When you run a business that’s all about you, it can be a little difficult to take a step back and really communicate what you do.
After all, it’s you! What you do is about you or an expertise that you hold close to your chest. Maybe you’ve been working in your industry or job for years and you’re great at teaching it to others. But that can be incredibly hard to communicate and talk about to other people.
Building a website that communicates that? Even harder! To best connect with your ideal customer, you need to ensure your website has a few things.
What Makes You Unique
People are going to work with you for you. After all, you are a huge part of your business! You probably have lots of competitors that are similar to you, but nobody helps their customer grow their business quite like you.
Own that! Go through your website copy. Are you showcasing what makes you unique and different?
Try this exercise – sit down and ask yourself what people often say about why they’ve chosen to work with you. If you have them, go back through testimonials and reviews customers have left. And then add to that – what makes me unique? Why is working with me different than competitor A or B?
Now, take those answers and add them throughout your website copy and reinforce that through your social media, blog posts, emails, and other content, too!
Focus on Your Customers’ Goals
Beyond what makes you unique, this is probably the most important thing you can do to have an authentic, lead-generating coaching website. Let’s cut to the chase – what makes you unique is great. But what you do for your other customers matters the most. People really only care about themselves and what you can do for them, after all.
(I’m not saying everyone is selfish, but when it comes to looking for a service provider that can solve their problems and make their lives easier, you bet they are!)
This is another copywriting thing (because honestly, the success of your website really boils down to the writing), but especially with your headlines make sure you’re focusing on what you’re doing to solve your ideal customers’ problems and pain points. Let them know that you understand their base issue and that you have the solution for it with your service.
Reinforce this by including social proof like reviews and case studies on your website to really showcase that you have those solutions.
Invest in Photography of Yourself
As an introvert, this one was super hard for me. But people are coming to your website to work with you, not with the girl in the stock photos. So, find a local photographer and plan out a photoshoot. I’d recommend having at least one outfit change planned, and if you can, focus on different locations, too or snap some in and around your home where you typically work throughout the day.
Seeing your face helps people to connect with you better. It literally puts a face to the name, humanizes your brand, and helps to build trust that you’re a real-life person and not some faceless out-of-country company that doesn’t get it.
The great thing is these photos can be used for your website and evergreen social media content. Win-win!
Include a Video Introduction
Want an even better way for people to get to know you and how you work quickly? Especially if you’re a one-on-one coach, you’re going to be talking to and working with your ideal customer a lot. Let them hear your voice, see how you speak, and learn what your body language is like with a quick introduction video.
A video introduction doesn’t have to be scary! Talk about your process and how you help and what’s unique about working with you. I’d keep it to be about 2 minutes or less and direct them to other content on your website. Upload it as a private video to YouTube and embed it on to your website (WordPress makes this super simple) and boom! Make sure you add closed captions for those that don’t want to turn the sound on while browsing (or for those who are hard of hearing).
Make Sure Your Website is Mobile Friendly
You’d think in 2021 I’d be done talking about making your website mobile friendly, but I’m not sure this tip will ever go away. Many of your ideal customers might be hitting your website off of social media, ads, or while browsing videos on YouTube. While sure, more and more of us are working on our laptops at home, there’s still a lot of us who are second screening with our phones while Netflix plays in the background. Make sure your website offers a great experience on a phone, a laptop, and a large desktop screen.
Most website builders will let you change a few things depending on whether it’s showing on mobile or desktop, but if you’d like a full responsive audit of your website, drop me a message and let’s see what we can do to ensure you don’t miss out on customers!
Back it All Up with Your Social Media
Creating a great coaching website is great. But all of these things easily translate to improving your social media and content marketing, allowing you to build a consistent voice and brand across a variety of experiences. And consistency is going to be key to really connect with your ideal customer and building that trust with them.
