Website Habitat

Creating A Successful Coaching Website That Will Land You More Clients

Dawud Miracle — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:42:02 +0000

Yesterday we did a 30-minute phone consultation with a prospective client – Susan. Susan is a personal coach who helps business executives find balance in between personal needs, family, and work. And going by her stories and the testimonials she share with us, she’s pretty good at what she does.

Yet, while her clients think Susan’s a remarkable coach, she still struggles to have enough clients to sustain her business. Like many coaches she suffers from being really good at her work but not so good at finding and reaching her ideal client. So she left with taking less than ideal clients, and often for lower fees than she wants to charge.

Can you relate?

She wanted to consult with us because she figured that if she got a new website her business might pickup.

Now, that could be true. A new website could make a huge difference in her business. Certainly having a clean, professional design that’s organized well with content that’s easy to find is what every coach should want. And as we looked at her current website, it was obviously dated, the content was stale, the navigation was difficult to figure out and she couldn’t do any content edits herself.

So we talked a bit about design updates and a cleaner visual design to her site. We showed her pages that were likely not doing well on her website and gave her specific directions on how she could fix them. We even made some suggestions about how her new site could integrate social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

But the one area that we felt Susan needed the most help was with her content. She had done a wonderful job describing who she is, what she does and where she trained. She even had a pretty detailed explanation of her coaching process and a nifty 12 question self-assessment.

What she didn’t have was her audience. No where in her content had she identified the needs and wants of her audience. And no where had she made it clear that she could help them where they are. The site, really, was all about her and not at all about the people she could help.

Now this is pretty common. So few people are ever told how to write content that gets clients interested in their coaching service. And those that are taught, often seem to get lost in some marketing program’s process rather than thinking about how they could best communicate with the individuals that make up their audience.

You see, it’s this perspective that all successful coaching websites have – they have the perspective of the individuals you want to land as coaching clients. They speak to people in language they understand and where the prospective coaching clients are at. Ultimately, the best website are far more about the coaching clients and far less about the coach.

One of the ways we help coaches understand this is helping them define their coaching practice as terms of what problem(s) the coach helps his/her clients solve. When you, as a coach, write about the problems – and then the solutions – your clients face, it changes the focus of your coaching website from being about you and being for your target audience.

Below are the 7 critical steps we cover when helping coaches better define their offer and how they’ll market their offer to their target audience. Consider your website’s copy from this perspective and you will find that you get more inquires into your coaching services – and more clients:

Identify your ideal client and claim your niche.
Pinpoint their pain.
Understand what their customers really want.
Get clear about what makes you different from your competition.
Create a compelling values proposition
Develop a powerful message.
Position yourself as an expert problem-solver.

Use these 7 steps as a question and development process for more completely identifying who you’d like to coach. Write (and talk) about the problems first, then position yourself as your client’s problem solver.

And if you need help with this process, we’re always just a phone call away.

Are You Sure Your Website Is Yours?

Dawud Miracle — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:50:45 +0000

Today it’s so easy to get a website to market and promote your business. Whether you’re a life or business coach, a healer, or another type of service provider you’ll find no limit to the ways that you can get a website.

And one of the most popular ways to get a website is by using one of the do-it-yourself website services – such as GoDaddy’s Website Tonight Service.

Many of these do-it-yourself services sound great. Just think about it, these services let you select your own website design, add your own content, and publish your own website. Sounds pretty easy (though often it’s time consuming) What’s even better is often the price. Usually for under $20 a month you can have a website.

But what’s the trade-off? Is there something you’re missing with these cheap packages? Or is there something potentially detrimental to your coaching practice or business? Do you even own your own website?

Those are some of the questions Lisa and I talked about last week when she called me asking about getting a website for her new life coaching practice.

You can get a business-ready, fully-functional, easy-to-edit website without spending thousands and thousands of dollars.

Now Lisa is a longtime friend to my wife and I knew. We knew she was training to be a life coach. And now that her coaching certification was complete she want to talk about how to get a website to best promote her life coaching practice.

Lisa is a stay-at-home mom with two young daughters – one in second grade, the other four years old and not in school. She’s a mom first and a life coach second. For her that means she wants to have a small number of life coaching clients booked each month, but not so many that she can’t care for her daughters’ needs. So she doesn’t need some large, expensive website. She wants to be able to edit her own content without spending a lot of time, as she calls it, ‘being techie.’

After looking around the web her first thought was to use GoDaddy’s Website Tonight system. “It’s great,” she told me. “I can choose a design, add my own content and then publish it. And the costs are very cheap – just $10 per month.”

What she was saying is true – she could get a website for just $10 per month. And GoDaddy isn’t the only one who offers services like this. You can get a website from Yahoo! Small Business, SiteBuilder, 1and1 and just about any major hosting company for less than $20/month. Seems like an amazing offer, right?

But is it?

Well, as Lisa and I began talking about what she wanted to do with her website – both now and in the next year – some things about this $10/mo website became clear.

First, Lisa would have to choose between GoDaddy’s handful of designs – all of which looked dated, flat and, as she put it, ‘unprofessional and unfinished.’
Second, Lisa would be limited to the colors that were already provided by each of the GoDaddy designs. So she couldn’t really make the site feel, in any way like her.
Third, she was limited to a number of pages based on her plan. Need more pages than your package – the monthly fee goes up.
Fourth, because of the colors and layout, her logo wouldn’t fit on the designs.
Fifth, she couldn’t add the features – like a newsletter signup form – to her GoDaddy website, as far as she could see (though if you pay more monthly, there is a widget system available that will let you add outside web code like forms)

Those five she got on her own as we started talking. But was the fifth point – and the most important point of all – didn’t come out until she asked me this question:

Most people don’t realize that with these services they don’t own their website. So they’re either stuck with GoDaddy forever or leave without having a website at all.

“Dawud, if I want to stop using GoDaddy, what do I need to do to move my website?”

That’s when I had to tell her that the biggest problem with these services is that you can’t move your website – because it’s not yours!

She said, “What do you mean it’s not my website, I’m paying for it?”

It’s true, she is paying for it. She’s paying for the hosting on GoDaddy’s servers and for the privilege to use their templates for her design. But she doesn’t own any part of the design itself. So once Lisa stops using GoDaddy for hosting, she looses her website all together. The only thing she can retain is her content. But only if she gets it off “her” website before closing the account.

Most people who use these do-it-yourself services don’t realize that if you decide to host elsewhere, be it for development, service, pricing, etc, you loose your site. So in essence, you’re either stuck with the service they initially chose or they have to start all over when they want to move.

This isn’t a bad situation for a personal or club website. Even for some small, brochure-style business sites it’s fine.

But for any business owner – a coach, a healing practitioner, etc – who wants their website to be a hub for growing their business it’s certainly less than ideal. Not only do you not own your website, it often difficult or impossible to alter the designs you can choose from to accommodate the needs of your growing business. What’s more is that you’re forever held captive by the service you’re paying monthly – stop paying equals no website.

The bottom line, really, is that as a business owner:

you want to own your website.
you want to be able to customize, update, alter and change your website without limitation.
you want to be able to customize your look and feel of your website to match you so that your audience can get a solid feeling of who you are.
you want to be able to move your website around without penalty if you have poor service from your host (does happen).
you want to be able to easily add new content, pages and make edits any time you want – without limitations.

And you can have all this, and more, for a very reasonable price – done for you. For instance, we offer a number of packages to fit your needs. We may even be able to work with your budget. You can get a business-ready, fully-functional, easy-to-edit website without spending thousands and thousands of dollars.

To be fair, there is one advantage to using do-it-yourself services…start up costs. You can often get a website off the ground for a very small investment – usually under $50. This may work well for you if you have little cash flow as you’re starting your business.

My advice: own your website right from the start

If you choose that path, my advice is the same to you as to my dear friend Lisa…Get a professionally designed website as soon as you have enough cash flow to do so. The investment will pay dividends even in the smallest coaching practice. Especially if your designer has the skills to help you develop and execute a web-based strategy for growing your business.

My advice: own your website right from the start. Go through the development process with a designer that can really help you craft your site into a marketing hub for your business. You really can’t measure the gains from working with a professional.

And, you can contact us anytime to discuss your specific situation and budget. If you have a website, we’ll even do a free website evaluation for you. And with us, there’s never any pressure – we simply guide you to the best solution for you.

And if you’ve used one of these do-it-yourself services, we’d love to hear about your experience below…

Make Your Business Website More Powerful in 1 Simple Step

Easton — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:09:19 +0000

What’s the fundamental reason that you have a website for your business? Or, if you don’t have a business website yet, why might you really want one?

Your answer was probably, “to promote my business to get more clients (customers).” And that is a powerful reason. Having a strong sense of purpose with your professional website is a key part of your success, whether it’s a coaching website, a massage therapist website or any other kind of business site.

But just having a reason is, in and of itself, simply not enough. Watch the video below to find out why!

The 1 Step You Must Always Take to Make Your Professional Website Truly Powerful

Here’s what really adds power to your website. Once you get people to your site, you want to motivate them to take an action. That’s Key #6 of our 7 Keys to a Successful Business Website report.

So here’s the step you need to take to increase your visitor’s motivation.

You must make a clear, compelling call to action on every page of your website.

The Preacher Who Forgot

Once upon a time, a nervous young preacher stepped to the pulpit in front of a large congregation for the first time. His voice was strong and his knowledge of the doctrine was extensive, but he was prone to forgetfulness.

The sermon was like many the congregation had heard before. The preacher began with a moving story, continued with a careful explanation of its meaning, and completed his remarks with a summary of the points he had covered. He walked away from the pulpit relieved, for he was sure he had remembered to say it all this time.

After the meeting ended, an elderly man shuffled up to the preacher, who was finishing saying his “thank you’s” and “have a good week’s” to the church-goers.

“You forgot,” said the man, reaching out his wrinkly hand.

“I forgot?” asked the preacher, extending his. “Ah yes – I forgot to testify at the end there, didn’t I?” He always tried to remember to hammer home his sermons with a personal declaration of his faith, but perhaps it had slipped his mind today.

As they shook hands, the lesson of a lifetime was shared.

“No, you did that just fine, my son. What you forgot was the exhortation.”

Never again did a soul leave that church without hearing a heartfelt sermon that closed with a fervent invitation to do something about what had been taught.

Get a FREE 10-Minute Video Evaluation of Your Business Website – Sign Up Now

How to Make a Clear, Compelling Call to Action on Your Business Website

Don’t let your website be like the forgetful preacher. Visitors will stream in and out of your website all day … so are you doing all you can to get them to take action that leads to healthy growth for your business? Here’s how.

Step 1: Determine Your Primary Action. For each page of your website, this is the number one thing you want people to do on that page. If you’re a professional coach or healer, for example, this might be getting them to call you on the phone.

Step 2: Tell Your Visitors What You Want Them to Do – And How. Be extremely clear – not just clear enough so that people can understand, but clear enough so that no one can misunderstand. “Call us today at 123-456-7890 to discuss XYZ” is much better than “contact us today!”

Step 3: Reward People For Doing What You Want Them To Do. Every parent knows – okay, every parent should know this. In general, people keep doing things that they get rewarded for doing, and they stop doing things that don’t reward them. On the Web, rewards can take the form of content (something new to look at/listen to), time (like free phone consultations) or even physical objects (DVDs in the mail, free product samples, etc.). Be creative and try to offer rewards that match the needs and wants of your target audience.

Get a FREE 10-Minute Video Evaluation of Your Business Website – Sign Up Now

Want free help with making your website more powerful?

Fill out the form below and you’ll receive a free 10-minute video evaluation of your professional website. In the video, a Website Habitat staff member will personally look at your website and give you tips specifically for your site. You’ll actually be able to watch as we go through your website making suggestions and giving you valuable feedback.

There’s no obligation whatsoever. All you have to do is fill out the form below to order your free website evaluation today.

Please tell your friends about this offer as well – they might enjoy some free advice too! Click the sharing buttons below to send this to your Twitter, StumbleUpon, Delicious or Facebook accounts.

What ways have you found to make your website’s calls to action more clear and compelling?

49 Website Design Aspects You Shouldn’t Overlook

Easton — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:13:50 +0000

Here are 49 facets of your website design that you should never take for granted. Evaluate each item carefully and write down any relevant statistics, observations, ideas or questions. We hope you find this checklist useful!

Want a better website? Order one of our website packages today and save yourself some stress. Just read on to see what design aspects you don’t want to overlook…

The Big Picture: Major Web Design Aspects

1. Eye-pleasing
2. Unique
3. Simple
4. Organized
5. Appropriate
6. Easy to read
7. Easy to navigate
8. Easy to distinguish links from text

Accessibility: How Does Your Website Really Look?

9. Looks same in various browsers
10. Looks same at different resolutions
11. Mobile version looks good

Errors and Broken Stuff

12. No broken links
13. No code errors
14. No missing alt text/placeholders

The Stuff at the Top

15. Memorable favicon
16. Appropriately-sized masthead
17. Eye-pleasing masthead
18. Relevant masthead
19. Appropriately-sized logo
20. Resizable logo
21. Eye-pleasing logo
22. Relevant logo
23. Logo works without color

Does Your Website Work Without … ?

24. Website works without images
25. Website works without CSS

Will They Remember You?

26. Appropriately-sized website title
27. Memorable website title
28. Descriptive website title
29. Memorable tagline
30. Descriptive tagline

Searches and Subscriptions

31. Visible search box
32. Obvious search box
33. Useful search box
34. Visible feed/email subscription options

Articles and Excerpts

35. Visible article headlines
36. Appropriate number/size of article excerpts on homepage
37. Appropriate number/size of article excerpts on archive pages

Social Media and Commenting

38. Visible social media sharing options
39. Relevant social media sharing options
40. Appealing social media sharing options
41. Visible article comment area
42. Easy to publish a comment
43. Easy to browse comments/trackbacks/pingbacks/tweetbacks

What’s on the Side?

44. Organized sidebar(s)
45. Useful sidebar elements

What’s on the Bottom?

46. Organized footer
47. Useful footer elements

Feed Me, Seymour! Feed Me!

48. Feed displays correctly
49. Useful feed elements

adapted from my Blog Improvement Checklist

Why Headway 1.5 is the Mightiest WordPress Theme Ever Made

Easton — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:37:16 +0000

How mighty is your WordPress theme?

Watch the video below and see how easy it is to use the new Headway 1.5 WordPress theme to make visual changes to your WordPress-powered website.

Then think to yourself – can I do that?

Well, yes – you can! Dawud was a tester during the development of Headway 1.5. He, along with many others, gave constant feedback to the Headway developers to make the theme as simple and easy to use as possible. What came from it is that Headway is made for people who want a theme that they can easily change the layout, structure and colors of their site pages with a few mouse drags and clicks. This is truly revolutionary.

Here at Website Habitat, we pride ourselves on service and offering the best possible business website designs for our clients at an affordable price.

And now, you can order any Website Habitat design package and get Headway installed at no extra cost.

You heard that right. Instead of paying $164 for a developer’s license to have access to what you see in the video above, you can have your own website running on Headway without paying a dime for it. Just let us know you want Headway when you order and we’ll install it.

What Makes Headway the Mightiest of All WordPress Themes?

Simply put, no other WP theme on the planet lets you change your website’s layout and color scheme on the fly, right in front of you. With any other theme, you have to either make changes directly in the code, or go through dialogs in your admin area, and then click “save.” And then you have to click over to another tab or window to see your website, hit “refresh” and hope that the changes you made will look good. And not break stuff.

With Headway, you have control over how your text looks, where you images and navigation buttons go – almost anything you want to do, Headway makes it easy as pie to do.

But What About Other WP Themes?

At Website Habitat, we’re not beholden to any single theme for WordPress. We know that there are hundreds upon hundreds of fantastic free and premium (paid) WP themes – and if another one ever leapfrogs Headway, we’ll be happy to let you know. But we wanted you to know that this incredible platform can be yours at no extra cost if you just say the word.

Have you tried Headway yet? Do you think there’s a mightier theme out there for WordPress? If so, we’d love to hear about it. And we’d love to design your business website today.

Small Business Web Design: 78 of the Best Resources

Easton — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:58:06 +0000

We are always looking for the best resources available around the web to help our clients create the best, most effective websites for their businesses and coaching practices.

So here are 78 of the finest resources available for website design for small businesses, your healing practice or your coaching practice. If you know any resources that belong on this list, please share them by leaving a comment below!