How to Get Started on Your Coaching Website and Launch Timely
It can be tough to get started on your coaching website.
There’s a lot going on — from tech to content, to visuals and branding — you’ll go cross-eyed, freeze in place, or collapse from mental exhaustion. Also, the amount of information and the number of tools you can use is staggering.
If you’re a coach trying to figure out how to get started on your website, you’re not alone. For me, back in 2000 …
I’d overthink, overdesign, overdo the tech, and over-obsess about words. At points, I thought my brain was going to explode. It’s crazy how much time you could spend just looking for the right image. Yikes!
Hindsight is 20-20, yes. If I had to advise my younger self, I’d show him these pictures of life living on a beach, playing volleyball with good friends, warm weather, cool creative spaces, and plenty of travel.
For me, flexibility, travel, the beach, and fun with friends are key.
Here are getting-started tips for your website, and ultimate business success.
To motivate you to get it done fast, remember this …
There are lots of clients with tough struggles and they seriously need your help. They’d hire you if only they had the chance to talk to you. So get your site launched and show up big for them.
Kenn Quote
… and this …
Your biz dreams are at stake. You owe it to yourself to walk the talk and pursue your important goals. Messing around with your website for months to years (I’ve seen it) is no way to go. So, find your simple solution and get it out there.
Kenn Motivation
And so, in this article, we’ll talk about three keys to getting started on your coaching website the right way. These have helped students and book-buyers launch in as fast as two weeks — and not crappy overnight sites but with real marketing machines.
- get clear on your endpoint with a strategic sitemap
- set a deadline that sticks (use my accountability trick)
- nail your core message — from the client’s perspective
Enjoy!
KEY #1 – How to map out your coaching website before you build it.
I believe Stephen Covey said, “Begin with the end in mind,” as a habit of highly effective people. But I bet you already know this from coaching your clients.
How often have you had a stuck client who needed to get clear on their goals? — And when you discussed the ideal end, they sprang back into action?
Just the same, getting clear about what your “ideal coaching website” looks like is gold. Get specific about all of it: pages, tech, visuals, button labels, links, functionality, and calls-to-action. All of it!
If you don’t map it out, it will be hard to know when you’re done — and it’ll go on forever. You’ll second guess and overthink and pull your hair out 😀
There will always be new things to add or tweak. And with all the attention grabbers out there (ads, notifications, emails, etc.), you can get lost in rabbit holes endlessly.
My book, The Coaching Website Guide, gives you a hi-def website model for a website to attract clients. Skip common mistakes, and succeed faster.
And be STRATEGIC about your sitemap. Use arrows!
Draw a diagram, make a list, sketch a map, and make it very clear with scribbled notes, arrows, and chicken-scratch. Put ARROWS between things as the logical path visitors are likely to take that end up with them contacting you (or booking, or calling, or list sign-up).
Here are great things to map out …
- details about the ideal person you want as a client
- the way you want people to feel on your website
- the pages you want to have
- visuals and imagery needed
- colors, fonts, and textures
- the functional components like a blog, email list, and contact form
- the platform to build your site upon, like WordPress, Wix, Weebly, or other
- the strategy of the content and calls-to-action
Get pen, paper, and a double-espresso. ;D
KEY #2 – Set a “Deadly” Deadline
Getting started is one thing, finally launching your coaching website is another.
Think about any college paper you wrote, a race you ran, or an art project you’ve completed. They all had a due date — and if you missed it, it was VERY bad. 😀
Even though they induce stress (healthy stress), deadlines help you get things done. And your website project needs one too!
You’ll need more than an X in your calendar to ensure you’ll launch on time.
A self-chosen go-live date often fails because of a lack of accountability. It’s too easy to pick another date if things aren’t getting done.
Try this => Promise someone else that you’ll get it done — someone you would hate to let down. It should be as guilt-inducing as not showing up for your daughter’s graduation day.
Without this pressure, then procrastination, perfectionism, and shiny-object syndrome can easily take hold as you delay with little consequence.
And yeah, your coaching business dreams will start to fade. That’s not good either. But I think the guilt/fear pain above is a bit more powerful. Oh the joy of being human.
This *EVIL* trick worked like MAGIC with students.
So in order to reach a 99.9% chance of launching, make your deadline a “deadly” one. Build in extra accountability.
I had students declare their launch dates to each other AND to their Facebook friends (*evil grin*).
I also threw in some juicy rewards for timeliness like bonus traffic and a special SEO session after the course. AND VOILA! — an unstoppable surge of energy set them off and running.
It was tough love for their own good. Your dreams are worth it. And when your website is up, launched, and things start happening, you’ll be thanking me forever.
Did I mention that clients need your help, badly? Let’s not let a little thing like a website stand in the way. Set that deadline and slay it!
KEY #3 – Craft a Compelling Core Message
A foundational piece of any coaching website is your core message. It’s a few lines of text saying what you do BUT IN A COMPELLING WAY. All of your content and thus visuals depend on it.
Here’s an example from a past client:
“I help successful singles over forty who are tired of empty, unfulfilling flings to find exciting, meaningful love that lasts.”
Without an exciting central message, most coaches hit these walls:
- idea overload because you can write about anything
- writer’s block because you don’t know where to start
- endless rewrites to try to make things sound exciting
With a client-focused sentence like that, you can make sure that all of your other content comes back to it.
- Blogs can be about preparing for lasting love, or how to spot flings, or unique challenges over 40 when dating.
- Visuals will obviously be older folks, likely in more refined meeting places, and more mature meaningful types of dating scenes instead of young family imagery.
Can you see how the central message impacts the rest of the site?
The 2 biggest parts of a solid core message are these:
- descriptive words about who you work with
- the struggles they face and desires they want
You can do a lot to spice it up. In fact, I’ve got a separate fun post to help you craft yours, with more examples: How to Craft a Compelling Core Message.
Where are you at in getting your coaching website started?
I love hearing from readers. Please post in the comments. Perhaps you have a domain name or are in the middle of researching different software platforms. Just post below.
Oh! And can you quickly rate this article below. It helps me choose future topics.
I have a little saying I repeat to myself when I’m struggling with perfectionism (Good is good enough. F-it!) Works for writing & going live on my website. But seriously, you can always update. I’m thinking about doing an update now. Do you have an organized way to approach a website update?
Ye olde “F-IT” is very handy for fighting off the critic hahahaaa ;D
I’mma say an update is similar — get clear about, especially its purpose and where/how it’ll be of use. And then limit the time to do it. Like, “I’mma knock this out in two hours on Saturday morning, and go play pickleball.” And promise that to someone who will gilt trip forever, you if you don’t do it.
Great article Kenn. My brain was screaming structure, structure, structure while reading it…
Dream – Goal – Plan – Execute- Reward.
There you go — structure — make that sitemap, the structure of pages, buttons, and gizmos 😀
This is, by far, your best blog! Loved the visuals and the idea around having a core message. If you can nail that, it’s so much easier to write content because you know who you’re talking to.
I liked this one, especially the point about getting the website launched rather than getting stuck trying to make it perfect. That’s something I see in coaching too — sometimes having a clear first version and then learning from real people is far more useful than endlessly refining it.
How do you help coaches decide what’s essential for that first version and what can wait until later?
I’ve got a question for you Gaye …
Yeah, I like to encourage new website owners to think ITERATION. Get a decent site out there, to serve a need, run it for a while, then check back to complete the feedback loop. Then improve. That’s how you get closer to perfect.
To figure out what’s essential, look at the business, the goals, the game plan for marketing, and how the website will support that. Could be as little as a CREDIBILITY TOOL when being checked out to more of a PLATFORM TO BUILD TRUST with visitors by get them onto a list (or a private group) for continued trust building. You can get creative about it.
Question: Anything come to mind that you would suggest to coaches starting a new website?
This is a really useful article (and that’s coming from a web designer who moved into coaching!)
A comment on beginning with the end in mind – I took this approach but I actually overwhelmed myself and ended up culling much of it back post-launch. Stephen Covey is right, of course, because you’ve got to have vision. But knowing that you need to *work toward the vision* rather than a) trying to do it all at once or b) never getting started is key. A big learning experience for me!
Hey Matt … yeah, I can see that happening to big thinkers. I suppose a good second step after a grandiose vision is the MVP — figure out the minimum viable product — or rather the first phase of your website for the next 3-6 months.
Hi Kenn,
Your link to a video called “Deeper Into Creating Your Core Message” returns an error message. Do you have a link to that video somewhere else on your site? I would really like to watch the video, as I am now at the point of preparing to create my core message. Please email me the link to that video, if you still have it live online somewhere. Thank you very much,
Elyse
My apologies, it went “bye bye” when I ended my amazon storage account. Whoops! I do have a core message exercise you can do, here: https://coachingsitesthatwork.com/coremessage