Making One Template Work for Nine Services

Why a template helps

Because writing nine pages from scratch produces nine different shapes, and a visitor comparing two services has to relearn the layout each time.

A consistent structure means somebody who read one page knows where to find the price on the next.

It also makes writing easier, since a blank page is harder than a set of headings to fill in.

And it prevents the common failure where the first service page is thorough and the ninth is two sentences.

The structure that works

• What it is, in plain terms, in the first paragraph.
• What the job involves, step by step.
• What it costs, as a range with what moves it.
• How long it takes, and how disruptive it is.
• Two or three real examples with photographs.
• The questions people ask about that service.
• What to do next.

Each of those sections forces specifics, which is the point. A section called about this service invites a paragraph of nothing; a section called what it costs does not.

The duplication risk

The failure this approach can produce if applied without care.

Nine pages with the same structure and interchangeable content are nine thin pages, and search engines handle them poorly.

The test is whether a paragraph could be moved from one page to another without anybody noticing. If it could, it is not doing anything.

Which means the template provides the questions and the answers must genuinely differ.

A business that cannot say anything specific about a service has probably discovered that it does not really offer it separately.

A worked example

A trade with nine listed services, each with a page of roughly two hundred words.

Six of the pages were substantially the same text with the service name swapped.

None of them ranked for anything, and enquiries came almost entirely through the homepage.

They cut to four services, wrote each page properly using the structure above, and folded the remaining five into those four as things they also do.

The four pages ran to roughly eight hundred words each and contained prices, timescales and examples.

Within a few months three of the four were appearing for their own searches, and enquiries began arriving on service pages rather than only on the homepage.

Fewer, fuller pages

The counterintuitive part, and it holds consistently.

Nine thin pages compete with each other and with everybody else, and none has enough substance to rank or to persuade.

Four substantial pages have room for the specifics that make somebody choose, and each is distinct enough to be found.

The instinct is that more pages means more chances to be found, and it is wrong when the pages have nothing in them.

The right number is however many services you can genuinely write eight hundred useful words about.

What varies and what does not

Worth deciding once, since it determines how much work each page is.

Constant across pages: the structure, the section headings, the way prices are presented, the closing action, and anything about the business generally.

Different on every page: what the job involves, the price range, the timescale, the examples, the photographs, and the questions.

Anything in the second list that turns out to be the same across services is a signal that the services are not distinct enough to warrant separate pages.

Which is useful information rather than a problem, and it usually leads to a shorter and better site.

Linking between them

The part that turns a set of pages into a structure.

Each service page should link to the two or three related ones, in the text, with descriptive link text.

Which helps a visitor who arrived on the wrong page find the right one without going back to the menu, and helps search engines understand how the services relate.

The natural place is where a service genuinely connects to another: mentioning that a bathroom refit usually involves tiling, and linking to the tiling page.

What does not work is a block of related services links at the bottom of every page, generated automatically, which reads as filler and frequently links to whatever was published most recently.

The counter-case

Where more pages are correct.

A business with genuinely distinct services bought by different customers, where each page has its own audience and its own searches.

A shop with products, where a page per product is the structure and thinness is handled by specifications rather than prose.

And a business targeting several towns, where area pages are legitimate provided each contains genuinely local content rather than the same text with a name swapped.

The distinction throughout is whether the page has something of its own to say.

Maintaining them

The practical consideration that decides whether this stays good.

Nine pages with prices means nine places to update when prices change, and a business will update three of them.

Which produces a site contradicting itself, and a customer quoting the page you forgot.

The options: fewer pages, prices held in one place and referenced, or a note on each page saying when it was last reviewed and that figures are indicative.

The third is the cheapest and it is honest, and it should not become an excuse for pages nobody has looked at since 2018.

The order to write them

Worth deciding, since all nine rarely get written at once.

Start with the service producing the most revenue, not the one that is easiest to describe.

That page gets the most attention, sets the pattern, and returns the most if it works.

Then the second most valuable, and so on, which means that if the project stalls at page three, the three that exist are the three that mattered.

Building it

1. List the services you can write properly about.
2. Cut the list to that number.
3. Write the structure once as a set of headings.
4. Fill it for the most valuable service first.
5. Check no paragraph could move between pages.
6. Set a review date for the prices.

The fifth is the test that separates a template from duplication, and it takes a few minutes per page once they are written.

What each page should contain is covered in describing a service without listing features.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.