As a service provider in today’s world, you know that the best way to reach potential customers is online. Most customers likely prefer to schedule a service through your website instead of calling or stopping by in person. To keep up with these expectations and maximize your sales, you’ll need online scheduling software that allows you to accept bookings and payments through your business website.
Read Also: How to start a service business
The best part of it all is that you don’t have to be a Fortune 500 company, hire staff or know how to code to create a website and start making money online. We’re here to show you how you can easily create a site yourself—with the highest level of performance, reliability and payment security, across a variety of types of businesses.
Building a website for your business, passion project or side hustle should be easy and exciting. With Wix, you can customize and launch a professional website in minutes, no coding needed. We’re all about simplifying the process so you can focus on what matters most–bringing your ideas to life. So why wait? Let’s get started on creating the website you’ve always wanted.
What is a service website?
A service website is a type of website that's designed to showcase and promote a specific service or set of services from a business or individual. The main purpose of a service website is to inform potential clients or customers about the services you offer while highlighting the benefits of those services. Your website should encourage potential users to take action, such as contacting you for a quote or booking a service.
Service websites are used by a wide range of professionals and businesses, including consultants, freelancers, agencies, contractors, healthcare providers and more.
Waste no time and create your site from start to finish with Wix's website builder.
How to create a service website
01. Pick a website builder
The first step is to select a website builder that meets all your design and business needs at once. Chosen by millions of businesses around the world, Wix is one of the best website builders on the market. It's a user-friendly, professional option filled with advanced web design features and business capabilities. You can get started by choosing from one of the many fully customizable business website templates available.
If you’re looking to start with a good foundation quickly that you can fully personalize later on, let Wix’s AI website builder take care of everything for you. After chatting with AI about your website goals, the artificial design intelligence tool will automatically create a service website for you. It will instantly design a site, complete with images, text and pages that are tailored to your business. Learn more about how to create a website with AI.
Read also: How much does a website cost
02. Choose a layout
When it comes to the layout of your site, there are two main schools of design: the classic website and the one-pager. Both are great options, and your choice depends on your business’s specific needs.
The classic option includes separate pages for each section of your service-based website. This is an excellent choice if you have a wide variety of content—say, a blog, photo gallery or FAQ page—that you’d like to distribute across different locations of your site.
A one-page website, on the other hand, is limited to a single page. Each menu item takes the user to a different section of the same page, rather than leading to separate ones. The advantage of this method is that you can control the order in which viewers see your content, plus it works great on mobile. An increasing number of businesses are opting for the latter due to its strong design and simplicity.
03. Brand your website
We know you've put a lot of thought into creating the look and feel of your brand. To maintain the brand identity your customers recognize and love, make sure those elements are carried over onto your website.
Here are some tips to customize your site so that it reflects your brand:
Get a domain
Your domain name is your online address. Typically, this will be the name of your business, as this makes your site look professional and puts your brand’s stamp on the web. Check out this insightful guide on how to choose a domain name for your site.
You'll also need to consider what domain extension you want to use:
Create a custom logo
As small as it may be, your logo plays a huge role in your business. Your logo must occupy a prominent place on your site since this is crucial for building brand recognition and awareness.
The logo becomes a visual representation of the business's values and emotions in a single glance. Simplicity is key for memorability and adaptability across platforms.
Yaya Aaronsohn, Head of Brand Maker at Wix.com
If you don’t already have a logo, you can easily create your own using a logo maker. You can then use your logo across all platforms, including your website, newsletters and even your favicon (the small icon that appears on a tab in your browser). Lastly, don’t forget to always link your logo back to your homepage—it’s a long-standing web convention.
Choose your colors
Your choice of colors has a powerful impact on your brand identity. Not only do colors add beauty to your site, but they also evoke emotions or connote certain associations with your brand.
Your color palette plays an important role in the overall performance of your site, bolstering both conversion rates and the time spent on a page. Research suggests that up to 90% of a person’s assessment of your website is based on colors alone. Moreover, color is shown to improve brand recognition by 80%.
For that reason, it’s critical that you choose a strongly branded design—including a powerful color scheme, logo and domain name—as you create a website for your service business.
04. Add the right pages
Now it’s time for the fun part. Think of all the content you want to add to your service website and determine the most strategic way to organize it. It’s your business, so you can decide how many (and which) pages to include. Here are the most popular options:
Homepage
This is the central hub of your website. Since it’s often people’s first impression of your brand, it should be both attention-grabbing and informative. Make sure it prominently displays your company’s name and clearly explains what you do.
Since the purpose of your site is to initiate bookings, you should also have a Book Now button placed above the fold. This gives users the option to book or schedule your services immediately upon arriving at your site.
Bookings page
To drive more revenue, you’ll want to add an online scheduling system that lets customers book and pay for your services online. While you can place your online scheduling platform anywhere on your site, many businesses opt to include a separate bookings page. That way, you’ll be able to lay out your services in an intuitive, organized way that includes all the essential details, like name, pricing and availability.
You could even organize your services into packages (a.k.a. productized services) on your Bookings page.
About page
The About Us page offers a personal description of your business. It’s a great place to share the story of who you are, from the origins of your business to your professional achievements and the company mission statement. If you work with multiple staff members, you can also include a Meet the Team section that makes it easy for visitors to get to know your organization.
People should be able to get a sense of the personality behind your brand, as this will ultimately help you build deep connections with customers. As a service provider, forming relationships is the essence of acquiring and cultivating loyal clients.
Contact page
If visitors need to spend time looking for your contact information, they may decide it’s not worthwhile reaching out or purchasing your service. For that reason, add a separate page or section dedicated to all of your contact information. This should include phone numbers, email, social media accounts, a contact form and any other possible way clients can get in touch with you.
People have also come to expect this information in the footers of websites. Make sure your footer is filled with up-to-date contact details, as well as your company’s address and operational hours.
Blog
A blog is an invaluable platform for building a loyal community, establishing yourself as an authority in the field, and driving traffic to your site.
Blogs don’t get enough credit for their long-term advantages. In the long run, a blog can serve as a huge traffic driver and a way to connect with future customers (case in point: our Wix Blog is the first touchpoint for millions of people who may have never stumbled onto our site otherwise). That said, a blog is a long-term commitment—it requires a well thought-out strategy and consistent maintenance. Beyond saying ‘I want to get traffic,’ you need to understand your blog’s overall value to your brand, and acknowledge that two readers may come across your blog with two very different intentions and varying levels of familiarity with your brand.
Allison Lee, Editor-in-Chief at Wix.com
In fact, 72% of online marketers say that content creation is their most effective SEO, or search engine optimization, tactic when it comes to ranking high on search engines and increasing your number of site visitors.
Testimonials
Nothing is more impressive to a potential client than positive, unbiased reviews of your excellent service. For many customers, good reviews are the driving factor in their decision to convert. With that in mind, include a testimonials page on your site—it's an important marketing tactic that can lead to sales.
PR coverage
If you get published in notable publications, make this a point on your website. Just like testimonials, this will improve your brand’s credibility and further position your company as an industry leader.
FAQ page
By including an FAQ page, you can provide answers to questions that may naturally come up while clients browse your site. This helps potential customers feel comfortable about your product and builds trust in your brand.
05. Add a scheduling system to sell your services
Next, add a scheduling system to your site so that customers can book and pay for your services online. Using Wix Bookings, you’ll be able to drive revenue to your business in a way that’s convenient and efficient for both you and your customers.
In just minutes, you can take your offerings and package them as a service—whether it’s a one-on-one appointment with clients, a video class, or a multi-session course. Here’s how to do it:
Create your services. This can include appointments, classes, and online courses.
Add staff members, if you’re working with a team.
Set availability. You can do this by specifying your business’s operating hours, as well as the hours of staff who provide the service.
Choose how to display bookings on your site, whether you want to show them all together or place them on separate pages.
Set how you collect payment. Wix Bookings lets you easily accept full or partial payment through a reputable and secure online system.
Add business details such as your address, currency and time zone.
Upgrade your site to ensure the best Bookings plan for your business.
In addition, scheduled appointments can be automatically synced with both your business and customers’ calendars. You and your staff will receive real-time booking updates when a client schedules an appointment. You’ll also have access to your client’s details, including their contact information, birthdays and relevant notes so that you can create the best possible customer experience.
Manage your entire business on the go through the Wix App. From both the app and your desktop version, you'll be able to promote your services and related coupons, send invoices, and accept bookings in real time via live chat.
For more information, take a look at the essential checklist for setting up, managing, and growing your online service business.
06. Pay attention to SEO
SEO is the practice of optimizing your site so that your pages can rank higher in search engine results. While this may sound daunting, you can get started in a few simple steps:
Choose the right domain name
Sign up to Google My Business
Use strategic keywords throughout your site
Wix SEO is a comprehensive and free solution that efficiently guides you through these steps.
Leveraging SEO and integrating it into the website creation process is vital. Various studies have shown that organic search is the single greatest provider of traffic to websites - with that being even more pronounced within the B2B context. To that, traffic from organic search, when done correctly is essentially built to last (with proper maintenance over time, of course) and forms a crucial part of a site’s long-term growth.
Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO Branding at Wix.com
07. Make your website mobile-friendly
More than 50% of all website traffic worldwide comes through smartphones. This number is only increasing, which means that it’s crucial to make your booking services easily accessible to everyone through mobile.
To optimize for mobile browsing, you’ll need to make sure your site is readable and navigable on a small screen. Wix takes care of that for you, ensuring the mobile version of your site looks beautiful on any device.
08. Get a second opinion and feedback
Before you hit publish to take your site live, make sure everything looks and works the way you intended. Preview your website and browse the layout, and remember to proofread it a couple of times.
You can even ask a trusted companion to look over things – the more eyes that can spot mistakes ahead of time, the better.
09. Promote your services via your website
Once you’ve published your service website, whether it's a wellness website, a hotel website, a salon website or healthcare website, promote it so that people learn about your brand. A great way to get started is by spreading the word on social media.
10. Keep your site up-to-date
To achieve the best possible results, keep your site fresh and up-to-date. This includes adapting to the latest trends (check out these great service business examples) and adding new blog content to build up your authority in your field.
To get a better understanding of your online performance, you can view Analytics for Wix Bookings. This gives you valuable insights into your booking statistics, such as the number of new and returning customers and your most popular pricing plans.
By creating a website that enables customers to purchase your services online, you’ll take your business to new heights—and increase your revenue as a result.
Why is it important to have a website for your service?
Having a website for your service is crucial for several reasons:
Credibility and professionalism
A well-designed website can enhance both. It serves as a place where potential customers can learn more about your service, view testimonials and contact you. A professional-looking website instills trust and confidence in potential customers, making them more likely to choose your service over competitors.
24/7 availability
Unlike physical storefronts with limited operating hours, a website is accessible 24/7. This means that potential customers can learn about your service, make inquiries or even make purchases at any time of the day or night. This flexibility can significantly expand your reach and increase sales opportunities.
Customer convenience
A website makes it convenient for customers to learn about your service and make informed decisions. They can easily access information such as pricing, service details, FAQs and contact information without the need for direct interaction with your or a customer service rep.
Competitive advantage
Having a website is essential to staying ahead of the competition. If your competitors have websites and you don't, you risk losing potential customers to them. By investing in a professional website, you can differentiate your service, attract more customers and stay competitive in your industry.
How to create a service website FAQ
Do you really need a website for a service business?
Yes, having a website is highly beneficial for a service-based business. A website serves as a virtual storefront, providing a platform to showcase your services, establish credibility and reach a wider audience. It allows potential clients to learn about your offerings, view past work and easily contact you. A well-designed and informative website can also enhance your online presence, making it easier for people to find and choose your services over competitors. In today's digital age, a website is often considered a fundamental tool for marketing and growing a service-oriented business.