Website tips to help you sell your services

What is the role of a professional website for a business? A website may have different goals: sell products/services, build credibility, showcase a portfolio, establish a reputation, and more. This article includes useful web design website tips to help you sell your services.

A business needs to sell to generate revenue. That’s the whole point of a business. In this context, websites become the means to intercede sales in one form or another. In the end, it is all about selling, products or services, irrespective of their denominations.

The onset of the online marketplace has changed, even revolutionized, the concept of selling and has diversified the range of products/services extensively. Professional website design enhances the ability to sell online and can make or break the success of any business.

It is difficult to know how to design a website that improves your business’ bottom line considering that the field of professional web design is an ever-changing one with new trends popping up each year. These web design tips will help you sell more services online!

Tip 1: Adopt an Above-the-Fold Contact Form or Opt-in Form

When designing a website, you need to decide the set of key elements that you want a professional web designer to focus on, and the contact form/opt-in form is one of those focal points. The best place to position your contact/opt-in forms is above the fold.

Above the fold is the top area of a website that the human eye seeks automatically. What you place in that area is the first thing visitors see upon landing on your page. Also, they identify all above-the-fold content with what matters to you as a business: make contact!

An above-the-fold contact form will get the most exposure to web traffic. It tells visitors you want to know them, learn about their need/problem, and come up with a solution for it.

Tip 2: Include a Clear, Big Picture for Your Selling Service

Web design is a visual art and designing websites is about understanding that people trust what they see. Communication entails 90% visual information, and people believe what their eyes sometimes see despite common sense or logic. Humans are visual creatures.

People choose to believe that a mechanic with greasy overalls is a good mechanic, while a mechanic with clean overalls doesn’t inspire them trust. We all know that a mechanic’s competence is not in the amount of greasy matter that he managed to get on his overalls.

One of the best web design tips is to include a high-definition image at the top of your professional website. Clear big pictures trigger potential clients’ imagination and let them envision the success of your business, capable of providing a solution to their problem.

A high-quality large image placed at the top of your website is a practical design choice.

Tip 3: Keep a Fresh-Looking Design

Potential customers look for businesses that keep up-to-date with the latest developments in the field. It is a natural expectation that people have online and offline and in life in general.

When you present potential clients with a website from two decades ago, you literally tell them you don’t care about the latest advancements in website design or your field or industry. You let them believe your services are just as outdated as your website design.

Fresh-Looking website design is the physical counterpart of your attire. Will you wear sweatpants at a meeting with a corporation looking to contract your services or will you wear the perfect business attire? Do you want them to see interest or lack of interest?

There are plenty of web design tips floating on the internet, and this is one of the most popular when you want to learn how to make a good website or how to design a website that looks impeccable just like those professional websites you’ve been admiring.

Tip 4: You are the product. Sell yourself!

When you sell shoes, your design will present clients with the best pictures and the best descriptions of your products featuring everything they could want to learn about shoes.

In the same way, when you sell services, your web design has to present potential clients with the best pictures of you and the best description of you because you are the product.

It doesn’t sound like one of those popular website design tips, does it? The truth is that doctors must sell themselves to get more patients. A doctor represents the product his practice is selling and the services he provides represent the features of the product.

The same is true for other independent professionals, such as lawyers, hairstylists, personal trainers, life coaches, housekeepers, or real estate agents, among others. Such professionals sell their time, promising to provide clients with a certain result rather than an actual product.

Tip 5: Learn How to Understand Your Time Restrictions

It is vital that you understand that there are only 24 hours in a day and you can’t work 24/7/365. The first thing you need to do when selling services, i.e., time, is to learn how to work within time constraints. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. People don’t like that.

Only take on what you can handle within the time you have at your disposal. It’s a pretty simple rule that you should stick to unless you want your reputation ruined for not being able to respect your appointments, deliver on time, or comply with quality requirements.

Tip 6: Personalize Services to Suit the Uniqueness of Each Client

If you want to learn one of the best web design tips, read on. A professional design must present potential clients with proof that you can supply measurable results, which may be difficult since confidentiality as far as client information is key in the service arena.

For example, freelance writers transfer copyrights the moment they deliver the respective content. How do they get to prove they can produce measurable results? The result, i.e., the material they wrote, no longer belongs to them and they can’t present it as theirs to clients.

On the other hand, you also have to validate your aptitude to adapt your knowledge, skills, and work style to the unique needs of specific clients. You supplied great results to other clients, but will you be able to do the same for them? Requirements and expectations are different.

Tip 7: Build Your Credibility.

As mentioned in the beginning, one of the roles of professional websites is to establish a business’ credibility. Selling services is different from selling products, where building customer relationship has its importance, but it’s not at the center of your business.

Learning how to make a good website in the service arena is learning to focus on developing a relationship with your existing and potential clients to build your brand credibility. You need to dedicate a lot of time to build a rapport with your clients.

A site selling products doesn’t emphasize the About Us page and highlights product features because that’s where they want visitors’ focus to be: the product’s value, not site owners.

However, as a service provider, your website’s focus should be on your value since you are the product. Establishing your credibility is really about establishing your worth, and it is among the best web design tips that you could follow.

Think about it! Potential clients may already know why it’s good for them to benefit from the type of services you provide, but you must take them one step further and show them why it’s good for them that you provide those services to them. That’s showing your value.

How do you use design to establish credibility? Well, add a picture of yourself taken by a professional photographer. Photos from your personal Facebook account won’t do. You are a professional, and you need to be perceived as such, so no pictures in yoga pants.

Tip 8: Build Customer Trust

People have become increasingly aware of online frauds and schemes, and the smallest detail may cause them to become suspicious and move away from your website. You have to take every possible measure for clients to feel secure before entering their bank details.

Remember that an online business is not like a real-life business where everything is tangible. There is no personal interaction involved, which makes trust easy to erode. Therefore, use all your design has to offer to build visitors’ trust in you and your services.

Use and display an SSL certificate that allows transactions to be performed securely. You may not know it, but most people check sites for that padlock icon that is a synonym to security in their eyes. Consult with your designer and see what else you can include.

Tip 9: Provide Multiple Choices

Among the many web design tips that you could be given, providing customers with multiple choices is one of the most useful tips. When it comes to products, it’s pretty easy to displays variations of a product as far as materials, functionality, size, etc.

But how do you achieve that with services? Well, you must put yourself in the shoes of your buyer persona and try to develop multiple ways that you can deliver the respective service. Let’s say you are a business coach! You could provide services on Skype, in-house, or at their office. Come up with good descriptions of the different types of sessions you are offering.

Tip 10: Invest in Quality Copy

This article includes ten web design tips and, while this is the last tip on our list, it doesn’t mean it is the least important one. Invest time and money, if you need a professional writer, in creating SEO-friendly descriptions that highlight the key features of your services.

Each type of service you are offering should be accompanied by a service page where you present the “product” in details, highlighting its benefits, in a manner that allows your visitors to compare what you offer against what your competitors offer very quickly.

Don’t let visitors do the work for you or use three bullet points to showcase your product. Try to incorporate pictures and make the copy as concise and as clear as possible without sacrificing important details. Make sure your descriptions are complete and accurate!

Ending thoughts on these website tips

These are ten web design tips that time has tested and proven to be effective when building a website to help you sell your services online.