This is branding 101!
2. Waves Gym
Source: Waves Gym
Waves Gym’s website is a great example of how to showcase services in an engaging way. Their website is very easy to navigate and CTA is very enticing because of the free personal training session. They use the same color schemes and logos to look consistent and trustable.
3. Warren Tricomi Salon
Source: Warren Tricomi Salons
This service industry website’s sleek design, user-friendly navigation, and stunning visuals make it a joy to explore. The seamless integration of online booking and a blog filled with expert tips adds value and convenience.
If you’re facing any of these common website problems in your service business, it’s time to take action. Some might just take a few clicks and some might take more than that.
You have an incredible service business to run, so why waste your precious time all on your website instead of running your business? The best thing you can do is to hire professional website development services to sort out all your service business website problems effectively.
GyanDevign Tech Services is your best choice as a website development company in Pune.
Why? We specialize in building high-quality websites that deliver the best results for aspiring small businesses. Contact us now so that we can revamp your service industry website.
