Hi Nicola,
Thanks for your thoughtful replies.
New ways of thinking can open up paths forward that were not there moments ago! Those new thoughts bring with them, new confidence 
If you have time, find out about “Ideal Customer (client) Avatar” and also “Elevator Pitch” and do some work on them before choosing the ultimate pro provider.
Essentially, you want to know who you want to appeal to and who you don’t want to appeal to and then how to appeal to them.
Once you have these key elements, you will be in a better position to provide an accurate brief to a provider.
Let me give you an example of both from my business and why it helps so much.
Who
I claim my service is “Expert and Affordable” – this guides me in that I am not trying to be all things to all people so I have a built in Edit button. The chances are that if my content does not support Expert or Affordable, it will not make it to my website.Equally, if it does support my claim, I want it there. For example, I have a prices page that speaks directly to “Affordable” that most others in my industry don’t have.
How
Well firstly I try to keep my copy all about my customer, not about me. So I use the word “you” a lot and try to cut the words “me” or “I” as much as possible.
As I gained experience running the business, I would hear recurring themes (complaints) about previous experiences the prospect had. After at least a couple of examples of the same complaint, I would flip the bad experience into a positive experience and incorporate it into my website.
For example, if a couple of prospects said, “My cleaners are never on time”, I would turn that into a positive for the copy. Something like, “You deserve on-time cleaners so we have an on-time guarantee”. (Notice I led with “You”?).
If parents are telling you what their frustrations or bad experiences are, and you can incorporate fixes into your business and execute those fixes well, use them in your copy because they speak to real people’s problems and people will pay for having their problems solved.
If you make a claim, you need to back it up – though obvious, it is not good enough just to have an appealing website and then not deliver in real life.
These are just part of my strategy but I hope they exemplify why I think it is a good idea to do some research so you can provide a good brief before paying out the $$$.
Cheers
