Why is the Internet a Coach’s best friend?
By Olivier Valentin, May 2009
Most coaches will probably agree: people in Hong Kong complain of having little time, and when they choose to work on personal development they want direct, off-the-shelf information, concise and precise. This is only fair; we all tend to do the same when looking for information from other services providers.
The Internet is today the number 1 media when it comes to looking for information. Unfortunately, some coaches today still snub this media. Here are some tips on how coaches can leverage their business performance through effective use of their own website.
Why have a website anyway?
- Passive Promotion
For most coaches, money comes in through coaching sessions. The more coaching sessions, the more profitable the business is.
Coaches wanting to expand their business will attend networking events. They will want to offer a name card at such events, and that name card needs to offer a website if the coach is to be seen to be a professional. A website can then be used as an extension of the information discussed with potential clients. They will visit your website after their conversation with you if they want more clarity on topics discussed.
- Active Promotion
A well-constructed website can be a powerful promotion tool. Your website will help you find new leads if the information you provide answers the needs of internet navigators. So, when constructing your website, think about answering the reader’s question ‘What’s in it for me?’
- Your signature
While you are busy working with clients on coaching sessions, other potential and unknown clients can find you on the web, get to know your background, your area of expertise, and to a certain extent, your personality. You seldom enter a shop without looking at the window display… same logic applies to coaching!
What are the important things to consider before preparing your website?
- Set a primary objective
What is your primary motivation for having your own website? Obviously, the main goal for investing in a website is to get a return on your investment and grow your business. However there are many other reasons for investing in a website: do you want to enhance your image? Do you want to let people know about your coaching practice? Do you want to offer coaching tips and articles? Build your reputation as an expert?
Once you have this clear, make it obvious on your website – on your homepage.
- Talk to professionals
Just as non-certified coaches can do a poor job of coaching others, coaches can fall over if they look to build their website without any training or knowledge.
There are more website pages in the world than there are people. Just building a website is not enough! Professionals can help you put it out there, make it look… well, professional, and help you rank it on top of the research engines’ results.
- Take Command
You are investing your money in building your website, and it will be the showcase of your unique services.
There are many companies in the market that can help you build your website. Be cautious with their offers: before going ahead, get a detailed quotation for their services. Ask the following questions: How many pages will you have? How many of them will have flash animations (if any)? Will they provide you with the tools to update the website content by yourself? Can they guarantee a minimum number of traffic on your pages?
There is no need to create a highly expensive and fancy website as long as the information is well-structured, professional and visually pleasing.
Clarify your expectations and get to know more about the service providers: visit the websites they have developed, let them tell you about their successes. Checking to see if they are easy to find on the web can be a good indication of their actual efficiency!
What to do to optimize the traffic on your website?
Your website is ON line, well done… Here are some tips to make sure that you are not OFF the mark.
- Enhance the experience
Readability is key: it can either enhance your message or damage it. The use of images and animations can enhance the visitor’s experience. Make sure that you do not charge your pages with too many images (3 per page is a good number), and avoid too heavy animations to ease the loading of the pages. Try to minimize plain text and use bullets as most people process visually.
- The 5 seconds rule
Having a modern, colourful and animated website gives a modern edge to your business. However, remember that everything taking more than 5 seconds to load on a page is too long. Everybody hates waiting, especially while facing a blank screen. Having slow pages can be irritating for visitors.
This can be influenced by the host company you chose. Clarify that aspect with your service provider before signing!
- Keep it to yourself
Avoid adding links on your home page that lead to other pages. This may result in losing the visitors that came to your website in the first place! Keep any such links on secondary pages, where you list your alliances and partners.
- Be Consistent.
Does the content of the pages align with the primary objective of your website? You want to make sure that the visitors you are targeting will not be deceived by the content of your website once they have scratched the surface.
Also, make sure that the fonts, the colour and the overall design of the pages are harmonious.
- Update and interact.
Your website has to be as lively as a shop display window. Every now and then, it has to be updated with new material, to boost traffic and make visitors want to visit your website again. To do so, you can have recurrent news and articles that people will read on a regular basis. A good idea is also to embed YouTube videos of yourself on your website where you can give some coaching tips and talk of hot topics in relation to your business!
- Be a favourite
If visitors want to come back again, will they find you as easily as the first time? Nothing is less certain. Suggest that visitors bookmark your website. This is free and it makes it easy for them find you again!
- Be different!
Why would visitors remember your website amongst all others on the market? Probably because your offer is different! Avoid using existing website templates used by thousands of existing pages. Ask for a design that is going to speak about you, about the services you provide, and about your uniqueness in the market. When writing text, write the way you speak and use short sentences.
- Capture them
The ultimate point of having a website is to create leads. While you can track the number of visitors on to your website, you cannot know much about them. Unless, you use tools to capture their email address. These tools can be forms to fill in, subscription to newsletters, etc.
Knowing your visitors is of great value - they have already entered your virtual business, they are therefore more likely to take the next step with you!
- Don’t underestimate the internet.
It has been calculated that every month on Yahoo around 27,000 searches are made for “Coaching”, with “Life Coaching” ranking first, followed by “Business Coach” and “Career Coach”. Think about what you are missing if you don’t already have your website. It is worth taking time to design and invest in a website that will work as an extension of your business!
Olivier Valentin is a member of the HKICC and Sales & Business Development Manager at Active Communication Ltd. He combines his passion for Marketing with a great interest in the Coaching industry.
