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The Anatomy Of A Great Coaching Website

March 23, 2018 by Kristen Moran

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

If you are hoping to make sway as a life coach, your website will be fundamental to your digital (and overall) brand.

As well as your social media campaigns, webinars and YouTube channel, your potential customers will be checking out your website when they find you online.

An old-looking site, with a decade-old photo of you and a short ‘About me’ blurb is not going to cut it.

But don’t worry, you don't have to hire a marketing team to set you up with a decent online hub. You just need to make sure that your business site is building trust in the right ways.

This post will outline the anatomy of a great business coach website.

Home page/landing page

The front page of your site may be the first thing many visitors see of you online, so you need to make sure it’s captivating.

If you are in the business of building people up, you will need to establish an inspiring hook through your visual design.

Hero images are a favorite web design feature because they really work. “A picture paints a thousand words,” as the old saying goes. Make sure that you are creating a positive emotional reaction in the visitor with your hero banner.   

Image credit: Alycia Wicker

Throughout your site, to build credibility, try to move away from stock image photos that haven’t been edited or overlaid with your visual style. Sites like Burst can be great for those looking to pretty-up a personal blog post, but in order to stand out from the crowd with your homepage, go for something original. You could even include a short video that plays on a loop!

  1. Create a stunning headline that invites readers to find out how your services can help them meet their ultimate life goals?

  2. Break your services down into subheadings and bullet points. Create illustrative icons to add a graphic element to your offerings.

  3. Add positive testimonials from past clients. See if you can use a photo to add credibility to their quotes.

  4. Ensure that you showcase links to other networks. If you have an email newsletter, create a sign-up button. Link your social media accounts and include a feed of your latest posts. Make it easy for your visitors to connect with you from the moment they land on your site.

  5. You can find tools that will allow you to create opt-in popups that attract email subscribers automatically. Make sure that you are offering useful information within your newsletter content, rather than just a repost of your monthly blog updates.

"About me" page

This is the second most-viewed page on your coaching website. But in many ways, your "About me" page may be more important than your homepage.

Your "About me" page is where you get a chance to share personal details about yourself, show off your credentials and build credibility with potential clients.

Be prepared to write up to 800 words for your blurb and don’t be afraid to get personal.

Talk about your passions in life and how they got you to where you are today. Customers want to know what you are motivated to get up in the morning for.

People like to read copy they can relate to. If you have an amusing anecdote or an experience that drastically changed the course of your career, talk about in this post. Sharing an unusual detail will help make you memorable.

Image credit: Anna Herremans

You should also use this space to talk about your business values. What do you strive to do for each of your customers and how can you prove it?

You must also include an up-to-date photo of yourself. Make it friendly-looking and hire a professional photographer. This imagery builds trust. Your clients will want to see what you look like before parting with their money.

Personal blog

You will need to make sure that you are contributing to the online community if you want to be taken seriously as a coach.

Share some of your secrets on a regular basis and build an online following through your blog. Not only will content help you draw in organic search traffic, blogging social proof will also build trust with existing clients. So, it is worth the effort to post even when you’re busy!  

If you think that your little blog can’t compete with a leading industry site, think again. You do not need to post every single day.

But, if you publish very long works with extensive research, you can keep these posts circulating as evergreen content that will not date. You can promote these posts on your social media accounts and even turn them into paid campaigns to attract more views.

Image credit: Chris Brogan

Blog content also helps search engine crawlers find out more about your site and your services. If you are answering critical questions within your content, you can attract more attention from Google search.

Conducting keyword and audience research can help you find targeted questions and create an efficient blogging workflow system. Use imagery and infographics and find ways you can incorporate video and interview quotes into your copy. Set up live streams on YouTube and Facebook Live to attract more viewers to your site.

Guest blogging on leading industry sites will also help you build up your blog audience. Through your online network, cultivate relationships with thought leaders and coaches in your niche.

Blogging in 2018 comes in many different forms. The idea is always to add value to your audience's lives (free of charge) if you want to build a long-lasting business.

Contact page

The final, and crucial, checkbox on your route to building the best coaching website: your contact page.

You need to make it easy to find and contact you at all hours of the day — so you might want to have an easy-to-use form or chatbot on your site to capture people’s details on the go. Try to get people to leave you with essential data quickly, but don’t be too pushy with your pop ups either. Link to your social media profiles and encourage people to follow you and don’t be afraid to add a bit of personality with a funny anecdote.

Throughout your site, aim to create a cohesive brand identity. Make your typefaces bold and beautiful and settle on a color palette that gives your business a recognizable image.

Graphic designers would be a help in this area of the website build if you’re not so graphically able!

About Victoria Greene

Victoria Greene is a writer and branding expert. She writes for her own blog over at Victoriaecommerce. Here, she shares her best tips with business coaches looking to make the most of their online presence. 

 

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