What’s your coaching website done for you lately?
Does it help you enroll ideal clients or just sit there collecting cyber-dust?
Most first websites are duds. They’re just online brochures all about the coach and coaching with no mention of the audience, only a list of all the ways the coach can help anyone.
That’s because the website was created before the coach:
- Chose a viable target audience to serve
- Knows the big problems that cause them to seek answers, and
- Writes trust-building copy informed by research (and I don’t mean AI!)
Web designers will gladly create a pretty and trendy website but nothing much comes of it. They don’t know your audience. That’s your job.
My first 2 coaching websites were duds.
Your second site can be far better than mine!
Let’s take a journey through a client-winning website, what it can do and what you cannot expect it to do on its own.
The Real Purpose of Your Coaching Website
First, please don’t stress or make it mean something about your future if your current website is a dud. Nearly all businesses miss the mark on their first websites. The light bulb comes on bright after a failure.
Next, I’m not a web designer and I’m not talking about the tech, which is a topic for another episode. I’m talking about messaging—the way you’ll shift prospects into paying clients in a non pushy way. I’ve been a niche, marketing and messaging mentor for coaches for over 20 years now.
Some people miss the point of what a website is for.
So, what is the critical goal of your website? Should you expect a website to attract visitors who are ready to become clients just by being in existence? No. For a website to work, it needs a smart strategy, processes that happen before during and after the visit.
Your website should be a HOME for your target audience.
A place they feel seen, understood and served.
An experience that confirms you’re worth another look.
Through a series of small moments, you confirm that they are in the right place. If they are not, then they’ll go away and that’s by design.
If you try to push the river and get to a fast enrollment on your website,
you’ll turn off or confuse most visitors.
And they will never return.
The 1st of 5 things that make a coaching website client winning is to target ONE viable audience who is ideal for you and find out exactly who they are and what they want.
If you haven’t chosen a viable target audience and developed a strategic niche yet, do that first before you create a website.
GRAB a NAIL YOUR NICHE SESSION with me and we’ll cross that off the list together.
Imagine Your Coaching Prospects Journey Online
To understand the other 4 things that make a website client-winning, start with a quick visualization…
Imagine you’re online because you are actively seeking an answer related to your coaching business.
You’ve hit a stuck place. You’re feeling uncertain and frustrated by all the noise out there. What should you be paying attention to? Where do you start?
Then suddenly a social post or podcast episode comes into your awareness and hits the spot. You slow down and feel inspired to look deeper into the person posting.
Each time you experience content from this person, that just right feeling is reinforced. There’s a connection. You feel like the mentor is talking directly to you.
You nod your head, smile or laugh because THEY GET YOU!
The other voices of coaches, mentors and experts you’ve been following seem to fall away. And, after a handful more online connections you feel an impulse.
Just a week ago I received a message from a coach saying “Your podcast sparked something!” They wanted to see if they could work with me and during a Discovery Call a week later they hired me!
That’s what YOU want to happen with your audience!
Sometimes it happens that directly or more often, after more percolation the coach visits my website, finds my VIP Mentoring page because they’ve heard me talk about it on my podcast, and they are inspired to fill out the application there.
When I receive their submission, I quickly reply sharing more details about what it’s like to work with me and what specifically we’ll accomplish together. I personally invite them to a get-to-know you call with a link to my calendar, where there’s more reassuring messaging.
In the meantime, I send them back to my website to read What Clients Say—testimonials from coaches who graduated from my 5-month VIP Mentoring program and to sample a few more handpicked podcast episodes.
That’s the 2nd of 5 things that make a coaching website client-winning. Its designed to inspire a RETURN VISIT and next step.
By the time we meet they are pre-sold on working with me.
That strategically designed path to becoming my client is MY customer journey. You can create one too in conjunction with your new, better website.
Did you notice the role my website played?
It’s NOT about fast conversion.
It was not there to answer every question or cover every detail about working with me. It was there to:
- Inspire trust and connection.
- Flow the visitor through messaging that resonates and a process to connect.
Every word on the site is tailor made for the ideal client. And, that’s the 3rd of 5 things that make a coaching website client-winning.
No one will read every word of your website, experience every page or testimonial. People are too distracted. That’s why you have to plan a customer journey with many pathways to the ultimate outcome.
It helps if you understand how people think when they are searching online.
Coaching Prospects When They Are Online
Humans operate in a trance moving through a noisy, marketing-heavy environment like social media or websites.
Think again about your own experience when you’ve landed on a website and you’re seeking help:
In mere seconds you make decisions about what’s worth your time and what isn’t. Somethings cause you to stick, others will have you quickly bouncing away.
It’s all largely an unconscious process.
The stickiness of your site is the 4th of 5 things that make a coaching website client-winning.
To be sticky, your website needs to follow the LESS IS MORE strategy.
- Few pages
- Few and SHORT easy-to-read paragraphs tailor made to your ideal client
- 1 to 2 unique offers the solve big problems
What will send a web visitor away for good? CONFUSION and OVERWHELM.
A confused mind never buys and that’s why you don’t want your website to be a clearing house of information about you or a trophy case of every award, job and certification you have. It’s not really about you. It’s about them.
Keep it simple. Keep it RELEVANT! Show your value by showing you understand them.
Skip the Button Offering a Free Call
Nearly every new coach’s website I see has one of those free call buttons. I too thought that would be a good idea and website templates all seem to have that feature. But it’s not a good feature for solo coaches.
Do you really want to giveaway your time to a free call with just anyone?
No. You want to meet with pre-qualified and pre-sold prospects. People in your target audience who are already excited to work with you and highly likely to hire you.
The right time to offer a Discovery Call is NOT through a button high up on the website before you’ve had a chance to connect and build trust. That free call offer is best made completely offsite only after a prospect has shown their intentions.
Create an application on your site where you share the specific benefits of your program.
And, that’s the 5th of 5 things that make a coaching website client-winning. You won’t find this on most website templates! It’s a custom build that web designers who are also coders can do for you.
Take a look at my VIP Mentoring Page at ProsperousCoach.com/VIP. It starts with short compelling copy, followed byan outline of my Signature Program, then followed by a few powerful questions that relate directly to the specific milestones of my Signature Program.
When coaches take time to fill that out, we both know that they are serious about their success!
Then, I invite them to a Discovery Call, and not in an automated way, but through a customized email where I can connect with them more personally.
Little touches like that mean a lot. My work with coaches is high touch in every way, that’s why it’s called VIP Mentoring.
When I created that application on my website
I went from offering dozens of Discovery Calls for each enrollment
to nearly 100% sign up rate for each call.
I’ve been using this process for over 10 years and it’s stood the test of time. I don’t waste time and neither do my prospects.
Now, go forth, nail your niche first, then create your client-winning website and put the rest of your customer journey into place which is designed to lead ideal clients to you.
If you want help with these things, that’s what my 5-month VIP Mentoring program is for. And, I’d love to work with you!