For many coaches, a website is just another necessary cost of doing business. Maybe your clients expect you to be online, or your competitors have a website and you don’t want to be outdone. But what if your website could be more than just an afterthought, what if it could actually help you get more clients and improve your business?

Over the years we’ve worked with coaches and consultants from all walks of life and we’ve noticed some patterns when it comes to their websites.

Here are 5 things we found greatly improve coaching websites and help to bring in more clients. Because you don’t just want a website, you want a website that works.

1. Create compelling content

When it comes down to it, all websites are just a fancy way to share words and images. You can help keep visitors engaged by designing a beautiful site but all of that will count for nothing if your content is poorly written.

Another way of looking at it would be to think about the last book you read that you just could not put down, then compare it to one that you quickly lost interested in. The words on the page might look the same, but it was the content that set them apart.

When it comes to great websites content is king.

What you say and how you say it makes all the difference. One of the best things you can do for your website is to create better content from the start. To do this, shift the focus from you to your visitor. What would they want to know, what do they need and how can you make them feel like working with you would benefit them?

Get this right and you’ll create a close bond with your visitors and make you better positioned to help them.

2. Hire a (free) digital secretary

One of the biggest challenges coaches often face is getting new clients, but let’s look at it from your visitors point of view: how easy is it for them to chat to you? Maybe you have a contact form on your site, or just a mention of your email address somewhere on the contact page?

Your visitor will get in touch with you via email, you’ll go back-and-forth answering queries hoping that they don’t miss your email or forget to reply. Eventually you might try to lock down a date to have a call with them and see when you can fit them in. But there is another way…

Online booking services like Calendly act as your own personal digital secretary and manage your bookings for you. Your visitor clicks on a link to book in a discovery call with you, instantly they can see when you’re available and reserve a space.

It streamlines the process and removes obstacles. Instead of several days of email back-and-forth you could have all of your their questions answered in a quick one-to-one call.

Calendly automatically adds the call to your calendar and sends you a notification. It can even send reminders to your prospect so they don’t miss your meeting. All of this is done on auto-pilot and best of all you can get started with Calendly for free.

3. Give away something useful

Attracting people to your website isn’t always easy, but figuring out which visitors are your ideal clients can be even tougher. One way you can pan for client gold is to create a compelling freebie that only your ideal clients would find useful.

By offering an awesome free download in exchange for their email address they’ll instantly benefit from your expertise and in return you’ll have a direct line to their inbox.

What you choose to use as a freebie will depend on your ideal client; what kind of content do they like? Do they have the time to read a 30 page ebook or would a cheat sheet be more suitable? Whatever you decide make sure that it offers real, irresistible value that appeals only to your ideal clients – it’s better to have fewer high-quality contacts than hundreds that are uninterested in you or your business.

4. Build trust like a pro

The coaching websites that we’ve seen be most successful are married to a marketing strategy. This may not come as a surprise – websites and marketing go together like cake and ice cream – but did you know that the strategy doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive?

We found that basic coaching websites when combined with a basic marketing strategy got better results than more advanced and fancy websites without a strategy in place.

Your website is just one part of the puzzle; once your visitor has shown interest in you and your services you need to have a system in place to nurture them and build the relationship. Strategies can vary depending on your goals and preferences but we’ve found that even a simple series of welcome emails can make a huge impact. The best part? You don’t have to manually sit down and write individual emails each time someone joins your mailing list.

Setting up an automated series of welcome emails is a great way to keep the connection going with your subscribers.

All you have to do is write your welcome emails (just the once!) and then set them to be sent out automatically based on triggers. So it doesn’t matter when someone signs up to your list, they will always receive those friendly, useful and personalised welcome emails. Not bad, eh?

5. Keep information up to date

The best coaching websites grow with your business so, whether you are just starting out or you’re scaling at speed, it pays to have a site that you can edit yourself.

Web designers are wonderful – and more than prove their worth when something goes wrong with your site – but the good ones are usually busy. If you can’t make changes to the site yourself then you could be waiting weeks for your designer to change your phone number or update your address. These kinds of things might seem insignificant or trivial but if you rely on clients calling you directly or coming to your office this can quickly turn into a headache.

A well designed coaching website should allow you to make small changes on your own terms without being beholden to a web designer.

You deserve a coaching website that works!

Our website design service already offers great value for money but today we are giving you even more bang for your buck.

We believe that all coaching websites can benefit from the 5 features we’ve mentioned here, so we are adding them all to our website design service for no extra cost.