Most small business sites we inherit have a single Services page. It lists eight or ten things the business does, each with a heading and two sentences, and it ranks for none of them. That isn’t bad luck. A page about everything is, as far as Google and your customers are concerned, a page about nothing in particular.
The fix is boring and reliable: give each service you want work from its own page.
Why the one big list struggles
Think about what people type. Hardly anyone searches “electrical services Ballina”. They search “switchboard upgrade Ballina”, “ceiling fan installation” or “smoke alarms rental property NSW”. Each of those is a different problem, asked by a different person, with different questions attached.
Google ranks pages, not websites. When it looks for the best answer to “switchboard upgrade”, it compares your two sentences on switchboards, buried halfway down a list, with a competitor’s full page covering what’s involved, when an upgrade is needed, how long it takes and how to get a quote. Your list page loses that comparison nearly every time.
There’s a human side too. Someone who clicks through for switchboards and lands on a page that opens with solar, then data cabling, then EV chargers, has to hunt. Most won’t. They hit the back button and click the next result.
A dedicated page fixes both problems at once. The title tag, heading, address and content all match one search, so Google has no doubt what the page is for. The visitor lands on exactly what they asked about, with a way to call or book right there. You get room to answer the questions that come up on every quote, which is what makes a page useful enough to rank. And your Google Ads and Business Profile links can point at the specific page instead of the homepage.
Google’s guidance on creating helpful, people-first content keeps returning to one test: does the page satisfy the person who arrived? A focused service page is the most practical way a small business can pass it.
Which services deserve a page
Not every line item. A page per service only works if each page has something real to say, so run each service through three filters.
- Do people search for it by name? If customers describe it in their own words (“blocked drain”, “hot water not working”), it’s a page. If it’s a step inside another job, it isn’t.
- Do you want more of it? Put the work with the best margin, or the work you’re trying to grow, first. A page that brings enquiries you don’t want is a page you don’t need.
- Could you write 400 useful words about it? If you can’t think of anything beyond “we do this”, fold it into a related page.
For a typical tradie that lands somewhere between four and ten service pages. For an allied health practice it’s usually the conditions or treatments people search for, plus each type of practitioner. Keep the main Services page, but turn it into a short index with one line and a link per service. Our article on how many pages a small business website needs goes through the rest of the page list.
The structure of a good service page
This is the outline we start from on most builds. Change the order to suit the business, but don’t drop a section without a reason.
1. A heading that names the service and the place. “Switchboard upgrades in Ballina and the Northern Rivers” beats “Powering Your Future”. One H1, in the words customers use.
2. Two or three sentences that confirm they’re in the right spot. Who it’s for, what problem it solves, where you work. Then a button or phone number that’s visible on a phone without scrolling.
3. What’s involved. Walk through the job the way you’d explain it on site: the assessment, the work itself, roughly how long it takes, and what the customer needs to do (be home, clear the garage, keep the dog inside). Most service pages skip this section, and it’s the one that builds trust before anyone picks up the phone.
4. Signs you need it, or who it suits. “Your lights dim when the oven goes on.” “You’re adding a pool or an EV charger.” For a health practice, a plain-language “Who we see for this” does the same job.
5. Proof. Photos of real jobs (not stock), a couple of relevant Google reviews, licence numbers, accreditations, and the suburbs where you’ve done this work.
6. Honest pricing guidance. You don’t need a price list. But “most residential switchboard upgrades are quoted after a free site visit” answers the question everyone is too polite to ask. If there are factors that move the price, list them.
7. Questions people actually ask. Pull them from your inbox and phone calls, not your imagination. Four or five, answered in two or three sentences each.
8. A clear next step. A short enquiry form or call button, plus what happens after they submit. “We’ll call you back within one business day” is a sentence that gets more forms filled in.
9. Links to related services. Someone reading about switchboards may also need safety switches or a smoke alarm check. Link them, and link back to the services index.
On the site we built for Richmond River Roofing in Ballina, each core service (metal roofing, roof repairs, restorations, guttering and so on) has its own page on a shared layout. The pages look consistent, but the words on each one are about that job.
Making it sound like you, not every other site
“Quality workmanship”, “reliable service” and “no job too big or small” appear on thousands of Australian service pages. They tell the reader nothing. Replace them with detail only someone who does the work would know.
Before: “We provide high-quality bathroom renovations at competitive prices with excellent customer service.”
After (written by the business, with its real numbers): “Most of our bathroom renovations take three to four weeks from strip-out to final clean. We do the plumbing, waterproofing and tiling ourselves, so there’s one person to call, and on day one we’ll tell you which days you’ll be without a shower.”
The second version is longer, but it answers three questions a customer has and proves you’ve done the job before.
A few practical rules while you write:
- Write one page at a time. Ten pages written in one afternoon end up saying the same thing with the noun swapped.
- Don’t paste the same three paragraphs onto every page. Google treats near-identical pages as duplicates and usually picks one to show.
- Use your customers’ words in headings. If they say “hot water system”, don’t call it a “water heating solution”.
- Put the main phrase in the title tag, the H1, the page address and the first paragraph. Then stop thinking about keywords and write for the person.
Mistakes we see after launch
Service pages that exist but aren’t in the menu, so nobody (Google included) finds them. A giant hero image with the real content three screens down. No way to enquire except going back to the Contact page.
The other mistake is treating the first version as finished. Service pages should get better as you learn what people ask. Add a question once you’ve answered it on the phone three times. Swap in a better photo when you finish a good job. In our experience, pages that get looked after hold their ground, and pages written once and forgotten slowly slide.
Where to start this week
Pick the one service you most want more work from. Write down the five questions customers ask before they book it, and the answers you give. Find three photos of real jobs. That’s most of a good service page, and you can do it before you touch the website.
If you’d rather hand the build over, our web design packages set up a proper page structure from day one, and our SEO work picks up from there. Once the service pages are sorted, the next question is usually suburbs, which is where location pages that aren’t spam comes in.