What Makes a Good Website for Life Coaches, Healers or a Purpose Driven Entrepreneur?
If you’re a purpose-driven entrepreneur like a life coach or other type of coach, or a service-based business—as in a consultant, functional medicine practitioner, therapist, energy/sound healer or you offer professional services—then you’ve probably spent countless hours worrying about your website.
Wondering what should be on it. Wondering if you should do something different with it. Wondering if anyone is even seeing it.
You are probably doing a lot of it yourself and get really overwhelmed with all of it. Or you’ve hired people to do it, maybe didn’t get you quite what you wanted, but it was so much effort you can’t imagine doing it again. Or maybe you have that website that’s always “in construction mode” and never quite up.
Looking for website information online is really no help either. I googled this topic in a couple of different ways: using the term “what makes a great website” and “what makes a good website for coaches” and the unhelpful list of articles on page one of the Google results was sort of shocking.
The advice in most how to make your website articles is technically “correct” but it’s so generic that it wouldn’t help anyone build a website that actually gets results for their business. Having colors and fonts that are professional and calming is not what makes a website great. Using professional images of yourself is not what makes a good website for coaches. Having a clear call to action is not what will make your website successful.
Even having a clear value proposition, which is sort of getting closer (yes, several articles mentioned needing this on your website) isn’t what makes a website great.
Why not? Well, although the overall look & feel of your site needs to be professional and there are specific elements that should be on your site, just having them there isn’t enough. This kind of generic advice ignores that in marketing there’s a deeper dance going on that is fundamentally human.
The truth is that psychology and how humans are wired to interact is a BIG part of marketing. And no person on planet earth ever rushed toward generic information in a desirous fervor to know more.
Imagine this: a woman is standing on the corner. She looks professional and is dressed in pleasant colors. She speaks clearly and is explaining how her life coaching has all the tools you need to live a more fulfilling life. You hear snatches of it as you approach...Life coaching can turn your...other coaches might try this...but if you only find the root cause...have more success. She has a sign that says “Here’s free info on being whole. Ask me for more details.”
Do you rush up to her to find out how you can have a better life? Even though last night you downed a pint of ice cream while tearfully wondering how you could ever live out your purpose and maybe really need her? Nope. You glance at her and keep going because you have things to do. Like make money and figure out how you’re going to make a bigger difference in the world if no one hires you to help them.
Her generic information isn’t enough to stop you. Even though she has all the “right” things, they aren’t shared in a way that draws you toward her.
Imagine this instead…a woman is wearing a t-shirt with a large photo of her on the front with her looking homeless & hopeless. But above that, she looks amazing and she’s clearly not homeless. She’s speaking clearly about her story and you catch words here and there as you are getting closer. Something about her purpose and how finding that…and there was that one moment…and the last straw. As you get closer you see a sign next to her that says “From In Tears to On Purpose: How to Stop Eating Ice Cream & Finally Get Hired by Your Clients” with a url next to it: findpurpose.com
Are you likely to stop near her for a minute to hear more of her story? Yes. You might even type in that url just to take a peak. Not to buy anything, of course, just to see what’s up. And you just might download that free guide about going from tears to on purpose with no ice cream. And end up reaching out to see if she can help you.
See the difference?
This brings me to what a good website for coaches, healers or any purpose-driven entrepreneur is not. It’s not all about you and that thing you do. It’s not all about your point of view on the healing, coaching or service that you offer. It’s not piling ten different services and a bunch of free resources onto many pages.
Well then, what makes a website great? Drumroll please…a good website serves both you and your ideal client by giving them the information they need to make a good decision for themselves in solving the problem they have AND it gets people reaching out to you to work with you.
In marketing lingo, we call this having a website that converts. That means it does the heavy lifting that your marketing should do (now lean in here because this is important) which is to turn away those people that are not a good fit to work with you...and to help those that are a good fit to want to know more.
And I would add that it does the above in the least amount of pages, with the least amount of words possible (hello, anyone else sick of those never-ending landing pages?!)
Does it also have to have fast page loads, be easy to navigate and look good while delivering all this? Yep. But honestly, if you use a reputable builder (think Wix or Squarespace) or a great theme in WordPress (we use Elementor for our clients) then that shouldn’t be an issue.
That’s if you have hours to invest in figuring out how to do that building. Work with the friend of a friend’s friend who “says” they do websites and you might be further from that reality.
The real issue in having a good website for coaches and anyone else who counts as a purpose-driven entrepreneur is having the correct information on it and shared in way that makes it a website that converts. This means the messaging is correct and the way it's all put together psychologically pulls someone toward you. Now before you get all "I don't want my marketing to manipulate or trick people" that's not what I'm saying.
This is about your website being pulled together enough that it's attractive to another, or draws the right person toward you. If you've ever dressed up, worked out, or put on make-up to enhance the "already great on the inside" person that you are so that the right person might ask you out, then you're already doing this in your personal life.
Your business life is the same. Your website is where you put it all together in a way that connects with the correct person and starts a relationship where you can both thrive.
How do you know if yours is set up to do this all-important job?
If you’ve had your website up for more than three months, have been getting visible during that time and aren’t getting consistent applications to speak to you about working together from it, then you don’t have the elements for a good website or are even close to having what makes a website great. In other words, you don’t have a website that converts.
If this is you, I urge you to fix this asap. Other than having sales conversations, this would move up to your number one top priority. Why? Because you can’t have a thriving business if no one is reaching out to work with you.
Constantly having to market yourself is exhausting and a quick way to burn out in your business. You want to have your marketing materials doing some of the work for you. That way your efforts to be visible get turned into a reach out.
I mean it’s no good if you are out getting visible and it’s not getting any response, am I right?!?
