Professional services websites

 

What is a professional services website?

A professional services website is a website that represents the business of a professional such as a lawyer, doctor or dentist.

Professionals offer services. The results may be tangible (a landscaped garden, shiny teeth, a divorce) but the work involved to get there is not well understood.

Selling and promoting a professional service through a website aims to help a layman to understand and appreciate the services on offer.

The objectives of a professional services website

To look like a professional

Being in a professional trade and acting professionally are two different things. Your users want to know that they will be treated well and they will be charged a fair price.

The design of your website should demonstrate these qualities by being clean, well structured, not flashy and not cheap looking.

The content on your website should be easy to read and not spammy.

Give some ideas of what’s involved

For a user to take the next step and to seek out further information it helps to let them understand the process and the general outline of what they can expect.

For example, you can say there is a consultation where the following things will happen.

Make the user feel at ease

Hiring a professional can make some people nervous. When they think of the cost involved and the uncertainty of what’s involved. Some industries are notoriously expensive.

You will want to ensure that your clients understand that there is nothing to worry about and that the outcome will be positive.

Whether you are renovating homes, fixing plumbing, or on the B2B side – you may be offering legal consultation to a large corporation – the principle applies: Make the viewer feel comfortable with the process – make it easy, without being pushy.

Make the user intuitively know the price range

It’s difficult to put a price on professional services without knowing the details but you can say a lot about whether your pricing strategy is cheap, affordable, mid-level, high or premium by the way your dress your website.

It’s important that you match your price to your look, so as to attract the right type of clients for your business.

To help others

A professional tirelessly helps those around them, pointing them in the right direction. They give their knowledge freely (up to a point) so that people don’t needlessly engage their services.

The website should come the embodiment of helpfulness – through its content, its ease of use and openness to contact.

 

Designing a professional services website

Content Planning

There will be a fair amount of content to collect, particularly for the About Us page, services and blog articles.

Read about content planning for a more in deeper understanding of the tasks involved.

Content Writing

The content on your website demonstrate your expertise, serves the purpose of attracting potential clients through SEO.

It educates the client so that they are well-equipped to make the right choice for them and it puts them at ease by letting them know you know what you’re talking about.

Look and Feel

Different professions have different looks.

 

Your website needs to conform to the visual language that is commonly within your field. For example, if you’re a landscape gardener, then green is an obvious choice. If you’re a doctor, friendly faces is what’s typically used.

 

The job of the design is communicate to the user that you’re a professional by “dressing the part”.

 

Of course, you can have some flair and distinction but the baseline formula of your industry should be observed.  A competitive analysis will help you understand what that formula is.

 

Template Vs Custom Design

Templates are okay to use and its fine to have a typical layout. It won’t be a concern to your clients – as long as your website has consistent look throughout – and templates help with this part.

 

Besides, it will allow you to focus on using the right language rather than focusing on layout.

 

Custom design may be more suitable to larger professional organizations or ones with more specialist skills.

 

Consistency

The whole website needs to look like a uniform. It gives a feeling of trust. This can be difficult to achieve when content and photos come from different sources.

 

A website should be polished so that paragraphs are the same length, photos have the same hue and even the logo, background color and elements in photos combine to give a homogenous look rather than a patchy look.

 

Authenticity

There’s no point in looking professional if you look fake. If the website looks like a veneer that hides the true nature of the business through shiny stock photography alone.

 

Clients are expecting to see the people and premises they are dealing with. Small businesses may be find it harder to show polished staff and stylish offices. If that is the case, hire a professional photographer – they will know how to smoothen the rough edges and give a polished appearance.

 

Marketing a professional services website

Local Search

A lot of professional service serve a geographical location. In that case, there will be elements of a local business website to them and the same principles of promotion apply such as:

• Local directory listing
• Google My Business
• Prominence of address on the top of a page

Most professionals draw people to their website through referral, so a brand name will help in the long run with searching. Generic names such as “theharlowdentist” cheapens the business – which is okay if you’re running that sort of business – but it won’t help that much in SEO.

Content Marketing

If you expect to get your client from a wider area, either nationally or even internationally, the content marketing is a good way to go.

Write long articles that show you are an expert and encourage customers to find out more. Don’t forget to optimize your content so that it’s search engine friendly.

Social Media

Social media works in mysterious ways. You might wonder why anyone outside of your profession would follow you – and how would that lead to an eventual sale.

People use social media for searching and they check your profile on social media for background information. This is where you can show a different side of your business or give small nuggets of advice that give the impression that you’re authentic and you care.

 

Maintaining a professional services website

The reason you maintain a website is so that it doesn’t let all your marketing efforts down at the last hurdle.

Promoting your business online through digital marketing and SEO will lead them to your website. If the website is broken, slow or rough around the edges, it going to decrease your chances of being contacted.

Speed optimization

It’s not that people judge your slow website and think to themselves “this slow website is a bad sign” People are quite fickle, and they don’t hang around. They may never venture past the home page, they may only look at two pages instead of 5 Speed optimization is key to getting people to discover more.

Security and administration

Making sure your websites is safe and secure, and making sure neat and tidy on the backend is part and parcel of owning a modern website. They are complex machines and you want to make sure you have backups if things go wrong. Keeping your website secure is simply protecting your investment and your source of income.

 

Website improvements

As part of a holistic approach to digital marketing, making continuous improvements to your website is like looking after a garden. It takes time and reflection to see what to improve – to notice what’s working and perhaps what can be changes.

All the popular websites you know didn’t start out look as good as they do now. It was through continuous effort that they go to where they are now – and if you think how well they are doing – you’ll know it’s worth the effort.