The coaching industry has taken off in recent years, making it a viable but competitive business for many trying to make a living as professional coaches. Professional coaching is estimated as a $1 billion dollar industry in the United States and nearly $3 billion worldwide.
What is “professional coaching”? The International Coaching Federation1 describes professional coaching as the process of “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” This covers coaches helping all types of professionals and individuals.
In this guide, we are going to cover the concepts of digital marketing and how to apply overall best practices to your website and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a professional coach.
Digital marketing, according to Hubspot2, refers to - “all marketing efforts that occur on the internet and businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers. This also includes communication through text or multimedia messages.”
Once you identify the services you are offering, it is critical to clearly identify your target audience or “customer avatar” and be as clear as possible. Are they typically male, female, or a mix? What age range? What are their goals, aspirations, and pain points? Why do they need you?
Once you have identified this and are very clear, work on getting answers to these questions:
When considering your logo, remember that it should be the base for all of your marketing materials and a visual connector across all platforms. We have found the best way to get started with determining your business’s and client’s archetype by taking a brand quiz by Kaye Putnam3, a brand expert. This quiz will help you pick colors, fonts, and commonly used words.
Is there a background you can use with your logo to compliment it? Consider finding something that works with your logo that you can use as the banner and accents on your website, business cards, social media platforms, and all promotional materials – basically ANYTHING you use for marketing!
A web presence is necessary for modern businesses. Social media is a great place to share about yourself and your business and to communicate directly with clients and prospects, but you don’t own the data and you can lose access to your connections at any moment and without warning. On the contrary, you OWN your website, the contact list you build from your website, and the contacts you store in your CRM (i.e. MailerLite, KEAP, etc.).
When someone visits your website, they are likely a prospective client, and this is your opportunity to interact with that person to start building a relationship with them. As networking and referral expert Bob Burg4 says:
“All things being equal, people do business with, and
refer business to people they know, like and trust.”
To help establish and grow the relationship, consider some or all of these things for your website:
When building your website, or having it built, there are several things to consider, including:
With your website as the hub of your business, you can use it to provide additional services for your clients. You can also integrate it with other tools for more options and efficiencies. Below are a few to consider:
What is SEO exactly? According to Mailchimp, “SEO means Search Engine Optimization and is the process used to optimize a website's technical configuration, content relevance, and link popularity so its pages can become easily findable, more relevant and popular towards user search queries, and as a consequence, search engines rank them better.”
Showing up at the top of Google searches is one of the greatest challenges in digital marketing, primarily due to the complexity and secrecy around Google’s algorithms. It is also a slow process. It typically takes three to six months before you see any significant changes in traffic from SEO improvements.
There are several free tools to consider when improving your SEO:
In May 2021, Google made a massive change to its algorithms, putting more emphasis than ever on the user experience, most importantly:
Google will always favor new and relevant data over old, stagnant data. Therfore, Google is looking at areas like blogs on your website, podcasts, images (both on your website and Google Business Profile), and videos (both on your website and on YouTube).
Podcasts and blogs are great ways to increase keywords on your website. According to the marketing experts at Hubspot, businesses that regularly blog attract 55% more traffic than those that don't!
In Google’s most recent algorithm update in May 2021, they stressed loading speed as a key factor. It can affect by image size, videos, and the platform itself. Ideal images should be 500 px by 500 px to 2000 px by 2000 px and under 1 MB. For videos, YouTube or Vimeo are ideal stories platforms because it reduces the load on your website. YouTube is the best option to load videos because of its customer-facing SEO algorithm.
How easily can someone navigate and move around your site and read text? Nothing must be off the screen in desktop or mobile views. Over 60% of Internet users are on mobile these days so mobile optimization is critical. Google is strongly discouraging the use of pop-ups for every platform because it blocks the data your website viewer is trying to see.
EVERY website must have an SSL certificate – that is the piece that gives you the lock icon and the “s” at the end of HTTP. SSL certificates come free with most platforms. It is not expensive and not difficult to install, but can have a major impact on website accessibility and showing up in searches so it’s critical to have in place.
The more reviews and the better the reviews, the better Google will respond. Again, this is current, relevant data in Google Business Profile (and on your website if you’re posting there, too). Positive reviews are also excellent for your business's overall reputation management. Did you know that
• 79% of consumers trust online reviews
• 87% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses
• 73% of U.S. consumers only consider the last month’s review
• 48% of consumers would consider less than 4 stars reviews
Investing in an automated or manual review request and follow-up process to improve the number and quality of your reviews is a valuable tool.
Do you know where you stand in search engines and whether or not you show up on the first page? It’s really difficult to answer this question just by entering searches. The best way to truly know where you stand, and to see what issues your website may have, is through a professional SEO Analysis. Click here if you are interested in having a full SEO audit with a follow-up call to review what we find.
BizBolster Web Solutions offers custom websites specifically for the professional coaching industry. These are pre-built sites that we customize to your colors, fonts, wording, and specialties. We also include opt-ins and varying levels of SEO since we feel so strongly that your website needs to START as a strong marketing tool!
Check out our custom Professional Coaching website packages at: https://www.bizbolster.com/coaching-packages.
At BizBolster Web Solutions, we give small business owners what they need to be seen and consistently bring in new business! We design websites and set up tools that not only attract new prospects, but also start building the know, like, and trust factors for those prospects when they hit the website. Through exceptional websites and targeted SEO, our clients are not only found online, but are also able to convey their area of expertise as well as the WIFM (What’s In It For Me?) for their prospects. Ultimately, our goal is to increase sales for small business owners while taking the technology woes off your plate, allowing you to do what you love while we do what we love!
References:
1. International Coaching Federation: https://coachfederation.org/about
2. Hubspot: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-digital-marketing
3. Kaye Putnum: https://www.kayeputnam.com/brand-archetypes/
4. Bob Burg saying: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2012/03/09/the-know-like-and-trust-factor/
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