Monica 0:04
Though we have been preaching this concept for a long, long time,
forever.
So to start off this conversation, I would like to state and drive home the fact that you get one page per service. Actually, you can have multiple pages per service, if it really flips your boat, but one page per service, what does that mean? Stacey,
well, really, it's one service per page, right? Even more so than one page per service. So it flips often in the planning process. When I'm doing consulting on sites, people will ask, they just don't want a lot on their website. They don't want a lot of content. They don't want a lot of stuff, and so they just want one services page that lists all of their services. And unfortunately, like while I understand you want people to be able to skim really easily and not have to go into things that just doesn't get found, because only one page can be found for one set of search terms, so meaning that if you do commercial construction, residential remodeling, residential construction, etc, you can't have commercial construction and residential remodeling on the Same page. You have to have residential remodeling, residential construction, residential you know, does that make sense? So that it's like one thing per page? Yeah, and there are certain
terms and services that overlap, and it's clear when you look at search data in Google, when you're when you're investigating, you can see which ones those are. But for the most part, like Stacy said, Those that she gave an example of, they don't overlap commercial construction and residential remodeling. They don't overlap, and there's companies that just do one or the other, and your your audience is not the same. They're different people and different decision makers, so and you'll want to speak to them differently. So each service page should like match a specific search intent, right? So deck staining, commercial janitorial services, roof inspections, those are all different search intents. We want to make sure that we're not getting muddy in there. And so when people are like, Oh, well, I still just want to have one services page and always have a paragraph about each one of my services. Yes, you can do that, and it's not going to get found very well in Google, unfortunately. So you're better off just having a page for each one of them and really talking about them and giving people what they need to make a buying decision on those
well, and I think I mean you as a business owner, have to make the decision, do you want to be found in Google for your for your services? Because maybe you don't, and that is your prerogative, but as your web developer, like we, have to tell you that you won't get found for those services, and you can't come back to us in a year if you made that decision and be really angry that people aren't finding you for your services. That's a really big bummer, and we don't ever like to have that conversation, so let's do it right the first time.
Well, and it's hard
a service per page,
we feel very strongly about it, and so we want you to be found in Google, and it's hard for us not to put those values on you. But if you really don't care if you're found for anything but your name, okay, cool. Have one paragraph on your services page and a bulleted list, boom, that's all you need to put on there. You're still going to get found for your business name. But if you want to get found for things like general search terms. Someone looking for residential remodeling, yeah, you should have a page for it. Google's not drawing drawing lines between those services for you. Okay, so the next question, and this is kind of a structural question, okay, so if we're going to have more than one services page, we only have so much space at the top of our website. So how do you handle that? Stacy,
I'm a really big fan of the services landing page personally, just because, for a couple of reasons, it keeps your navigation really clean. It keeps people going to one place. Now, if you only have one or two services like you're probably good. You do not need a specific services landing page. But if you have maybe more than three services, I would say in your navigation, it needs to say, not just services. The page name needs to actually be like your overarching type of business for us, like web design, and then you would have page pages for each of your services underneath of that. And the reason I do that is because, well, a we're all squirrels these days, so we have so much data and so many things like we're inundated with. So make. It super simple for your clients to be like, Okay, what services do they offer? I'm going to go to that page and then they can see an overview. And for some people, that's plenty, because I personally am not a reader like, I'm not, I mean, I am a reader like, in my spare time, but not a reader of like, I'm not going to dig into every single nuance of your service, like, I just want to see that you offer it, you seem to do what you say you're going to do and that. And we're there, so a well, like built and designed landing page can do those things. And so I may not click into the actual service page, but having that landing page shows me that you do all of those services. So I'm a skimmer. Now there are lots of people, though, that are readers, and so they are going to click into that services page, and they're going to read every single piece of information you give them. So whether you have a landing page or not probably depends on the most the amount of services you have to offer.
So if you have more than three services, then you would usually have a landing page in your navigation, unless you just have a really short list of pages on your site, right? So I would say, usually, if you have more than three services, you would have a services landing page that way people have a good spot to look and see an overview of what your company does, and you can also give them, like overarching information, like, what's the first step to working with you? What's your process? How do you estimate things you know, all kinds of different things, like, What's your philosophy? All those things can go on a services page, because then you can use your about page to share pictures of your staff, your mission, that kind of stuff and and you can let that about page be super human and let the Services page be more process oriented, which is great, because they're entering into your process, right? And the other cool thing about keeping those services in Section, like having the main services page, and then having sub pages is it shows site structure to Google. Google reads the URLs, and it'll be like mayecreate.com forward slash web design. Forward slash WordPress, web design. Okay, so, web design, Wordpress, web design. Word Web Design, mobile web design, web design, you know, I'm saying so. It shows the hierarchy. Oh, this, this is the service, and this is a sub service within it, right? And it's the same thing with construction or non profits or anything. So even just by structuring your content that way, you're giving a clue to Google how the site is set up, which is a good thing, because then it understands what the content is going to be like in there,
well. And just to clarify, like when I say services landing page, I mean a homepage for your services that has general overview information and links to each one of your service pages. So just to clarify, when we talk about a services landing page, that's what we mean, and it really is dependent on how big your site is how many things you have. What we don't want to do is have 25 things in your top navigation.
No, because it makes it hard. It is. And on an ADA note, because we love to talk about ADA compliant websites, the top level nav items should not be empty. Okay, so
is that not the worst I hate when I'm, like, trying to click on and I'm, I mean, granted, I do sometimes, you know, have my hands tied up, or do things or whatever, not literally, just like, you know, things in my hands
on a slow day, it may create. Stacey, is that producing work because she's tied herself to her chair? No, but it's frustrating when you're like, trying to click on the thing in the upper navigation and it's like, doesn't actually go anywhere. I think that's super frustrating. So I can understand from an ADA perspective, like they make having it not go anywhere is really going to be frustrating for someone who's using a screen reader. Yeah, and if you do skip a landing page, then what you would do is your top link of your services section would just link to your most universal service, or the most purchased service from your company. So if we had web design, graphic design and brand consulting, then it would be web design would be our top like, great. And I mean, we do that on clients websites often, but I
typically when they don't want to actually sell the other auxiliary services, because people are going to miss that,
yeah, well, and sometimes it's just that's the service that you intake people through. Most of the time, everybody has that, like bread and butter service. So that would be the one that you link to if you have a drop down and you don't have a services landing page,
yeah.
Okay, so we alluded to this. In the introduction, and really already, but we're going to drive this point home now, more than ever, your services pages have to be more than a bulleted list. My heart cries when I get that content in. As a designer, I'm like, What am I going to do with this? And then I think I'm going to AI and write it right,
well. And this used to be a super common practice in like, 2005 and 2010 I do think people still think we're there, but we're not. This is 2026 you have to have more information, because what is so different about 2005 buying cycle and 2026 is buying cycle is people did not make their buying decision like 80% online in 2005 like they do now. So they're making their buying decision. 80% of that decision is made before they ever reach out, before they ever talk to you, before they ever engage in any way other than just doing research through AI, through websites, through Google, through XYZ, ways they're however they're doing their research, but 80% of the buying cycle is made before they can. That decision is made before they can actually, like, talk to a real person.
Well, and how are they supposed to decide to talk to a real person if all you give them is a bulleted list,
yeah, nothing like you apart. Nothing sets you apart from the other person.
No. And it's just, it stinks, it you might as well just be forgotten. You're going to be forgotten, right? Yeah, and I don't understand why people are so opposed to having words on their site. It it's like, what are you afraid of? What? What are you afraid of talking about that is going to you're not going to offend anybody. You're You're just telling people, this is what we do. Like, there's That's good, right?
Well, and I think that I don't know that they're necessarily afraid. I do think that it is that they're skimmers, like I am, so I established that up in like, you know, just a few minutes ago. And so they don't think anyone will ever read it. And it's like, why? Maybe you are a business owner. Maybe you are, like, higher level, which means you're probably not as detail oriented as some people that are buying your service. And so just because you won't read it as the business owner or as the person, like, making decisions for your company, doesn't mean that the person buying your product doesn't need more information about it. I think one of the like, Man, I'm going to say the worst thing, like a couple of different times. But outside of that, like navigation not clicking situation one of the worst things that I think when I go to a website and I need to purchase a service, and I get there and I'm like, you might as well have just opened the dictionary and pointed some words out and tried to put them in a sentence together, because what you're saying a makes no sense. You've provided me no feedback, no like details enough to make a decision. It's just this, like high level, like, pie in the sky, things are perfect. It's like sunshine and rainbows, and it's like, that's not real life. And I think that's really frustrating when you're trying to buy a service. And so even though I'm not a reader, I am a skimmer, not having enough content will make me not buy from you.
It's like, when the Features section will be like, we have this feature and there's one sentence underneath it, and you're like, it's so like, what is what does it do? Does it do what I think it's going to do? Because I can't just assume that it's going to do what I think it's going to do. It could actually be that I have to do back handsprings to get it to work, in which case I'm out because there's no trampoline around and I can't just backhand spring anymore, right? So it's just, it's really, it's really frustrating, yeah, so each one of these services pages, they have to be more than a bulleted list. They do need to have some contact information on them, and you should treat it like a sales conversation. You need to make sure that people remember you, so you're not going to make it sound like everyone else. That is not what you want to do. You want people to get to this page and want to be friends with you, basically, or want to work with you feel like they they're going to have a good experience working with your company, and so your core values and your personality should shine through on these pages. Yeah, it. Do not let it sound like an AI chat bot. And here's the thing, people use AI to write stuff all the time. I know because they send it to me and I have to edit it. And you know what? It's missing a lot of stuff, so you can't just let ai do it for you. Actually, we list next, and you can use that list to edit your AI copy if you want to. Okay, but I get into AI all the time. I just did it this morning, and I was like, dang, I feel like we're missing these seven things. Is there anything. Else they're missing. And they're like, Oh yeah, here's three more. And I'm like, okay, but then when we moved on to the next page, I said, Here, just look at this page. And AI came back and was like, Oh well, we need to add these things. I'm like, Are you sure? Because it doesn't feel like the right page to add those things to. And AI was like, Oh yeah, I guess you're right. And I'm like, okay, so why did I just tell you that long winded story? Because AI does not know how to write your web copy
theory. Have to use your real intelligence with your artificial intelligence.
Yeah, here's
a here's an interesting like tangent for you for just a moment. How long do you think it will be before people are more used to reading like crappy AI copy and like. Think that it's weird when people have more like personality and stuff. Do you think that's going to happen? Do you think people are going to stop using their brain to like process it?
I think that people have already stopped using their brain for processing long paragraphs of information. I think that in the formatting of your content, it has to be formatted more like AI. AI formats content a lot like you should put it on your website. The paragraphs aren't very long. It uses lots of subtitles and bulleted lists and that kind of thing. So that's really cool, but so people already don't have the patience to go through multiple paragraphs of content, but I think that for the people who are reading, I don't know, like, whoever wants to just, they're just going to check out and not read it at all. Like, right,
if it's not formatted properly, so it's okay. So what we're saying is, like, make sure you have enough content on there, but also make sure it's formatted properly, so that people can actually digest it,
yes,
and
they don't have to, like, I don't know, and that it sounds like brain transplant, yeah, to read it
well, if it's a wall of text, no one's reading it.
Yeah,
yeah. So we're telling you, we're going to tell you a bunch of stuff to put on your page, and it should not be a wall of text. Ta, da, okay. The last overarching thing to think about with your services pages is that they also need to look like you. So remember that your photos are part of the story. So for example, if you value people, then have people in your pictures. It's so weird to go to a construction website. We keep using this, these construction examples, but go to a construction website and there's no pictures of people anywhere. It's just pictures of beautiful finished houses and pictures of lovely paved roads. Now what? Where are the people? You said they're the most important thing in your company, but they're nowhere on your website. It's weird, right? And it's the same thing with a nonprofit, when they only have stock photos on their website, you're saying that you need money and that you need this and then and there's a story, and that it's sad, but that there's nothing real on your website. It's just shiny. People like, it's weird
well, and different businesses do that all the time where you, like, go to their website and you're like, why is there a picture of a desk with no one at it?
Yeah,
you know, like, why is there a picture of a front lobby and nobody's in it? You know,
it's saying something like, people say, Well, I don't want to get pictures of my staff, because, you know what happens when the staff turns over and I'm like, Okay, well, that's saying something about your company
too. Yeah,
maybe just get a photo release and keep the pictures and just
Yep,
and only take them down if you fire somebody and it was really bad, I don't know, but real pictures are a thing. Okay, so on to the list of what you should consider for each service page. Stacy start us off at the top,
yeah, so I think when you're thinking about your service, it's super, super important to think about the person who's buying that service. So what pain are they in? What's the pain point? What emotional state are they in? What is going to close the deal? What like you have to meet them, where you where they are, and so basically, like, think about a Law Firm's website, if you're representing people for a DWI or for you know, even like family law, think about somebody who's going through a divorce. Like, you have to understand where that person's emotional state is, or recently, we have been working with Ronald McDonald House. So we're talking about people who they have a sick kid that is in the hospital or is get about to undergo some kind of procedure or treatment or something along those lines, like those people are their emotions are frayed, and so how can we meet them where they are, give them the things that they need to make a decision easily and give it to them quickly. I think those are really, really important. So basically, don't make any vague, weird promises or statements or anything like that. We need to make sure that you. We're moving into the content that they need quickly.
Yes, and along those lines, I think we can bolster confidence with those individuals by sharing reviews and case studies certifications, showing before and after pictures. I think that one of the best things, going back to the Ronald McDonald House example is that they actually have real humans that are have been staying at their house, multiple pictures of those people throughout the website and volunteers and all time. Oh, okay, so it's like you can see the reality of it. You can see the impact that they're making. So just even having real pictures is a huge trust signal, I feel like.
And even in that same like token, you know, we do work with a lot of commercial construction companies that don't sell things to like on their website, they do bid work and things like that. But for those trust signals, like you're talking to, they could be your clients, but they could also be potential employees. And so if you can have scrolling numbers, or you can talk about safety, or you can talk about things that are going to make someone want to work for you, it's not always that somebody's buying something. It can be, I think that's, I guess another thing to think about at the very beginning is like, what is the purpose? What is the purpose of this page, who's using it? What trust signals can we put in there to make it accurate and relevant for them?
You're right, because in a commercial construction page, it's not always the company buying the service. Actually, it's more likely to be a potential hire evaluating the company to see if they feel like they could fit within that company structure and enjoy doing the type of work that the company does, because so many of their referrals come to them. I call them referrals. That's because that's what they are. They're referrals. They're not like cold leads that just filled out a form on the website, right? They're sales people. Okay, so next, when relevant, I would include a process from the first step to the finish. Do not go so far into this that it hurts, though. I'm I'm saying like, maybe five steps. Like not, not too many steps, yeah, if you need to have a process page, and there's a lot of clients that we create a process page for, because what they do is so intricate that we feel like we need to share that. And for that process page, though, it's not usually a sales page, it's a supplemental page, and they often use it after the sales process is complete, so that just keep that in mind, like in on the sales pages, on each of your service pages, you can have a process that's easy to follow, that explains the individual steps.
Yeah, well, and then I think the next thing that I would highly suggest putting on there is your competitive advantages. You know, what makes you the right person for the job, or what makes you better than your competitor, essentially. So making sure that you have the things that your competition does or doesn't have on their site can make you stand out really quickly. It can also fill in some gaps for people that you your company can take care of.
Yeah, and you may do it the exact same way the other company does, but they don't talk about it. And then you can have your visitors perceive it as a benefit of working with your company, because they don't see it on the other site. So they're like, Oh, these people, they're better because they do this. Okay, that's great. Like, right? They're
actually going to have a conversation with me. That's cool.
Yeah, you're not just going to fill out the online form for cleaning. That's good. All right. So another thing that I think is more prevalent than ever is FAQs on services pages, because services pages are now sometimes caught in AI and used as reference points giving people answers, these FAQs give you a good entry point for that type of content. Also no Stacey's a skinner skimmer, so she might look over all your sales copy go right to the FAQ section, and then be like, where's my question? Yeah, I do that all the time. And so now those FAQs are more important than ever. So the reason is because people search more conversationally now, and FAQs tend to be more conversational, and they also ask longer,
yeah,
go ahead, more specific questions, question
for sure,
yep,
yep, they get caught. So there you go, and you can use them to reduce friction as well. We can cover some really not fun topics, including price in your. Fake you, and it can feel less yucky because it's just a question and answer, right? But you're not not answering it, if that makes sense, which leads me to pricing in general. Stacy. When somebody says, should we share our pricing on our website? What do you say to them?
How complicated is your pricing? First of all, you know, like, are your is your competition sharing it? Because I think the last thing you want to do is give someone a false sense of what the pricing is going to be coming into the conversation with you. And so if it is complicated, like, I'm guessing, like a home builder is never going to share pricing, while, if you sell a widget that is the same over and over and over again, or a saw blade or a coffee, you know, whatever you sell, if it's the same for every single person, I think you can share your pricing like that's cool. But if your pricing is complicated, and your competitors don't share it. You probably should also not share it.
We have created estimators for people who for for example, mulch, rock, any type of landscaping material that would be sold by the tonnage or the truckload. We often have estimators for those. And if you are wanting to qualify leads with pricing, but don't want to share specific prices, then you can always have a range. Like for homes with a 1000 1000 square foot homes, they start at this, right? And that's fine. Or you could say websites cost between x and y, and that can be enough for a person, because they can be like, Oh, well good, because my budget, my perceived budget, was actually right in the middle, and so I can handle that. So and then they are more likely to call you right, so it can remove a barrier of entry. Okay, so another thing that we ask people to do on this page is cover common objections, which seems maybe strange for a services page, which we consider sales pages, but Stacey, what are the benefits of covering common objections on a services page?
I think, when you're talking to someone, if they're always concerned about the same thing, you know if, like every one of your clients is concerned about the same thing, if you can cover that, whether that's your process or your cost or your location or whatever that might be, that makes people say, No, you can address it right away, and either they're gonna, either they're wrong for you and they're gonna go on, or they're like, oh, okay, I fit that bill, you know. So they can make a decision to either contact or leave right away, and you're not out anything for it, I suppose.
Yeah. And I think another thing that you can add to your page that allows people to qualify themselves as a service area, because it doesn't matter if a lot of nonprofits have a service area, most construction companies have a service area. There's just only a certain distance that you're willing to go and drive to. And, I mean, it allows you to do your work more efficiently, too, but if you want to look like a regional company, then you need to present yourself as a regional company, right? So making sure that you have potentially a map or a list of cities that you work in, or you can do what we do which we do, have a few pages that are specifically geared towards cities on our website, but on those pages, we're like, we work all over the US, and we have an office in this location, so we work here a lot. I mean, so it, you know, it doesn't have to absolutely close the door, but I think that people do qualify whether or not they're going to call you based on your area, right? Yeah, all right. So another thing that we sometimes put on services pages, but not all the time, our staff photos. So when would we put staff photos on a services page? Stacy,
I think oftentimes you'll see staff photos on let's use a nonprofit, for example. So maybe there are certain people that work in certain areas or pillars of a nonprofit that you might need to contact because you've gone through this kind of all the information, and now you're like, Okay, I need to put a face with a name. I need to contact somebody. Or maybe it is based on location. You know, maybe it's that service area that has different people with it. But instead of having, like, just contact us or call us, or whatever you can be like, here's, you know, here's Stacey, here's Monica, here is the person you're actually going to talk to to fulfill this service,
which can be cool, because. You know, if you have a business where you have sales people that go out and network the person that they spoke to at the event three years ago, may not remember the company that they're with. They may just remember this person's face. They go to the sales page, they scroll all the way down to the bottom, and they're like, oh my gosh, I know that person. That's Stacey. Like, I yeah, alright, cool. She seemed cool. I should actually contact them so it can be another trust signal. We also do it sometimes for service businesses that will be sending people out to homes, so that way they can see, like, these are the four people that come out and do HVAC. And I kind of like that because I'm a chick. Sometimes I'm working from home, if I've got work that's being done and I'm like, Hey, is this really Bob, or is this someone random that's just showing about our house? Because we do have like that happens sometimes, right? You're like, ah, who are you? Did I schedule you? Okay, so speaking of contacting people, do not forget your CTA Stacy. Tell us about what you would put on a CTA. And when we say CTA, that's like our lingo for call to action. Tell them to take the next step.
Oftentimes, people, I mean, when you're making a lot of these decisions, you're a little bit out of control. And so the really, you don't even know where to start. And so by telling people what they should do next, through a call to action, whether that is get a quote, call us, you know, a form that they're going to fill out, you know, basically telling them what their next step is can make them feel a lot more in control. So obviously that makes more sense to some industries than others. But people feeling out of control is never really where you want them to start their conversation with you. And so if you can tell them what to do next,
I think people really do appreciate that, and I think you should make it as simple as possible. I just reviewed text today that was like, book a 45 minute diagnostic call. And I was like, Yeah, I'm never doing that. It's like, it's a friction point. I have to make multiple decisions. Then I have to decide, do I want to talk to this person. What time do I want to do it? All these things right? Who should come to the meeting? Do I even want to have this conversation? Am I ready for that conversation? I just want to get some information. So I think your call to action needs to be as frictionless as possible. On some websites, it could be chat us, like, if you have a chat bot and people are monitoring it, just chat super low friction, right? Send us an email or give us a call. Like, yeah, just don't make it hard. Don't make them make too many decisions, or else they're not going to do anything
too big of a commitment. You know, I think that's the other thing is, like, I don't want to commit to a 45 minute call when I just have one question, yeah, do I have Do do you do this or that? Is it like this, or is it like that? You know, I don't want to commit to 45 minutes. That's super valuable time to me. And I just want my question answered, and then I'll make my decision, you know, so making them commit, I think, is also a difficult Yeah, way to have a call to action, even though you may have a higher close ratio, because if they book a 45 minute call, they're probably already buying from you. Yeah, no. I mean, I guess that's a decision you have to make for your company.
It just depends on how full your pipeline is, right?
Mike, if you got a
really full pipeline, you don't need a lot of business, then add the friction. If you need more leads, then take it away and make it easy for people.
And
last but not least, another thing that you can do navigationally is just link to other related services, because it helps users understand the other things that you do. It helps them keep moving through the site, and it helps search engines understand the relationships between the pages and the services of your business, which is another powerful tool. Yeah. So earlier, I suggested that you could use all of these things that we just talked about, and you can put them into chat GBT with a link to your services page and say, Hey, review this page and tell me everything that I missed based on this criteria, and give me suggestions. You can even ask it to rewrite it for you, quite frankly. So all of this information is out on mayecreate.com on our blog, in a lovely, formatted blog post, use it. Audit your own stuff. Make sure you've got what you need. It's important. It's super important. It's super important. Okay, so another thing though, that I think gets grouped into services, pages are location pages.
Yeah, location pages are interesting. I think certain people absolutely need them. And. Certain people don't, I would lean towards the majority like do not, and then I want you to prove to me why you should have them, if that makes sense. So just because you do service in different places or different locations doesn't mean you automatically need 10 location pages,
especially if they're really close to one another. So the Columbia area is a cool one. There's a lot of communities around the Columbia area, Columbia Missouri, that naturally get picked up in search. And so if you do business in Columbia, Missouri, it's assumed that you would also be in Ashland and in Hallsville, and it's just assumed, and if you didn't do business there, that would be weird, right? However, we have
locations are within like eight miles, yeah, up there, you know? So it's not a it's not like you're going 30 miles away.
And if you do, if you had a company in Ashland, it would be understood that you would work also in Columbia, because they're they're like bright they're basically suburbs of one another, right? But then we have clients that will have a location in Jefferson City, which is 30 minutes away from Columbia, but they also deliver to the lake area, which is an hour away from them, and so we will often have to add a location page for the lake area. And the lake area is huge. It's not small, and
it's hard to get around. Yes, you can only cross the lake in certain locations, specific
Exactly. So for our our home home builder, not home builder. They're like a supply. They are a they're a lumber company.
Lumber Company,
the lumber
company that we work with that delivers to the lake and does a lot of business at the lake. They have a location page for the lake, and it makes sense because they're far enough apart. We just wanted to show up in search and let Google know. Hey, connection. We deliver over to the lake. So it's interesting. One way that you can figure out if you need them or don't do them is by looking at the search patterns for that particular service in the area. Like, for example, people don't usually look for website designer Centralia, Missouri. It's just not a very big community. There's not a ton of web designers there, right? So they don't look they don't look for it that way. They might look for a web designer near me, just web designer, or they might look for it in the Columbia area or in the county. So you just have to understand what the search patterns are, and that always uncovers a lot of stuff too, because, like, for example, in the Dallas Fort Worth area, they search very specifically, Dallas or Fort Worth, or it's an acronym, D, F,
W, yeah, yeah.
That's what their search patterns come through with. So you need to, like, know that for the area, right? And it's, yeah, so there you go. But we'll do
another, another place where location pages make a lot of sense is we do have a number of clients in the ag industry who have different facilities with different hours and different locations and different like, just straight up different information. And so it's not necessarily for them to show up in search, correct like for their services, plus that location, it's more so that their viewers, who are there already, their audience, can go to their website and easily say, is that elevator open At this time or is this service at this location? You know, because sometimes they'll have different services at different locations, and sometimes they'll have different hours at different locations, and so that is more, it's more of an informational such situation than Yeah, selling those services in those communities, if you will.
Yeah, there's additional useful information that only pertains to that one location. And so it would make sense that you have a location page there,
yeah, quarry like, quarries like, have different products and different hours and different pickup procedures and things at different locations.
Well, different phone numbers and managers and the whole ball of wax, right? And so it would make sense to have location pages, but those are not services pages, and it shouldn't be the same copy with the city name swapped out 27 times. That's not what these pages are. Usually they link from the footer of your site, and can be a link from your contact page as well. So that's that's what we're looking there for. Yep. Okay, to wrap this up, my friends, your reality check is that your finished page should not be a wall of text. Think about it like a PowerPoint. Think about it like the stuff that chat GBT gives you clear hierarchy and titles
you.
People went from AI to your page. If it doesn't feel like it's formatted as well as AI, they're going to leave your page because you don't want to read it. There you go. And the other piece that I mean, we work with clients on this all the time. It can feel really overwhelming. I
overwhelming
get it. I write content for a living. I had to rewrite all the content for every page of my website in the last year and a half. It was intense. Was a lot, it was but you know what I did? I took and I'm I broke it into chunks, and I worked on it that way, right? So you can start with your weakest page. Whatever is crappiest, you could start there. Or I actually like to start with the longest page first, because by the time I get through the longest page, then I can go work on the shorter pages, and it's way easier. I always leave the landing page until last, because my friends, it writes itself once all the other pages are done. And the same with the homepage, it writes itself once the other pages are done. So a lot of people want to start at the top, you know, with the landing pages and with the homepage, but I, I'm like, I'm I haven't read the book yet. I gotta read the book, and then I can go back and write the thesis statement for it. And so, yeah, there you go. Those
are, well,
mainly on that, on those landing pages and on your homepage, you're writing an excerpt for your website. So to write your excerpt before you've written your other content can be difficult.
It is. And hey, guess what? We have a whole episode on using AI to write your content. I wrote, I Yeah,
use, use AI with your real, real i r i real intelligence. There you go.
We have a whole episode on it, my friends, and a blog post. Okay, so to recap, you get one page per service, that's how it works, and one service per page that's that's going to be the best thing you can do for yourself. Have a landing page if you have more than three services, a service page is a sales page, not a placeholder. It should be a conversation that sounds like you and looks like you so they can remember you and not just forget you, right? It's more than a relatively list. You tell people what they're getting and why they should trust you. Locations, pages are different from services pages, and you don't always need them. And just don't get freaked out by the scope. Just start somewhere. You'll feel your way through it. It's okay, like, I know Hey, and if it gets really bad, you can just call me and I'll do it for you.
Well, I think once you get on a roll too, you're like, oh, okay, now I know what I'm doing. I think the hardest part is when you don't write your content for a living, you don't do this for a living. It's scary and it's hard, and it's like one of those things that people aren't very confident
in. It's way harder to do it for yourself. It's so easy for me to review even what AI gives me or what a client gives me. So easy for me to review it. Need to do it on my own pages. I'm like, I'm emotionally attached to this phrase. It's gross. Okay, so, because it's so hard to do, it, put put someone else's hat on, right? My challenge to you is that you go out to your services pages right now and ask yourself, if you were a stranger, would you know what you're going to get from this company? Would you know maybe what it costs? Would you expect to know what it costs on that page? Do you feel like you could trust this company, and if you can't do those things, hecky, then you know where to go next. Use our list. Revise your stuff. It'll be awesome. Okay, so that is a wrap on services pages. Now you've got the blueprint, and you can go look at your site with fresh eyes again. Drop that list of items from the blog post from this
[email protected] into chat GBT and ask him to review your page, to look for opportunities to improve. It's awesome. That is how I started writing every single one of our services pages at MayeCreate. I'm not even kidding. I just needed the perspective. And AI does not care who you were are. It will it will give you perspective. AI
is not emotionally attached.
No, it is not so, speaking of that, in our next episode, we're digging into a special request from one of our longtime listeners. Yes, you can ask us what to talk about, and we will. So the request was how to handle board members, volunteers or even employees with great intentions and, let's say, enthusiastic ideas. Yeah, I can be this. I can be this co worker. Sometimes I really am. And Stacy's like, I can't, Monica. I just can't
so much so that I gave Monica a document. To record her enthusiastic ideas so that way I could look at them when I was in the right frame of mind. Yes,
I created that document.
Okay, I linked the document in the appropriate places so we can find it again.
So here's the situation, someone, maybe me, comes to you all fired up about mailing out magnets or taking on a magazine ad or launching a whole new initiative, and they mean well, they really, really mean well, but you're already juggling everything it takes to keep the organization running, and you know that this idea is not your next move. It might not even be in your wheelhouse. It just ultimately needs to be tabled maybe forever, because you just, quite frankly, might just not have the bandwidth to deal with one more thing, and this is not that one more thing. So how do you say no without making them feel dismissed? How do you honor their passion and excitement because you know they're coming to you in the right spirit, with the right heart while protecting your time and your budget and your sanity. How do you do this? Okay, so Stacey and I are going to walk you through kind ways to navigate these conversations, as well as how having a clear plan for your organization is actually your secret weapon in these moments, because when you know exactly where you're going and why, then you can respond to any idea with confidence instead of guilt. And we do this at MayeCreate. We have our mantras, and I'll be like, Oh, we could do it this way. And I'm like, wait a second, keep it simple. That's definitely not keeping it simple. Nope, nope. We're not doing it that just complicated things. And so it does help that you know, when you have the decision making factors at hand, it ought to be a fun one, so subscribe so you don't miss it, and thanks again for joining us today, and until next time, go forth and mark it with purpose.
Stacy 46:49
You.
