Can a Blog Post Act As a Service Page?

Businesses often separate their website content into neat categories. Blog posts are used to attract readers through helpful information, while service pages are designed to explain what a business offers and encourage potential customers to get in touch. However, the line between these two types of content isn’t always clear. 

A detailed blog post can rank for valuable keywords, explain a customer’s problem, demonstrate expertise and encourage readers to enquire. However, this raises an important question of whether a blog post can act as a service page. The short answer? Yes, they can. On the other hand, there are limitations that you should be aware of. Let’s take a closer look:

What is a service page?

A service page is a website page specifically designed to explain a service offered by a business. For instance, a digital marketing agency might have separate service pages for SEO services, content marketing, social media management, PPC advertising, and email marketing. The main purpose of a service page is to help potential customers understand what the business offers and encourage them to take the next step in their consumer journey. 

A typical service page may include things like: a clear description of the service, the problems the service solves, the details about the process, the benefits and outcomes associated with choosing the service, pricing information, package information, testimonials or case studies, frequently asked questions and clear calls to action (CTAs). 

Service pages are usually designed with commercial or transactional intent in mind. The visitor may already know what they need and be looking for a suitable provider. For instance, someone searching for ‘SEO agency for small businesses’ is likely to be looking for a company that offers SEO services. They may want to compare providers, review experience and decide who to contact. A service page should make that decision as easy as possible, basically.

What is a blog post? 

A blog post is generally created to provide information, answer questions, educate an audience and attract organic search traffic. Typical blog post topics will include things like: ‘how does SEO work?’, ‘how much does SEO cost?’, ‘what are the benefits of content marketing?’, and ‘how can small businesses improve their Google rankings?’. 

Blog posts usually target people early in the customer journey, particularly those who are researching a problem or looking for advice. For instance, a person searching for ‘how to improve my website’s SEO’ may not yet be ready to hire a marketing agency. 

They instead may simply want to understand the changes that they can make themselves. The goal of a blog post is often to build awareness, create a relationship with the reader and demonstrate expertise. However, that doesn’t mean a blog can’t also generate leads. 

Blog posts acting as service pages: when can you do it?

A blog post can act like a service page, but only if it does more than simply provide information. If you had an article entitled ‘everything you need to know about SEO services for small businesses’, then the article should explain:

• What SEO services involve
• Why small businesses need SEO
• What’s included in an SEO campaign
• How much SEO costs
• How to choose an SEO service provider
• What results a business can realistically expect from SEO services

You should also explain how your own service helps clients to achieve their goals, for example, “Looking for help with SEO? Speak to our team about creating a strategy for your business.” That statement can be put at the end of a blog post as a call to action (CTA). In this situation, the blog post is doing some of the work traditionally performed by a service page. It’s educating the visitor, demonstrating expertise and encouraging them to enquire. For some businesses, particularly smaller ones, a detailed, well-optimised article may even be enough to generate service enquiries. 

What are the benefits of using blog posts to support service pages?

Although a blog post may not always replace a service page, it can be an extremely valuable part of a service-focused SEO strategy. It can do a wealth of things, including targeting informational keywords, demonstrating expertise, creating internal linking opportunities and capturing long-tail searches. Let’s take a look at those benefits in more detail:

It can target informational keywords 

A dedicated service page may target broad commercial keywords, like content marketing services, but supporting blog posts can target more specific questions, such as: 

• What does a content marketing agency do? 
• How much does content marketing cost? 
• Is content marketing worth it? 
• How often should a business publish blog posts? 

These articles can attract users who are still researching the subject. Over time, some of those readers may become potential customers, which is exactly what you want. 

It helps demonstrate expertise

Detailed blog content gives businesses an opportunity to demonstrate knowledge that may not fit naturally onto a standard service page. For instance, an accounting firm offering tax planning services could publish detailed articles that explain common tax issues, changes affecting businesses and planning strategies. When potential customers see useful, knowledgeable content, they may feel more confident about contacting the business. The blog posts will then effectively support the service by helping to establish trust and credibility. 

It creates internal linking opportunities

Blog posts can link naturally to relevant service pages. For instance, an article about ‘the benefits of local SEO’ could include a contextual link to the company’s local SEO service. This will help readers to move from educational content towards a commercial page that will teach them more. It can also help to create clearer topical relationships between the different pages on a website. A strong internal linking structure allows users to move easily between related information as opposed to forcing them to search around the website. 

It can capture long-tail searches

Service pages will often target broad, competitive keywords. Blog posts can focus on more specific long-tail searches. For instance, an agency may have a service page that targets SEO services. As such, it will then be beneficial to publish articles that target things like:

• Is SEO worth it for a small business?
• How long does SEO take to work?
• What does an SEO audit include?
• Can I do SEO myself?

These sorts of searches will lower individual search volumes, but together they can attract a highly relevant audience. Some of those users may eventually need professional help, and you can help with that. 

Why you should always choose a service page over a blog post

While a blog post can perform some of the functions of a service page, there are several reasons why a dedicated service page is usually the better choice for businesses that actively sell a service. Some of the reasons why you should always choose a service page over a blog post to do the same job are as follows:

Clearer conversion goals 

A blog post has several goals, whereas a service page has one, and it’s usually more focused and actionable. This makes it easier to design the page around conversion as opposed to anything else.

A more suitable structure 

Service pages are structured specifically for potential customers, such as: What is the service? Who is it for? What problems does it solve? What’s included? How does the process work? Why choose the business? What results have previous clients achieved? How can the visitor get started? This structure may feel unnatural in a typical blog post.

Stronger commercial relevance 

A dedicated service page makes it clear that the business offers that particular service. Visitors shouldn’t have to read several thousand words before discovering that the company can help them. A service page quickly communicates what’s offered from the beginning, whereas a blog post will take a while to get there.

Easier to optimise for commercial searches 

A dedicated service page focuses entirely on the language, questions, and concerns associated with a particular service. It can include relevant information about service features, industries served, locations covered, pricing, case studies, testimonials, FAQs, enquiries and consultations. This makes it easier to create a page that’s closely aligned with users who are actively looking for a provider.

Can a blog post be turned into a service page?

Yes. You can take a blog post and turn it into a service page. You could even base a service page on a blog post if it’s relevant and applicable. In some cases, an existing blog post can be developed into a more commercially focused landing page or service page, essentially. However, before making such changes, you need to consider the following things:

• The keywords the page is currently ranking for
• The search intent behind those keywords
• Existing audience type: is it informational or commercial?
• If the page already generates enquiries
• If changing the content could negatively affect its current ranking

If the page attracts mostly informational traffic, then turning it into an overtly commercial service page could make it less useful for the audience that visits it currently. In most cases, the better solution would be to keep the blog post completely separate from the service page in every way possible. The two things can support each other through relevant internal links, but it should really be left at that. 

What is the best approach? 

The best approach moving forward is to use both content types. It’s not usually a good idea to choose one or the other when it comes to blog posts and service pages. Instead, they need to work together, without doing the job of one another, if that makes sense. They should be separate entities, but they also need to support the other. So, you should use both if you want to choose the best approach. 

A dedicated service page can target users who are actively looking for the service, while blog content can answer the questions potential customers ask before they’re ready to actually buy or enquire about anything. For instance, website designers, like us here at Kumo, could have a website page titled ‘website design services’. They could then support that page with articles like:

• How much does a new website cost?
• How long does it take to build a website?
• What should a small business website include?
• Should you use a website builder or hire a website designer?
• How often should you redesign your website?

Each article can provide genuinely useful information and link naturally to the main website design service. This helps to create a clearer content journey. Readers can discover the business through an informational search, learn more through useful content and visit the service page when they’re ready to consider professional help. 

Kumo is pleased to provide a wide range of digital marketing services, including content creation, SEO, PPC, website design and more. You can rest assured that our team of dedicated experts can set you apart from your competitors with excellent content creation and copywriting services. If you’d like further information about how we can help you today, get in touch with a member of our friendly, specialist team – we’re always happy to hear from you.