7 Fatal Life Coach Website Design Problems

If you’re like most life coaches I’ve come across, you’re either struggling to make a decent living or your are on top of the heap. The reason for this is simple: tens of thousands set up their own practice each year, making the competition go from stiff to extremely tough to completely brutal. The problem isn’t your expertise. It’s getting clients to take advantage of that expertise! One major reason for a lack of clients, though, is pretty easily fixed with a sweet life coach website design.

Now, I own a web design business, but I am also a motivational speaker/Coach and I have a sweet website. It didn’t take me long to get going because I own a web design and online marketing business, but it took me years. Here is my site if you want to have a look: http://richiecontartesi.com. Most people nowadays look for a good web presence, and if you don’t have it, they’ll pass you right by. There are literally hundreds of ways you can screw up your online presence, but here are the 7 easiest ways you can destroy your hopes of a decent life coach website design. They’re also probably the easiest to fix.

1. Using a Free or DIY Life Coach Website

I know, it’s easy to use Wix or one of the countless other free or do-it-yourself sites for your life coach website design. The problem is, those particular sites aren’t great for generating business, especially in a niche like life coaching.

Before you even think about designing your own website, ask yourself: “Would I try building my own house? What about doing my own dentistry?” The answer is (hopefully) no, you wouldn’t, so why would you try to do your own website?

You should be turning to an expert for your website, and it’s less expensive than you might think. In fact, you can have an attractive, clean, and easy-to-navigate website on WordPress for well under a grand. If you can’t afford that, you can’t afford to be a life coach.

A WordPress site needs to be responsive, too, so make sure you tell your designer that. Google has started favoring responsive sites, Web pages that look just as good on mobile as they do on a desktop, in the search engine rankings.

One final tip on the website: make it on your own server and domain.

2. Having An Ugly Website

An ugly, slow loading, or difficult to navigate website is worse than no website at all. If you have a site that nobody can navigate, you’ll look like an amateur. Nobody wants to hire an amateur.

The other problem is that such a site provides for a bad user experience, and Google will punish you heavily for that.

Think about your web page the same way you would think about a shop window in a brick and mortar business, because that’s exactly what it is. If you’re running a professional, modern-age life coaching business, your shop window should reflect that. That means your Web page needs to look sharp, modern, and professional. Not cheap and tacky.

3. Not Including a Picture of Yourself

Short and sweet here: life coaching is a partnership business, and not having your picture on your Web page is absolutely a deal-killer. Your clients want to connect with you, not with a cute little mascot or a beautiful tropical scene. Make sure you include a professional picture of yourself, or you won’t get any clients.

4. Leaving Out the Call To Action (CTA)

You’ve got people to your site, so what do you want them to do? You want them to start building a relationship with you. “No, I want them to hire me,” you’re saying. Yes, eventually, but you’ve got to build a rapport with them first. Start off by getting them to subscribe to your newsletter, so they’ll get to know you and how you work. People don’t hire a life coach on impulse, so don’t expect them to. Let them get to know you first, and then push for a closed sale. That increases the chances of them hiring you somewhere down the road.

5. Forgetting About What’s In It For Me (WIIFM)?

Get someone who doesn’t know you or what you do to look at your site. Can they figure out what the benefit is for them if they hire you? Remember, you’ve only got 3 to 7 seconds to deliver that information to them.

If you don’t nicely assume all of your potential clients are stupid and make your services blindingly obvious to understand, your web page will fail. Show them what’s in it for them, quickly and completely, and you’re on the road to more business.

6. Doing SEO Wrong

Overseas SEO companies will make big promises, but they’ll fail to deliver on those guarantees. Know why? Because they don’t sound like you. Instead, they usually sound like someone who just learned to speak English a few years ago (because they often did), and Google will typically hammer you for that problem. Make sure you hire an SEO firm in your country and language, or you could find yourself de-indexed from Google altogether.

7. Posting About Your Goldfish Aquarium (or other stuff unrelated to life coaching)

Just because you run several businesses at the same time, that doesn’t mean they should all tie together. In fact, if you have a sideline business unrelated to life coaching, you shouldn’t even link to it anywhere prominent.

Potential clients don’t care about your hobbies and other interests (at least, not all that much), and having a bunch of things tied together on the same Web page will just confuse them and make them wonder what you really do.

Instead, focus your Life Coach website design on just that: Life Coaching. Don’t include your sideline businesses, leave out your extreme sports thrill-seeking, and absolutely do not mention your goldfish aquarium. The more your site focuses on life coaching, the more likely you’ll be able to draw in new clients for that business.

In Closing

If you’ve committed a faux pas like one of these in your web design, don’t despair! You can still turn it around and redo your life coach website design into something that you’ll be proud of. Just make sure you hire an expert to handle your web presence, and focus on what you do best: coaching others. If you need an expert, take a look at our portfolio page here.