Ok, you’re a coach and you want to have a coaching website and better promote your counselling services. The first pace is to create a website and have an online identity.
But how do you know if your website will be a success?
Simply, by following these tips:
1. Choose an appropriate domain name for your coaching website
This is the very first step in creating your online identity as a coach. You have to select a domain name, one that can be easy remembered and by which people can identify you. One sure way to choose it rightly is to use your name. Check the availability of the domain and register it.
2. Choose an appropriate layout
Then, you should choose a layout that’s suitable for your coaching website. You can start building your website from the coaching website demo in the ColibriWP collection. In the following lines, we’ll walk you through what’s best to implement in a coaching website, to be a success.
3. Consider important topics for the coaching website
Stay relevant. It’s a must-have condition for a coaching website that has to be successful. In blog articles, podcasts or videos, you should use content that sustains your title and entitles you to work with people as a coach for them.
4. Optimize for client conversion
Obviously, your website should sell counselling services, coaching sessions and advice for a better, fulfilled life. How do you make this happen? Let’s see:
Choose to integrate photos of you
Many websites use free stock photos, but they’re not authentic, and they don’t speak about you as a person. But what clients need is for you to use personal photos, where you introduce yourself and let people know who you are. They’re speaking about your personality, about your success, and give a real presentation of you, their future coach.
Example Insight Coaching
Coaching specialty clearly presented in title and tagline
After a photo of you presented a clear message of who you are, you need to state what your mission is. Actually, you need to state the coaching specialty concisely, in the title and subtitle of the very homepage.
Otherwise, people won’t identify you as the problem-solver for their lives, and it won’t be clear to them how you can help them overcome their issues and solve their dilemmas.
Here’s an example of coaching specialty clearly stated in the title and tagline:
“Ready to create the best health of your life?” is clear enough for you to understand what type of coach she is. And it’s also clear if you need her advice as to how to get a healthier life.
Aspirational message that merges the counselling tips with the results you expect
This is the point where the coaching services and what people need converge. You need to display an aspirational message, that users identify with and indicates their wanted results. It’s also part of your work, of that work with yourself you tried and managed successfully to get to a good end.
In your homepage, maybe in the hero of the homepage, you should include an aspirational message that keeps people connected to your services.
Example of aspirational message
An aspirational message creates and sustains confidence in your services as a coach. People will be more inclined to respond to such a message than to something neutral, that doesn’t relate to them.
Give free content to people
This idea refers to sharing free knowledge that makes people want to learn more about your programs and their content.
If you’re not disclosing any information in your website, people won’t be able to form an idea of what you’re offering.
You should capitalize on the use of a blog or podcast or video platform, to share bits of the wisdom you’ve got.
Example of blog where a coach shares free knowledge with people:
Giving people small bits of information they find valuable will result in their subscription to your courses. Giving them food for thought will make them want to search for more.
You need to tell your story (empathy) and give advice (authority)
To be credible towards your audience, you have to tell your story. And tell it in the most authentic voice. By disclosing your own happenings and events that made you turn into a different, better person, you create a connection with your audience. You show empathy and you show you understand them well, as well as their problems. In the meantime, you need to give advice, that moves the needle and has the power to transform those people into better persons. You need to be authoritative, so you have credit in front of those people and for your advice to be followed.
Example of storytelling in a coaching website:
The storytelling personalizes you, makes you more human, with qualities and weaknesses that make you a real person. And that’s the very first reason why people would want to talk to you and search for your help. Because they know you had the same problems as theirs, and you’ve managed to overcome them. Now, it’s your turn to tell others how to overcome their own problems. Without emphasis, without compulsory actions, only because they decided to solve some issues with your help.
Qualifications
As a coach, you need to have the right qualifications. To be an authority in your field, you have to sustain your work with your own example and the qualifications that entitle you to teach others. There are some fields which require special training, and you have to prove that training was successful for you and allow you to practice as a coach.
Structure your message
For your message to be convincing, you have to structure it appropriately. Actually, you have to find the way you can reach your audience, by splitting your message into parts they follow until they see the solution to their problem. Structure it with headings and subheadings, and insert images that illustrate what you have to say. People will thus keep their attention onto your message and follow its parts until they get the whole meaning of it. And until they start working with you.
Get specific and to the point
No need to confuse readers with general stuff and theory. You need to get specific and to the point. To give examples and choose concreteness in what you have to say. Also, you can add testimonials that present additional cases where people succeeded in changing their life after some sessions with the coach.
List services by their prices
It’s possible that people be not so convinced from the start of your coaching effectiveness. They might be more inclined to start small, then groping for the answer to their problem (wondering if you could help them find this). This way, they’ll start investing more in their transformation process, and they’ll eventually subscribe to the full coaching program.
So, it’s ideal to list services by their prices, from the least costly to the more pricey, complete course.
Additional elements you can use to spice up your presentation
Suggest a quiz on the website
It might be a quiz to find out what type of person the user is. You might create some questions that have the role to define, step by step, the type of personality a user has. It’s fun and it’s educational, at the same time. And even more, it’s effective as a good start for coaching sessions with that type of person. You already know something about it, some personality traits they find it hard to unveil, what their inclinations are, what talents they have and what obstacles they put in their way.
Book a call – to schedule a session with the coach
This should be part of the menu items. A call serves as an introductory presentation that recommends you as client for the coaching sessions. The coach will know which level they are, what their life situation is, and where to start in their coaching sessions.
The “Book a Call”/”Work with Me” text should be placed on a CTA button right in the menu, so users who decide to contact the coach might do this without problems.
Run a blog
Run a blog, yes, it’s a very good idea. And in site, you should include snippets with latest from blog. So, you’re inviting users to find out more, to explore the content you put on pages, and see what you have to say, and how all belongs to a thinking and practicing system.
Actually, the blog is the first step in creating an engaging discussion with your readers. You should follow all effective channels and post relevant content that relates to them.
Example of blog attached to a coaching website:
An About page
Although we already tackled the topic of personal story above, we deem it important to reiterate it here. You can write an “About” you page that demonstrates how you have overcome difficulties and how you can help others overcome theirs, in their turn. You’ll sustain your work sessions and your credibility with your own story: as a person, as a coach.
An about you page makes you more human, a person who can be approached like any other person, that has its talents, and its weaknesses, the same hopes and sad moments like everybody else.
Testimonials – to see what other people are saying about the coach
Testimonials are a great way to convince people of your specialty and skills. It’s enough to have a few testimonials of people that endorse you as specialist in your domain. But, the more testimonials, the better. Your prestige will follow, as a result. And you’ll work more with new people and have the chance to get success for more persons that contact you for support.
Social media links to the coach’s accounts – where to share ideas
Posting in social media is a must-have for coaches that need to be next to people they’re trying to help. That’s why it’s a good idea to have links to social media accounts. People will find you more accessible and ready to answer their questions. You can get in touch with them, set the basis for some coaching sessions and schedule those sessions for when they’re prepared to speak about their problems of life/work/etc.
Resources from the coach
To share more content with your readers, and give them extra information they’ll need, you can think of including a section with resources from the coach. For example, this section might be filled with links, articles, videos that help people understand the importance of coaching.
You can try and make the website interactive
As the coaching sessions, the website itself might be interactive. This will help users engage with your content and be better prepared to book a session with you, and start working on their improvement.
Offer an e-book
One suggestion of extra information you could give to people coming to your blog is to offer an e-book. It might provide an overview of your coaching work and showcase the importance of your coaching sessions.
Design an appropriate Contact page
The Contact page is key for a coaching website. It gives the information people will use to reach you and speak to you, as well as book a session with you. Include email, phone number, physical address and a contact form, for a complete Contact page and a successful website.
How to create a coaching website with ColibriWP
Go to your account and select the coaching demo website in ColibriWP. Then start designing.
- Insert a logo
From the Customizer, insert a logo for your coaching website. It might be a text logo or an image logo. To observe the UX guidelines, you should make the logo link to the homepage (when users click on the logo, they’ll be driven to the website homepage).
- Define the menu
Click inside the menu section in the Customizer and open the panel with customization options for the dropdown menu. You can edit both the menu structure and the menu style. As you can see, there’s already an “About” section in the menu, where you can give an ample presentation of yourself. Also, there’s a link to the blog, and a link to courses you provide.
- Edit the title and subtitle
In editing the title and subtitle, you can choose a preferred font family and weight, as well as your own colors for the text. The demo presents all these variations, you can customize after you click onto the text in the Customizer.
Also, you can notice that text color and CTA button color match, as the demo website suggests a certain color scheme for your website.
You can change the default color scheme with your own, by clicking on General Settings -> Global Color Scheme.
Customize elements that directly impact the site efficiency
- CTA button
Undoubtedly, the CTA buttons couldn’t miss. There are 2 call-to-action buttons in the Hero of the website homepage, and you can customize them to your liking. You can suppress one of them, add a new button and adjust their style. The same principle is applied as in the case of any component: you click onto the item in the Customizer, and you open the panel with customization options for that component.
- Content sections
The homepage, as well as the other pages in the website, can be customized with content sections of your own. These can include text, images, buttons.
Some other elements to customize
- Contact
As already mentioned, it’s important to include your contact information. In this demo, you can replace the default data with your own, in the page footer. Also, you have a contact form directly in the homepage, for people who want to schedule coaching sessions.
If the contact data don’t fit well inn the homepage, you can create a separate Contact page to include all relevant information (phone number, email address, physical address, social media buttons, contact form).
- Add predefined blog/add blank block
To add more sections to your pages, you can choose between adding a predefined block (by selecting it from the ColibriWP list of blocks) and adding a blank block (you can create it from scratch).
- Customize the website footer
In the Customizer, click on “Choose Footer Design”. You have 5+ options of footer you can select from, and customize to your liking. The default footer looks like this:
Starting from this template, you can customize your coaching website according to your design plan, and to your preferences. You can put in content that represents you, defines you and tells people who you are. Your own story and certifications as a coach might sustain your message. Users should easily find contact data, which is key for the website.
Also, in terms of branding, you have the option to insert a customized logo and create your own color scheme. As well, you can start from the default color scheme and adjust it to your liking. Pay special attention to call-to-action buttons, make it easy for people to book coaching sessions.
All in all, this demo website gives you all you need to create your own coaching website. Use it as a starting point, and create a website that perfectly defines you as a coach.
