A service-based website is a website for any company in Columbus that provides services to its customers. When you start your own service-based business, you need to have some online presence to attract new clients and generate leads.
If you don’t have a professional-looking site designed by a web design agency Columbus with all the bells and whistles, then your potential clients will pass by without ever noticing what you offer. In this blog post, we will talk about building a professional service-based website so that more people find it!
Why do you need a website for your service?
Any business, particularly a service-based one, needs a website for many reasons.
First of all, you need to have an online platform where clients can find out about your business and make contact with you easily. In the modern world, it is nearly impossible to do without having some digital presence because more people are shopping from their phones nowadays – in fact, Google reports that over 50% of all searches on its site now come from mobile devices!
Also, when potential customers look up information about your company, they will be attracted by sites that were built by an expert Columbus web design company. Finally, if you don’t have any form of a web page or social media account, then it’s improbable that search engines will pick up on your business quickly enough so new leads won’t be able to find you.
How to create a professional service-based website
1. Register a domain name
The first step is to register a domain name for your website. You can go through one of the many registrar websites out there, such as GoDaddy or NameCheap. However, we would recommend checking with different companies as some may offer lower prices than others – ensure that they have good customer support and provide their DNS servers.
2. Choose your website platform
The next step is to choose a website platform. There are many options out there, from basic ones such as WordPress, which give you great flexibility and the opportunity to add plugins for extra functionality, all the way up to fully hosted solutions like Wix or Squarespace, where they will take care of everything – including website support and maintenance.
We recommend a more flexible solution for service-based businesses because you can easily change it in the future if needed. For example, while blogging might not seem particularly important when starting at first, once you get into it and get traffic, having that blog content indexed by search engines becomes extremely valuable.
We highly recommend choosing an easy drag and drop editor that allows you to create any page or section with just a few clicks.
3. Choose a site template design
Once you have decided on a hosting platform for your website, the next step is to choose a site template design. Now, this might seem like an easy decision, but it can make or break your business because first impressions matter!
We strongly recommend going with a professional and crisp looking theme as well as making sure it has all of the vital elements, including:
- A clear header across the top to display your logo and include links back to other areas within your site such as contact details or blog feed etc.)
- An image slider at the top to showcase some of your best work (make sure they are high resolution!) Seeing examples of previous projects right from day one will help give customers confidence in what you do)
- A clear ‘about us’ section explaining who you are and what your company does
- Clear contact details on the home page to quickly reach out to you if they have any queries or questions. You also want them to book consultations online and request quotes, so make sure this is easy to find!
4. Add pages and content
Depending on the type of service, you may want to add a few more pages to your website. For example, if you are in the wedding planning business and offer an additional catering service, it would be essential to showcase this in detail on your site.
5. Add photos
If you are offering a service that requires clients to come and be in your office, they must know what the place looks like. This could include things such as:
- Photo of building exterior
- Picture of the reception area or meeting room
- Photos of staff members (if applicable)
Once again, depending on your business type; if you provide consultancy services, for example, it will make sense for potential customers to see photos/videos of people who work there so they can get an idea about their personalities and decide whether this is someone with whom they want to do business!
You may also want to add images or videos promoting past projects completed by yourself and other staff members. It will help give prospective clients insight into what they can expect from your company and convey a sense of trustworthiness.
6. Link to Online Booking and Client Hub
There are various directories where you can add your company’s details. If you are not sure where to start, do a Google search for ‘client hub’ and the name of your city or town.
This is one way potential customers will find out more about your work, so it needs to look professional!
7. Set up Google Analytics
No one can deny the power of Google Analytics. It will give you a detailed insight into how your website performs by telling you which pages are the most popular and where people go when they leave your site.
If there’s anything that you can improve, this tells you what it is so that once the website has gone live and marketing campaigns have been set up, every effort to attract customers will be as effective as possible.
8. Set up Google Search Console
This is another must-have for any website. It will tell you how well your site is being indexed by Google, which can signify good or bad things to come.
If it’s not doing as well as you think, then this tool tells you what needs improving so that once the website goes live and marketing campaigns are in place, every effort to attract customers will be maximized.
9. Go live
This is the point where you are ready to launch your website! Now it’s time to make sure that all of the settings are right. You should now set up Google Search Console, Analytics, and Webmaster Tools so you can track everything in one place.
You’ll also need to check for broken links on every page, which will help with SEO and user experience – nobody likes clicking a link only to discover it doesn’t work! We recommend employing the help of a website development company Columbus as this task can be tricky, and can lead to more problem if not handled properly.
Finally, double-check that any photo galleries or other multimedia features are working correctly, too, before going live. You may want to consider using Facebook Ads at this stage because these ads give less prominence than regular text ads but still allow you some targeting control over who sees them.
10. Link to Your Site
Once all of these steps have been completed, make sure that any social media profiles or other websites (such as LinkedIn) link back to your professional service-based website! This way, clients who visit more than one platform will get consistent branding across all platforms, making them feel like they’re dealing with an established business rather than an individual.
Conclusion
Service-based websites are great for businesses to build a robust online presence and encourage brand recognition without spending unnecessary time or money on their website design.
We recommend using WordPress as your preferred CMS platform for anyone starting in the service industry and hiring a web design agency Columbus with experience building modern service-based websites!
