First thing is first, your coaching web site setup needs to be professional.
The First Thing You Need Is Your Own Domain Name. If you run an online business you must have your own domain name. You also want to always pick a .com extension for your domain name, rather than any of the myriad other suffixes. Business domain names are still associated with .com. When customers are not certain of a business domain’s extension, they try .com first. If that fails, web surfers usually hit the search engines. Rarely do people consider trying .biz, .net., or .org extensions instead.
You also want to pick something that conveys a desirable brand image and is easy to remember. Every word that appears in the dictionary has been registered as a domain name, so you will need to come up with a longer name. Choose two or more words that fit well together and are relevant to your company’s mission.
And you want to avoid dashes, underscores and other punctuation marks in your domain name – they are distracting, difficult to pronounce, and difficult to spell correctly. Click here to get your own domain name.
Professional Web Site Hosting. Once you have your own domain name, you will also need to get web hosting. Don't use free hosting that puts ads on your coaching web site. Make sure to get professional web hosting.
Click here to get your own web hosting.
What should you have on your coaching web site? Information about your coaching business, coaching services that you provide, your coaching products, your coaching blog, your articles, resources, etc.
Whatever you add to your coaching web site, it must be user-friendly and easy for your target market to use. Here are the elements of your web site to pay special attention to:
- Your Coaching Web Site Should Be User Friendly. A web site should be user-friendly and intuitive. Beginners and experts alike should feel comfortable browsing the site and should be able to quickly and easily locate information that interests them. Remember, you are not designing the most arcane user interface in the world, nor are you testing your web site visitors’ web browsing skills. Your web site’s primary purpose is to sell your products and services to the web surfers. Make it as easy as possible for the customers to make a purchase.
Test the usability of your web site by asking several people unfamiliar with the site to look at the site and share their experiences with you. Seek out testers from your target market that are at different computer experience levels – doing this will help you evaluate the usability of your web site.
- Your Coaching Web Site Should Be Search Engine Friendly. The web site should have a complete set of tags, that will be considered by search engines (title, meta, headers) and the text should be optimized for search engines. Search engine optimization is covered in detail in a later lesson.
- No Plug-ins or Special Software Required. To reach the widest audience possible, the web site should not require any downloads or special settings on a browser. Do not let your web and graphics designers use your site to showcase their skills and expand their portfolio at the risk of you losing potential customers or revenue. Flashy graphics may look impressive, but they can introduce a variety of usability problems for information-seeking visitors whom you are hoping to turn into regular, repeat customers.
To reach the greatest possible number of coaching clients, make sure that your web site looks great when viewed using a plain vanilla browser, one with no special settings or plug-ins required.
- Fast loading times Pay careful attention to the size of the pages and graphics on your coaching web site. Many people will leave and go to your competitors if your site takes forever to load.
Test your web site from both a fast, broadband connection (cable modem or DSL), as well as from a dial-up. If a page takes more than about 10-15 seconds to load on a dial-up connection, reduce the size of the page and the number and the size of images on the page.
- Consistent Navigation. Make it easy for your visitors to get around the site, and to jump from one page to another within your web site. Consistent navigation makes it easy to locate information.
- Provide useful content on your web site. Useful information prompts your visitors to bookmark your web site for later use and to recommend your site to their friends, relatives, and acquaintances.
What value is your site providing for your visitors? What will keep them coming back and persuade them to eventually purchase your products and services? These are the questions you should ask yourself when creating content.
Now that you have a professional and usable web site, the question becomes how can you make it more visible online, so that your target market can find it and visit it?
To do that you will need to use online marketing techniques such as article marketing, blogging and others. Learn more about these marketing in
Part 1: Why Should Coaches Use Online Marketing To Promote Their Coaching Business?
Part 2: How To Find The Target Market For Your Coaching Business
Part 3: Products And Services To Offer To Your Coaching Clients
Part 4: How To Market Your Coaching Website
Part 5: Strategies For Promoting Your Coaching Business