This is a guest post written by Nina Ritz. Want to contribute? Check out the 2018 publishing calendar.

Running a blog as a part of your content marketing strategy is a great way to boost your coaching website’s traffic, your brand and directly influence your sales. Around 60% of marketers have made blogs their top priority when it comes to inbound marketing strategies. And it’s no wonder – blogs are a great way to present your coaching business and your services and gain loyal, long-term clients. Around one-third of people who read blogs do it to narrow down or confirm their buying choices.

Nevertheless, more than 40% of readers tend to just scan through the articles. The mere number of blog posts written everyday is such that people are becoming overwhelmed with them and their attention spans aren’t getting longer. That’s why it’s crucial to draw attention to readers in other ways and a smart visual strategy is by far the most effective one.

Namely, articles with images generate an impressive 94% more views than those without any visuals. And that’s just images – there are numerous other visual elements that can be employed to improve your blog. Here are a few most important ones.

Branding elements

The overall visual identity of your coaching blog and website should largely depend of your brand’s ideas and values, your coaching speciality, as well as your intended target audience. Your background colors and your logo have to be consistent and recognizable so that the audience is able to identify that a blog post is yours just by taking a brief look at it. Therefore, first think about what your company stands for and what’s the message it’s sending out.

Once you’ve done that, choose your colors accordingly. For instance, green stands for growth and success, while yellow symbolizes happiness and tranquility. There are colors that represent two or more conflicting concepts and their meaning depends on the context, like red, which can signify both love and hate. Do your homework when it comes to the symbolism of colors and use them to strengthen your brand and make it more recognizable.

CTA buttons

The whole point of having a blog on your coaching website is, as you might have suspected, letting people know about your coaching services and products and to establish yourself as an expert in topics related to your coaching. Of course, your focus should be on the content, not the promotion, but at the end of the day, if you don’t inform readers that the author of the blog is also selling something, it’s not going to do much good for your business. Inviting people to subscribe, sign-up or buy stuff is done with call-to-action (CTA) buttons carefully incorporated into your posts.

There are numerous ways to place call-to-action buttons, most popular being the sidebar or the very end of the article. The exact place you’ll choose depends on the overall design of your blog or website, but try to make it subtle and visible at the same time. You don’t want to throw them into people’s faces, yet they have to stick out in a way so that readers should notice them. Same goes for the colors and design of these buttons – use the colors that’ll make them clear and discernible, but not too flashy or flamboyant.

Videos

The effect that use of videos has on all relevant performance indicators is immense. Videos can double the amount of time people spend on your site, but they also largely and positively affect your traffic, CTR, ROI, conversions, sales and much more. Thus, investing in making videos for your coaching blog is a great idea. The budget that you’re going to allocate for this purpose depends on the type of videos you want to create and their function in your marketing plan. To produce simple stuff like vlogs or product reviews, simple gear and editing programs will do the job just fine. For more complex formats, you could rent the gear and pay someone to edit the material, or you can simply hire a video production agency. Whatever you choose, it’s most likely to be money well-spent.

Social proof

It’s much easier to encourage people to read a piece by a coach that’s already gained some recognition from others. This is done through clever placement of different types of social proofs. The most common method is to display the number of shares or likes an article has earned on each social network. These are usually shown on sidebars or at the bottom of the page. You should make this piece of information visible and clear, but also make sure it doesn’t take too much space.

Other types of social proofs include client testimonials or a list of your clients and their outcomes (companies that hired them) and displaying these on your page can sometimes be your best recommendation.

Infographics

Some studies reveal that an average person remembers only 10% of what they heard three days ago. Yet, when there’s a picture associated with information, this number rises up to 65%. That’s why it’s a pretty good idea to try to compress a great deal of interesting data and insights into colorful and engaging infographics. Infographics are an excellent way to teach people some relevant new things and keep them amused at the same time.

On the same token, use of screenshots is also recommendable. If how-to guides are a part of your content, then screenshots enriched with just a few arrows and boxes are a very smart way to make life easier for both you and your audience.

Simplicity is king

At the very end, you have to have in mind that when employing all these elements it’s vital that you manage to keep things clean and simple. Don’t overdo it. Users are overwhelmed and tired of flashy and pompous web designs that look like they could cause an epileptic seizure. Sometimes, less is more. Keep your coaching blog’s visual identity simple and elegant, and that will ensure a pleasant and enjoyable experience for your readers.

About Nina Ritz

Nina is a digital nomad and a blogger. Her main interests are web design and marketing. In her free time, when she's away from the computer, she likes to do yoga and ride a bike. You can find her on Twitter.

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