How to Write Service Page Content: Tips from 19 Conversion Specialists

I love jam doughnuts. It’s my one great weakness and guilty pleasure.

The other day, I went to the store to buy two jam doughnuts. I was going to eat one and give the other to my 8-year old nephew as a reward for good behavior.

The doughnut smelled so good that I ate it right there in front of the store.

I remember closing my eyes and feeling complete as the jam melted on my tongue and activated the pleasure center of my brain.

But one doughnut wasn’t enough. I wanted more.

So I ate the second doughnut I bought for Kachi, my nephew.

I should have known better. Delicious doughnuts never make it home.

But if I was having a salad you would not hear me say, “I want a second serving.” Because a salad doesn’t activate the pleasure center of my brain.

That’s how your service pages should read.

Like eating a delicious jam doughnut, not salad.

It should be so good that the reader wants a second serving. In this scenario, taking your CTA and moving to the next stage of the funnel.

But how do you write copy that feels like eating doughnuts?

How do you hook the reader from the first word, keep them on your service page and convince them you’re the best thing they’ve had since tasting jam doughnut?

Because that’s what your service pages should do. Engage, inform, and convert.

I’ve spoken to 19 conversion specialists who know how to write service page content that drives action.

If you want to improve your process for writing service pages and get better results, keep reading.

Why It’s So Darn Hard to Write Service Page Content

Service pages are hard to write because our natural inclination is to make it about ourselves when in reality, every page on your website should be customer-centric.

We think because the page is our services, it’s supposed to be all about us. But in my experience, the best performing pages use customer data and insights to show readers why they need us and our services.

One thing you can do to demystify writing services page copy is to conduct voice of customer research before you write.

Learn what really matters to your potential customer and use those insights to write compelling copy that persuades them to take action.

Conversion Copywriter, Patti Haus

Ambiguous Offers Are Killing Your Service Pages. Here’s How to Fix It

One of the biggest problems I’ve seen service pages is a lack of clarity in the offer.

How do you position your offer so clearly that the prospect completely understands what you do, your unique value, and takes your call to action?

Josh Garofalo is a SaaS copywriter who has worked with clients like Wave, Hubspot, Hotjar, and Cisco.

He is one of the best conversion specialists I know. So I reached out to him for insight on how to fix the problem of clarity on service pages.

Here’s what he had to say.

Let’s start by identifying 5 ways copywriters get service pages wrong

1. They fail to consider the context in which their prospect is viewing the service page.
2. They cast too wide of a net, failing to disqualify prospects in the process.
3. They fail to identify and emphasize what makes their offer unique, or especially enticing.
4. They don’t prepare the prospect for the sticker price before presenting it.
5. They don’t work hard to emphasize all of the secondary benefits and value, packed into their offer.

Contrast with a landing page for a 5-figure (PER DAY) private training

I wrote a landing page for Blair Enns and the Win Without Pitching team.

The context for our ideal prospect is that they are aware of the Win Without Pitching methodology, want to adopt it across their organization, and are a larger firm that has the luxury of valuing speed and efficacy over the price tag.

Keeping this mind, we didn’t spend any time describing what the Win Without Pitching methodology entails.

Instead, we got right to the heart of the matter.

This is for you if you’re a leading firm who knows this is for you and you want the shortest and surest path to organization-wide adoption.

We pushed beyond the typical bulleted list designed to help prospects qualify themselves with a headline and section that works just as hard to disqualify prospects.

We tell them this is for growing firms that prioritize speed and returns over spend.

Translation: This ain’t cheap, but if you can afford to buy speed and ROI, this is for you. We support this with agency client logos that are recognizable (e.g. Wieden+Kennedy).

Blair + Win Without Pitching + personalized workshop = Unique and enticing in the agency space.

We repeatedly mention the fact that Blair is evaluating your challenges and goals.

Blair is designing the content of your workshop.

Blair shows up on-site to deliver the workshop.

Blair will help you implement this.

Blair, Blair, and more Blair.

There is a 0% chance you apply for this program thinking it will be cheap. We display logos of agencies with deep pockets.

We feature testimonials that talk about 7-figure wins as a result of Blair’s private training.

We’re bringing a big name in the space into your offices to deliver a custom workshop.

The result?

The right people see themselves in this offer, and the penny pinchers go elsewhere, aspiring to afford this offer one day.

We emphasize the deal sweeteners — AKA the modern version of “But wait, THERE’S MORE.”

In this case, it’s 100+ hours of webcasts, 24/7 access to an exclusive group, and a library of weekly focus calls.

Now, the 5-figure per day sticker price will be even less scary.

In Summary

• Consider the context of your ideal prospect. Narrow your focus and work hard to disqualify prospects.
• Find your unique angle and lean into it. Prepare prospects for the price with your language, testimonials, and logos.
• Look for opportunities to sweeten the deal and tease out the secondary benefits of your service.

18 Tips for Writing Service Pages that Converts

• Aim to understand the prospect’s awareness level
• Implement the two parts of awareness
• Conduct audience research
• Survey your competitors
• Standout with competitor research
• Conduct keyword research
• Find the balance between brand and customer
• Identify your UVP to get past buyer objections
• Have meaningful conversations
• Elicit emotion with an attention-grabbing headline
• Write a headline that performs the dual function of engagement and conversion
• Open with a memorable elevator pitch
• Paint a picture of the solution
• Capture attention
• Dazzle with testimonials
• Use customer success stories to show, not tell
• Add a natural conversion path with a powerful CTA
• Test your CTA buttons

1. Aim to Understand the Prospect’s Awareness Level

One thing that most copywriters don’t dig into enough while conducting audience research is asking and inquiring about the prospect’s awareness level.

Most clients will give you the rundown of their customers.

But it’s really important to know what they already know so you aren’t repeating old stuff that they don’t want to hear.

That’s always a point that I want to include whenever I’m speaking with the client, or if they let me, the customer directly.

Copywriter and Content Marketer, Tyler James Koenig

2. Implement the Two Parts of Awareness

Everyone (and by “everyone”, I mean people who’ve done the most rudimentary investigation into the art of copywriting) knows about Level of Awareness.

A.K.A the 5 stages of awareness

A.K.A market sophistication

It’s crucial to know what your audience knows (or doesn’t know) about your offer, the moment they land on your product pages or service page.

But that’s not all, oh no! The rabbit hole goes deeper.

Deep enough that even experienced copywriters often overlook these key facets of awareness;

• Competitor awareness
• Industry awareness

Competitor Awareness

Competitor awareness is how much interaction your audience has had with companies like yours.

Have they bought services from them in the past?

Have they combed through dozens of competitor websites while researching?

Basically you want to know how your competitors are presenting themselves in the eyes of your audience.

For example, I recently wrote a website copy for a digital marketing agency called Hennessey Digital.

Their audience did their research on competitors but were very frequently burned by these competitors in the past.

This knowledge completely shifted my angle on how I presented their services.

It became less about getting into the nitty-gritty of how SEO is important and more about how they could trust Hennessey to actually do it right and get results.

Industry Awareness

Which leads to industry awareness. The other reason why talking about the functions of SEO on the Hennessey services page wouldn’t have worked.

Industry awareness is about how much knowledge your audience has about your industry, and whether or not they actually need that knowledge to make a confident decision.

It’s important for services pages where it’s all too easy to start riffing on the technical details about what you do. And the jargon… oh, the jargon.

If people can’t understand what you’re saying, they’re going to feel less confident about your offer. On the flip side, if they feel like they’re being patronized they’re going to like you less.

Additionally, if your audience’s industry awareness level is low and you spend a lot of real estate on the page explaining how things work, you better be sure they both care, and need that info to become a client.

Figuring out these nooks and crannies of audience awareness takes strategic, thorough research. Typically, in the form of surveys, client interviews, and voice of customer mining.

With great data comes great service page copy.

Conversion Copywriter, Rachael Bueckert

3. Conduct Audience Research

Conversion copy research starts with this question:

What do we need to know about the reader to move them to the next most valuable “yes”?

Whether that next “yes” is to:

• Make a purchase
• Sign a petition
• Donate to charity or
• Opt into a newsletter

You’re always looking for the next “yes”.

For simplicity, let’s call the thing you need them to say “yes” to the “solution” here. You’re selling a solution and your copy research needs to tell the before – during – after story of life with this solution.

So, what is their life like before discovering the solution?

Why isn’t that quite perfect?

What’s their life like with this solution?

Ideally, you already have users of the solution you’re selling. Analyze their feedback and reviews. Survey and/or interview those users until you can paint a vivid picture of that before – during – after story with the copy.

Research what the competitors’ customers are saying about their before, during, and after stories too.

If your copy tells the exact same story, the only way you can win is by blowing the competition out of the water with proof and believability.

You’re going to need those anyway, but if you can also differentiate, you have the golden formula.

Questions I look to answer in my research include:

• What is the ideal buyer’s stage of awareness?
• What do they think they’re looking for vs what they say they need?
• What alternative solutions are they using/have they used/are they considering?
• What beliefs or past experiences are holding them back?
• What beliefs or past experiences make them more likely to say yes to us?
• What new thing do they need to believe to take the next step?
• What proofs are they likely to find persuasive?
• If they say yes, what’s going to change in their lives?
• Despite all this, what objections might they have?

After I wrote a course sales page for Copyhackers, I explained step-by-step in a Tutorial Tuesday webcast how I used conversion copy research to write the page.

Conversion Copywriter, Anna Bolton

4. Survey Your Competitors

When I write service pages I use:

Promise

Picture

Proof

Push

I always start with competitor analysis by looking at their top three competitor service pages.

I take note of the keywords they’re using, and their page title. I look at their reviews and read what users are saying.

After reading a few of each 5,4,3,2, and 1 star reviews, I try to find their data cards and buyer personas.

Sometimes, there’s a pain to get. But more importantly, it shows who they’re talking too. This helps me do my SWOT (Strength, Weakness. Opportunities, and Strengths) of the competitors.

Once I find out where their strengths and weaknesses lay, I can pinpoint the opportunities and threats of the top three competitors.

At this stage, I go back to the competitors’ services pages and analyze their:

• Messaging
• Value proposition
• Credibility
• Authority, and
• Social proof

Next, I open Google Analytics and navigate to behavior – site content – all pages.

My goal is to understand metrics like high bounce rate and to match each metric with a section of copy.

Then I use Hotjar to see how users behave, scroll, click, and where they spend the most time. I take everything I’ve learned and use it to write a rough draft of the page.

I use the value proposition in the header to make a big promise. Then I work my way through the picture, proof, push.

Conversion Copywriter, Eugene Mackey

5. Standout with Competitor Research

Competitor research is important because it gives a business an understanding of how they compare with their competitors and how to provide their customers with the solution they need.

The steps to follow when carrying out competitor research would be to determine:

• The products and services their competitors are providing
• How they market them
• What strategies do they use (including content strategy)?

I want to highlight what my client’s business is doing in the copy and explain how it stands out from the competitors.

If the competition is using methods that I consider to be better than my clients’, I might either suggest it tactfully or pull out some copy to puts my client in a better light.

Web Copy and About Page Bio Specialist, Gillian Jones

6. Conduct Keyword Research

Here’s an issue that pops up when I jump on a discovery call with a prospective small business client.

“Hi, Chima. I’m not getting any hits from Google search. Can you take a look at my site and tell me what’s wrong?”

I take a look at the prospect’s website and it’s almost always the same thing.

They’re using a keyword with zero search volume.

I don’t care if you’re offering a one-of-a-kind service. Or if you want to stand out from the crowd. You won’t get any organic traffic if your keyword isn’t searchable.

So, I end up undoing years of branding work, which just breaks my heart.

But you, reading this now, can avoid a similar scenario.

Conduct keyword research as part of your service naming/branding process.

If you’re a local business, optimize your service page for the keyword and location to ensure you’re driving qualified traffic to your service pages.

Here’s how I use keyword research on service pages

For location-based service pages:

• Mention entities related to the location throughout the page or at the bottom of the page with a “Getting to Brand X section”. The image below is a screenshot from a location-based service page I wrote for a rehab center in Kent. Notice the number of references to places in and around Kent?

• Include the service name and location in the meta title and introduction
• Build out smaller location pages that link back to the service page to show relevance to Google for that specific location.
• Optimize for the primary keyword by including semantic words related to the key phrase.

For non-location based service pages:

Include the keyword once in the meta title, introduction, subheading, conclusion, meta description, and alt-image tag.

I search for semantic words related to the primary keyword with SEMrush and sprinkle them in the copy.

And other boring on-page SEO stuff I won’t mention here. But you can read all about my SEO copywriting process here.

But here’s where I counteract myself…oops!

Conversion should be the goal on your service page, not SEO. And it’s tricky to balance both successfully. You want to engage your audience, convince them you’ve got the goods, and get Google to rank your page.

Don’t sweat it. Really.

Sprinkle the semantic entities, insert your keyword naturally according to Google’s best on-page practices, and build a ton of white hat links to that page.

If you build a robust topic cluster for each service you offer, it will rank.

7. Find the Balance Between Brand and Customer

You don’t have to spend a lot of time in the copywriting space to hear:

“It’s not about you. It’s about your customer.” 

Admittedly, that advice can be a challenge to follow when selling services.

That’s because, when it comes to services, it’s also about you.

You’re a part of the solution.

You’re a part of the outcome.

You’re a part of the experience.

It’s okay to talk about your brand. It’s natural even. The balance comes with communicating why these aspects of your brand are important, valuable, or interesting for your customer.

Instead of trying so hard to avoid talking about your brand (which can leave you stuck in writer’s paralysis) …

This is the friction-less process I recommend:

Write freely (i.e. without constant self-editing) for your first draft.

Once you have all of the information on the page, edit in the “so what” using the question:

So, why does this matter to my customer?

If you’re pondering how this balance actually happens in practice, don’t worry.

Here are a few examples to help you grasp just how simple finding the balance can be:

We won these impressive awards becomes Work with an award-winning partner.

We get results for our clients becomes Aren’t you ready for results like these?

We use this carefully-crafted process becomes Here’s how we get you more highly qualified leads with predictable results.

What clients say becomes Our clients love us. We’re confident you will too.

It’s a simple shift in perspective.

The bottom line is: Your brand DOES matter.

The balance comes with communicating the details about your brand in a way that aligns with what your customers care about most.

That’s where the persuasion comes into play and why it’s essential to collect voice-of-customer insights. You’ll understand with a greater degree of confidence what is, and isn’t important to your ideal prospect.

Certified Conversion Copywriter, Paige Poutiainen

8. Identify Your UVP to Get Past Buyer Objections

Buyer objection can easily be an afterthought in the strategy and copywriting process. But they should be one of the first things you think about, along with buyer pain points and goals.

Objections lie at the intersection of resistance and belief. And if you can find a way to hurdle over both, you’ve got a golden sales conversation on your hands.

As far as identifying your UVP, it has to do with how clearly you understand your target customer.

• What are they after, really?
• How are you uniquely positioned to solve their problem?
• What do they believe about themselves, and you?
• What’s the big end goal for them, and what’s gotten in their way so far?
• What big promise are you able to make to them, specifically?

Being able to answer these questions with your target in mind will make your UVP clearer.

In order to address objections, talk about your UVP in a way that clearly illustrates how your offer is tailored to address your customers’ lives and hidden needs.

Much like with customer pain points/goals, objections are HIGHLY specific to the desired target. The top 3 objections are almost always around time, money, and energy.

Take some time looking at those from your specific target’s point of view.

For example, let’s say you’re creating/selling a coaching program

Time

OK, if they’re worried they’re too busy to take your program.

WHY are they busy, and what are they busy with?

A busy 20-something millennial freelancer is going to have a different “busy” worry than a 30-something mom of 2.

Address accordingly about how your offer caters to their busy lives!

Money

Think hard about their possible relationship to money. Do they have the resources, but worry about wasting their hard-earned cash when they’ve been burned before?

Are funds a little tighter, but your step-by-step system is already proven to help them see ROI?

Speak to them from those specific viewpoints.

Energy

How well is your offer positioned to meet the energy levels of your target market?

Are they frequently pulled in 15 different directions simultaneously?

Do they have a family, a business, a job to worry about? What distracts them, and how will you challenge them to counteract that, based on what you know about them?

Context is queen. Apply her magic accordingly.

Creative Director and Messaging Strategist, Hillary Weiss-Presswood

9. Have Meaningful Conversations

The key to creating an engaging service page copy is to not create copy at all.

In the words of the great Eugene Schwartz,

“Copy is not written. Copy is assembled.”

In other words, effective web copy speaks directly to your intended audience about their problems, in terms they use, and understand.

Your audience should always be your primary source for messaging in your copy, not your mind.

People pay attention to what interests them. And the most interesting thing to anyone on the planet is their own story.

There are two primary ways to discover what story resonates best with your audience.

The first is to simply ask them.

Get on the phone with your target reader and create surveys. Examine the data and let the message reveal itself to you.

The second way is to engage in social listening.

Social media, forums, the comments section on blogs, and any site with reviews are all places where you can keep a pulse on what matters most to your audience.

Frequent these places to engage, not to sell them on anything. In turn, you will be rewarded with invaluable insights.

B2B Case Study and Conversion Copywriter, Tiffany Ingle

10. Elicit Emotion with an Attention-Grabbing Headline

The headline on any web page has one job. Grabbing your readers’ attention and moving them to the next line of copy.

Far too often, I see companies using what I like to call “lazy or throwaway headlines” on their service page.

Think headlines like “Our Services” or “What We Do.” This is a missed opportunity for conversion.

Functional, sure. But boring.

And for potential clients or customers who are on the fence, these types of headlines elicit zero emotion and do little to keep them reading down the page.

This is especially important for problem-aware visitors.

They may land on your services pages before getting to know your company’s full story elsewhere.

The headline could be their first introduction to how you solve their problem. It can’t be an afterthought. It needs to pull its weight.

When writing a service page headline, start by thinking about how your customers describe your services and the number one benefit of using them.

You should know this because you’ve done your voice of customer research.

And remember, clear over clever wins every time.

Whoever’s landing on your service page should immediately be able to explain what you do.

Copywriter and Messaging Strategist, Rebecca Vigelius.

11. Write a Headline that Performs the Dual Function of Engagement and Conversion

Headlines that engage and convert do five things:

• Identify and select the reader
• Tell the reader what to expect
• Talk about the results you’ve produced in the past to make it easier for your prospects to logically validate working with you.
• They’re clear, specific and highlight the benefit of working with you
• They carry their weight in facts and avoid ambiguous adjectives

A good headline is like writing a value proposition. It’s a lot of ground to cover in one sentence. And that’s precisely why you cannot fling your headline like some adjuster copy.

You have to take it seriously and condense the copy into one active, declarative sentence.

You don’t have the time to mince your words. If it’s a Video Editing Service, call it a Video Editing Service without forcing it to be unique.

Don’t hurt your positioning by saying something like – “The Smartest and the Most Innovative Video Creation blah blah blah”.

Fluffy words dilute your messaging and compromise on one crucial element of conversion – “filling the need gap”.

Strong positioning not only sets you apart, but it connects with your reader in a way that makes them say a sheepish “Yes! I need this!” in their heads. And that’s exactly what you want.

But, if your headline lacks outcome-based positioning, your bounce rate worsens, which directly impacts conversion.

And to avoid that, apply these tips to make your headline draw your readers into the details:

• Be ultra-specific about what you do + for whom + the results you have produced in the past. Use numbers to talk about results.
• Offer a tangible benefit. This is non-negotiable.
• Trim adjectives and use facts to keep your positioning powerful.

Conversion Copywriter and Content Strategist, Roshni Shaikh

12. Open with a Memorable Elevator Pitch

Whether in person, on your website, or on your favorite social media platform, you need to talk about your business in a way that represents you well and resonates with your ideal client.

Initially, most new entrepreneurs rely on a template elevator pitch.

“I am a ___ who does ____ for ____” and this template will serve you well for a short while until you grow out of it, or it feels too templated.

But how do you choose the right words to connect with the right people?

Your superpower is that you serve your clients in a way that no one else does.

Highlight how they show up differently, what’s important to them, and how you have a similar value set.

Because people choose who you are, not just what you sell.

When you connect with your audience from a human place — person-to-person, instead of company-to-consumer — you create a sales conversation that goes beyond the templates.

To guide you, answer these questions:

What do I believe in?

Why is this work important?

How do my clients feel?

Freewriting these questions will always churn up great ideas you can distill into an elevator pitch that will take you to the penthouse.

Brand Voice Strategist & Business Coach, Helen Tremethick

13. Paint a Picture of the Solution

Service pages full of corporate-speak and lifeless features are as likely to convert a visitor into a customer as flies take to vinegar.

Potential customers don’t want to hear how great you think your service is. They want to know what’s in it for them.

They want you to answer two questions:

• Can you solve this problem for me?
• Can I trust you?

Product/services pages are a conversation that answers the burning questions on your reader’s mind and helps them find the solution.

To get into your reader’s head and engages them, start with VOC (voice-of-customer) research.

The data shows you:

• What they’re thinking
• What’s frustrating your ideal audience, and
• What matters to them

Gathering the data is key because you won’t have to guess what they’re thinking. You’ll know.

Okay, so you have the data, now what?

First, your service page copy needs to get their attention and keep it with a captivating headline. Make sure you express the promise they expect to find.

Using the VOC, your copy is going to reflect what they’re thinking and feeling.

Acknowledge the pain points or challenges upfront. Let your reader feel “heard” and seen before you try to solve their problem.

If your reader doesn’t buy into what you’re saying, the rest won’t matter.

Introduce the solution by painting a word picture that triggers the senses, creates an emotional connection, and delivers a benefit-rich outcome so they can see WIFM (what’s in it for them).

If the customer can’t see their own transformation in your service page copy, they’re going to move on to your competitor. And you don’t want that.

Conversion Copywriter & Content Marketing Strategist, Christine Laureano

14. Capture Attention

If you want to write a services page that captures and keeps your reader’s attention, do these 3 things.

a. Make it obvious which outcomes you help achieve

It’s true that you should speak to the specific services and deliverables your client offers.

But that stuff only matters to your prospect if it’s clear in their head that this is the piece of the puzzle they need to achieve the specific outcomes they’re looking for.

To pull your reader in, emphasize the outcomes your client delivers and get into the specifics of how they’ll achieve those outcomes with a particular service.

b. Stand out from the crowd with a signature service

If you want attention, you’ll definitely need to stand out.

But it won’t happen if your services page looks and reads like everyone else’s.

“Differentiate or die.”

“Zig when everyone else zags.”

You hear these expressions all the time in the business world. And that’s because they all speak to the same truth of having to stand out in a crowded marketplace.

Stand out in your prospect’s mind by branding your services in a way that leaves a lasting impression.

c. Make it easier with a “Perfect For You If…” section

It’s incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to ignore the sentence “perfect for you if” …

Especially if it’s the headline to a section where you’re removing all the guesswork in your reader’s head on whether or not your service is perfect for them and their specific situation.

Not only do these sections work wonders in grabbing attention, but they also do a fantastic job with boosting purchase intent.

Conversion Copywriter, Eddie Biroun

15. Dazzle with Testimonials

“Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd”

— PT Barnum

Don’t feel bad if you don’t have gazillions of testimonials. Like anything taking up precious space on your website, quality trumps quantity.

Blindly splattering samey testimonials on your site like a kid in a food fight won’t get you the results you crave anyway.

Choose your weapons wisely—and know where to stick ’em—for killer results.

My top 3 testimonial tomahawks:

When your ideal client’s mortal enemy competitor rates you

Why: Provoke the mighty power of FOMO. Nobody wants their competitors to have the edge.

Where: Especially powerful right up close to your primary CTA

Mentions a reason they almost didn’t buy

Why: Use these to crush objections the moment they threaten to bubble up in your customers’ minds.

Where: Hesitations usually come up where commitment’s involved. Whether it’s time, money, or brain work. Look for these in your copy and bam! That’s where to aim.

Backs up your biggest claims

Why: Humans are clever, skeptical beasts. Use testimonials to prove the tangible results your copy promises.

Where: You guessed it. Right after your juicy promise so it doesn’t come off like a big fat lie.

Bake feedback requests into your service page and you’ll never run dry.

SaaS Conversion Copywriter, Helen Peatfield 

16. Use Customer Success Stories to Show, Not Tell

Letting your customers see themselves both visually and verbally through the eyes of a satisfied customer creates a sense of trust that even the best sales copy can’t hope to achieve.

Your clients’ words give new leads insight into what the experience of working with you is like, and that is key to getting them to click the Book Now button.

At this point, social proof and case studies are integral to doing business online, especially if your business relies on referrals. Not having them, ends up being a red flag of sorts.

Brand Strategist, Copywriter, and Course Creator, Dusti Arab

17. Add a Natural Conversion Path with A Powerful CTA

For this section, I reached out to Pete Boyle, an amazing Conversion Copywriter and Marketing Consultant for Digital Brands like Jumper.ai and Recart.

CTAs are one of the things that are often overlooked when it comes to writing highly persuasive copy.

Which is a shame. Because despite their small size, they can be the difference between a click and someone exiting your site.

A good CTA brings everything you’ve done up to that point together. They make the next step seem not only logical but obvious and beneficial.

Here are a few tips to write better CTAs:

1 – Forget BS advice on colors etc. 

So many pieces of content talk about the best colors for CTAs. All of it is BS.

The only thing you need to ensure with your CTA color and design is that it stands out from the rest of the copy.

If it’s lost in the text or background, no one can find it. Choose a complementary, but contrasting color to make your CTAs easily identifiable.

Try color-hex and look for Triadic Color combos.

2 – Where is the most logical placement?  

Put it at the end of the service page.

That’s the most logical place, right?

Sometimes, but not always.

Place your CTA at the “point of highest purchase intent” or conversion. Read through your service pages, homepage copy, blog article, emails, etc. and figure out where the desire for the next step is highest. Place your CTA there.

And do that multiple times throughout the piece.

Placing the same CTA at multiple points where desire is highest increases the chance of a click.

If you’re not sure if it’s working, use heat maps and session recordings to see whether your hypothesis was correct.

3 – Make sure the copy is SUBE

SUBE is a terrible acronym I created for looking at CTAs.

Basically, your CTAs should be:

Specific – Tell the user what they need to do and what they’re gonna get

Unique – Try to avoid the same old clichés everyone uses (learn more…)

Benefit focused – Focus on what the user gets for a click

Easy to find – Else they’ll scroll past

For example, the common “Learn more” is useless. I don’t know what I’m learning, what I’ll get, and I’ve seen it 1000 times before.

18. Test Your CTA Buttons

I do one of three things:

• Survey the audience to see how they discuss what motivates them. I sample the most well-phrased versions as competing CTAs to test.
• I interview members of the audience that represent the majority of views exposed in prior surveys and test the most well-phrased versions of these ideas.
• When the above two aren’t available, I message mine and review mine to find the same type of information to similarly test.

Once I’ve done these, I can validate my competing CTAs (or any copy, really) through Five second tests. If any of the options don’t make sense to the reader, I know not to bother testing them.

Conversion Copywriter, Dustin Saksek

Conclusion

If you want to write service page content that converts, you need to understand your audience and position your service as the ONLY solution worth choosing. Use the data from audience research to get past buyer objections, and plant a seed of trust in the buyer’s mind.

 

If you need help creating service page content that drives organic traffic and takes visitors to the next stage of your funnel, schedule a free consultation now.