The Basics of Selling Your Services Online - BobWP Monetizer Podcast

In today’s podcast I am revisiting something I have talked about a lot: selling your services online. There is an art to it so, let’s  start with the basics.

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When we talk about selling online, we often think of products. In fact, when I spoke at WooConf last year, that was exactly one of my problems when I first dove into eCommerce.

As time went on, I realized that, really, I had already been selling online for some time.

I Was Selling My Services

Selling your services online is a broad area and covers a large percentage of all business websites. Selling your services on your site can be direct, indirect or a mix of both.

Indirect – This is what most business sites do. We use our websites to promote and pull in customers. Our sites are built to entice new clients with our promises and our brand.

Direct – This is when your services can be bought directly online and many times the service itself is online. For example, online coaching or consulting. You may charge for one-hour consults, giving clients an opportunity to book and pay, then providing the consult via Skype or another online service.

Both – Many of you will have a mix of both. Your consultations can be online, but your services, such as in-depth coaching, may need to be booked and paid for in person.

Keep It Simple

When people are purchasing your services online, make it as simple as possible. But at the same time, make sure to clarify what it is you are offering. If necessary, ask questions, possibly via a form or questionnaire. And always give them an easy way to ask you more questions if they are still on the fence.

What Should I Use on My Site to Sell My Services?

As with most ways of monetizing your site, it really depends on your needs.

Contact Forms

Some of the more advanced contact form plugins allow you to connect forms with specific gateway payments. So someone can fill out a form, answer the questions you need to know and pay you now. Gravity Forms and WPForms are a couple of examples of this. Both give you the options for add-ons that you can use to tie into payment gateways on PayPal and Stripe.

eCommerce Plugins

There are lots of eCommerce plugins out there. Most of them might be overkill if you are simply selling a single service or two on your site. In fact, there are several free  widgets that work with PayPal that you can use for this.

If you are thinking of growing the eCommerce part of your site,  you may need a larger, more extensive eCommerce plugin, like WooCommerce. In the instances where you want something more packaged, without having to pick and choose add-ons or deal with additional costs for payment gateways, it might be Cart66. Whatever the case, take some time to evaluate your current and future needs and decide what will work best for you.

PayPal Buttons

If you have a PayPal account, it’s fairly easy to set up a payment button within your account and simply paste the code into a page or post. It’s that ugly, but well-known yellow button. There are also free widgets that will connect PayPal to your site to take simple donations.

And a Lot More

As you can see,