One service page for each job you want more of

A single Services page looks tidy. Everything you do sits behind one link in the menu, and nothing needs writing twice. But the people who find you are rarely looking for everything you do. They’re looking for one job, and a page about every job is a weak answer for any one of them.

The fix is simple to describe: one page for each job you want more of. This article covers why the single page holds you back, what each service page needs to answer, and how to link the pages so people and search engines can move between them.

Why one Services page isn’t enough

Take an example cleaning company that offers office cleaning, carpet cleaning and window cleaning, all on one Services page. Three different visitors arrive there from three different places, and the page serves none of them well.

Search. Someone types “office cleaning quote” and the name of their town. Google’s job is to show the page that best answers that search. A page that gives office cleaning one paragraph between carpets and windows is a weaker match than a competitor’s page about office cleaning alone. Google’s SEO Starter Guide says a good title is unique to its page and describes what is on it [1], and a page about three jobs can’t have a title that describes any one of them well.

Ads. If the same company runs an ad for office cleaning, the click has to land somewhere. Google Ads recommends a landing page that closely matches the ad and its keywords [2]. Send that click to a page about three services, and the visitor has to find their job before they can do anything about it.

Customers. A person who wants their office cleaned reads the first lines, sees carpets and windows, and has to scroll to find out whether you do what they need. Some will. Others will go back to the results and tap the next listing.

The diagram below shows the difference: one page trying to answer every search, against one page for each job, each with its own search, its own ad and its own next step.

What each service page should answer

A service page has one job: to answer what a customer wants to know about this one service before they get in touch. In practice that comes down to five things.

1. What the job is, in the customer’s words. Name the service the way people ask for it. If customers say “carpet cleaning”, that’s the heading, whatever the trade calls it.
2. Where you do it. State the area you cover plainly, near the top. A visitor who can’t tell whether you come to their town will assume you don’t.
3. What happens next. Say what the customer should do (call, book or ask for a quote) and make that one action easy to find on a phone, without scrolling to the bottom.
4. What they need to know before calling. The questions you hear on every call belong on the page: what affects the price, how long the job takes, what the customer needs to do beforehand. Answering them there saves both of you a call that goes nowhere.
5. What you can honestly show. Photos of your real work, the qualifications you hold, and reviews customers have actually left. Nothing invented, and no stock photos of strangers.

Then give the page a title and a main heading that name the service and, where it matters, the area. That’s what search engines read first, and what a customer sees in the results.

Linking pages so people and search can move between them

A service page nobody can reach doesn’t help anyone. Google says it finds pages mainly by following links from pages it has already crawled, and it recommends link text that tells people and Google what the linked page is about [1]. So link each service page from the places people actually pass through:

• The main menu, or a short list of services, with each one named.
• Related services, where one job often leads to another.
• Your Google Business Profile, where each listed service can match a page and the website button can land on the most relevant one.
• Your ads, with each group of ads sent to the page for its service.

Use the service’s name as the link text. “Office cleaning” tells a reader where the link goes. “Click here” and “learn more” don’t.

One page per job, not per town

Once a business has one page per service, the next idea is often one page per town: carpet cleaning in one town, carpet cleaning in the next, with the same words and a different name.

Google’s spam policies call these doorway pages and give pages targeted at specific regions or cities as an example [3]. They can count against a site rather than help it.

If you serve several towns, name them on the service page. A separate page for one town earns its place only when it has something genuinely different to say about working there.

Common mistakes

• The same words on every service page, with only the service name swapped. Each page should answer the questions people ask about that job.
• Pages nobody can reach. A page missing from the menu and from every other page is hard for customers and search engines alike to find.
• A page for a job you don’t want more of. Build pages for the work you want, not for everything you’ve ever done.
• A phone number at the bottom only. The next step should be reachable from the first screen on a phone.

Questions

How many service pages do I need?

One for each job that people search for separately and that you want more of. If customers would describe two jobs in different words, they usually need different pages.

How long should a service page be?

Long enough to answer what a customer asks before calling, and no longer. Google says the length of a page alone doesn’t matter for ranking [1]. A page that leaves out the price factors or the service area is too short, however many words it has.

Should I make a page for every town I serve?

Usually not. Name the towns on the service page. A town page with only the name changed is the kind of page Google’s spam policies describe as a doorway [3].

Can one page cover two related jobs?

Yes, when customers think of them as one job. Blocked drains and drain cleaning can share a page. Drain cleaning and water heaters shouldn’t.

If your site has a single Services page, our Websites service starts with exactly this question: which pages the site needs, and what each one is for. A free audit is the first step.