Website Review Checklist for Effective Service-Based Business Websites
For most people, evaluating a website is a matter of taste and personal preferences. But marketers and designers know the secret:
There are formulas to successful websites.
In this post, I’m revealing everything I know about creating a service-based business website that converts.
These practical tips are based on my experience as a design researcher and many books on psychology and marketing. Regardless of what services you offer, I hope these tips will help you turn more visitors into leads and clients.
Checklist Overview
There are 4 categories of things to consider when building your site: strategy, design, content/messages, and search engine optimization (SEO).
Let’s dive in our first checklist: strategy.
Website Strategy Checklist
This is the foundation for all your design decisions. Without a strategy, your website will be an art piece instead of a marketing tool. Here’s the foundation you need for website strategy:
1) Ideal client profile
Demographic information like age, income, gender, occupation... can also be useful. But the thing that will help you sell the most is a deep understanding of your client's inner problems and desires.
Your ideal client profile should include:
Goals/aspirations
Challenges/pain points
Fears, objections, expectations, likes, and dislikes about your industry
Values and beliefs
With demographics details, pick and choose the details that actually matter to their buying decisions. If you have a diverse client base, you can keep the demographics details fairly general.
2) Website goal
Your website should lead to a specific business outcome. For example, it might be to fill out a client application form, buy a product, book a consultation, or sign up for your mailing list. If you aren’t clear about your goal, your website visitors will not know what you want them to do.
So here’s the question to ask yourself: What’s the most important action you want users to take on your website?
Your website will likely have more than one goal, but you need to decide on one primary goal. If you ask people to book a consultation, subscribe, and follow you on social media all with the same emphasis, they will get choice paralysis and not take any action.
For most service providers, it’s best to have one primary goal for people who are ready to buy, and one secondary goal for people who are interested but not ready to spend money.
3) Competitor research and differentiation
Scan websites of businesses in your industry. A lot of websites tend to copy each other, so you may start noticing some trends and commonalities.
Based on your ideal client’s expectation, think of what features from competitors’ sites you will also need to have. But also, think of what you can do to differentiate and make your website stand out.
4) Analytics & usability testing (for existing website)
There are nuances to your specific industry and target clients that can only be uncovered through real data.
If you have been collecting analytics on your website, start reviewing patterns of what’s working and what doesn’t. If you don’t have any tracking, it’s worthwhile to set up Google Analytics and let it collect data for a few months before starting to redesign your site.
A quicker alternative to getting data is from usability testing. In fact, this is the best way to get inside your ideal client's mind.
Essentially, you’ll invite 5+ people who match your ideal client profile to use your existing website and narrate their thoughts throughout the process while you silently observe (it sounds a bit creepy, but promise you it’s effective).
In the end, you’ll get an understanding of what people find positive and confusing about your website.
Useful resources:
Don’t make me think and Rocket science made easy by Steve Krug are excellent guides to DIY usability testing (not to mention being hilarious).
For tools, usertesting.com can help you set up the test questions, find test participants, and record. It will take a lot of logistics complexity out of this process.
Related post: Website Planning: How to Set Your Website Up For Success
Website Design Checklist
This checklist includes best practices to ensure your website is easy to use. Though there are always exceptions to the rules, generally the more guidelines you can follow, the better your website experience will be for users.
1) Simple navigation
Maximum 5-7 items in the top navigation bar
Put the primary call to action in the top right of the navigation bar
Include a search box if you have 10+ pages
Include links to all pages in the footer
Use sticky menus if you have long pages, or include a “back to top” button.
Label navigational options from users’ perspective. E.g. if you have creative product names that only you and existing clients know, don’t use them as navigation labels.
If you show more than one navigation option in a place, use button size, shape, or color to highlight the most popular option.
2) Digestible content
Choose readable fonts (if unsure, use popular web fonts)
Limit script, handwriting and decorative fonts to short texts
Have plenty of white spaces
Use short line length (50-85 characters/line)
Avoid wall of texts
Make text scannable with headings, bulleted lists, and short paragraphs.
Utilize different font formatting (bold, italics) to draw attention to important points
Ensure high-contrast text and background colors
Break up long paragraphs with visual aids
3) Minimize mental effort and avoid distraction
Show one type of information at a time (no sidebar ads!)
Don’t offer more than 3 options at once (more choices, more confusion)
If using animation, choose the subtle ones
Cut away anything that’s unnecessary
4) Clear indicators for interactivity
Make buttons stand out with shape, color, and size
Make links look clearly interactive with both underlines and a different color
Label call to action with clear action or benefit users are going to get. Avoid vague label like “learn more”
5) Responsive design
Ensure the design is mobile-friendly
Ensure fast loading speed
6) Visually appealing
Use high-quality images and visual aids
For alignment, crop photos to the same ratio
Use layouts that are balanced and symmetrical
Use fonts and colours that match brand personality
Limit site styles to maximum 5 colours and 3 fonts
Use contrast to draw attention
Useful resources:
For the ultimate list of research-backed UX principles, check out Universal Principles of Design or this handy website lawsofux.com.
Websiste Content Checklist
If you know what you need to write, writing becomes much easier. While there are endless ways to craft your messages, the content structure and types are consistent among service-based business websites. Here are the components you’ll need for your website copy:
1) Common Pages
Generally, service business websites will have following pages:
Home: gives an overview of your business and links to important pages
About: helps audiences understand your credibility and unique values
Services: give prospects details about your offers
Product: each product you sell needs its own sales page
Portfolio: if you’re a photographer, designer, artists or offer any visual-centric services
Blog/Resources: collection of blog posts or curated resources for your audiences
Contact: for how people can get in touch with you
Privacy policies: required by law
Terms & conditions: outline rules to protect your business and your website visitors
If you have pages like testimonials, FAQs, press, try to combine these sections into the main pages. For example, FAQs related to potential clients can be part of the service or sales page, while general FAQs can be part of the contact page. This way you provide information relevant to the users’ context instead of forcing them to search for it.
2) Client outcome
You may have heard a famous quote about marketing: “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”. Truthfully, people don’t even want a hole. What they want is hanging a family picture that makes them feel love and happiness.
As a service provider, what you truly sell is an outcome. This vision of the client’s future after working with you should be desirable, aspirational, and touch them at an emotional level.
The client outcome should be visible high up in your homepage, sales page, and through the testimonials. It’s the hook that gets people to stay and hear the rest of what you have to say.
3) Empathetic view
Empathy builds trust and connection. Knowing you understand their problems, prospects will be much more likely to work with you.
You can show empathy by describing clients’ inner thoughts about the problems or tell your personal struggle with it. Even a simple statement “we know what it’s like to [experience this problem]” can do the trick.
Include this in your about section and sales page.
4) Credibility signals
Anyone can claim to be an expert. You have to give people reasons to believe you, and do so in a non-braggy fashion. Here are some ideas to get your creative juice running:
Number of clients, projects, dollars saved, any details that can make for an impressive number. For example, a developer’s site used lines of codes.
Awards, certificates, credentials
Years of experience
Press appearances
Personal story & background
Case studies
Testimonials
Sprinkle these credibility signals in various places on home, about, and sales pages.
5) Unique value proposition
Why you, among all qualified service providers?
Some prospects will vibe with your story and that’s enough to make a decision. But for many left-brained buyers out there, you need to give them “excuses” to choose you and pay a premium for your services. That’s where the unique value proposition comes in.
Think of your distinctions and where you can add values beyond the market-average offer.
This can be in your approach/process, special knowledge, niches and specializations, client experience, guarantee, etc.
Make your unique value proposition clear in the sales page. If you have just one main offer, include this on the home page as well.
6) Problems, benefits and features
Your sales page has to make these three things absolutely clear and in this particular order.
People care about their problems, not your solution. To get their attention, you must first state the problem. Then come the benefits, which often come in the form of time, money, and well-being.
Finally, list all the features. Services tend to be vague, which triggers the innate fear of uncertainty. To help your clients feel confident about their purchases, give them the specific details and deliverables of what they’re getting.
7) Urgency call
Even if the prospect likes your offer, they might still not want to take action right away. Since you’ve gotten their attention and interest enough for them to reach this point, your best chance of converting is giving them a little push to take action right here.
This doesn’t mean you have to give a fake countdown timer or offer a special discount. You can get creative with this. For example, in my business, I let prospects know I only have one spot open per month, so they need to get in touch early to get their ideal website launch date.
8) Lead magnet
In reality, 96% of your site visitors are not ready to buy. If the only action available on your website is to buy, you’re losing out on a lot of potential clients.
Lead magnet is a free offer in exchange for visitors’ email address. This can be a video training, a checklist, PDF guide, anything that can add value to your audience. Once they give you their email address, you can follow up and nurture your relationships with them.
Useful resources:
Building a StoryBrand by Don Miller is a must-read if you want to clarify your brand messages and engage with your audience through words.
SEO Checklist
Who doesn’t want free exposure? SEO is a great way for small business websites to get traffic.
There are certain SEO activities you should always do when setting up your website. I will have another post for a comprehensive SEO checklist, but here are the absolute essentials:
1) Domain
Run background check on a domain name before buying it
Connect your site to a custom domain
2) Keyword research
Have at least one targeted keyword for each page. The chosen keywords should meet these criteria:
Relevant to your business and ideal clients
Have decent search traffic
Not too hard to rank for (keyword research tool will give you this metric)
3) Optimize on-page content
Mention keywords in key spots on page without feeling forced or spammy
Follow the correct hierarchy of headings: H1 for headline, H2 for main topics throughout the page, H3 for subtopics in each H2.
Use attention-grabbing headlines
Have readable image titles and alt-texts
Connect relevant internal pages and external website with buttons and links
4) Optimize page settings
Use short URLs
Add page title and meta description
5) Optimize site settings
Make sure your site is secured using SSL
Include a browser icon (favicon)
Include a default social sharing image
6) Optimize design
Compress photos before uploading
Make sure all web pages load quickly
Ensure the design is mobile-friendly
Enable AMP for mobile speed
Useful resources:
Google’s intro to SEO is a good place to start if you don’t know anything about SEO
Final Words
Implementing everything on this website review checklist at once will feel overwhelming, so my last advice is to do bit by bit.
As you read the entire checklists, note the ones you feel can be fixed easily and start with that.
