#240: Before You Build Your Coaching Website… Do This First

When I first started my coaching business, one of the first things I did was build a website.

I thought having a website would make my business look legitimate.

So I bought the domain, started designing the pages, and planned to send people there.

But what I didn’t realize at the time was this:

A website only works when the foundation behind it is clear.

Without the right messaging, niche, and copy, a beautiful website won’t bring you clients.

In this episode, I’m sharing two of the biggest mistakes I see coaches make when building their website — mistakes that can cost thousands of dollars and months of frustration.

If you're thinking about building a website (or already have one), this episode will help you make sure it actually works.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why many coaches build their website too early
• The real purpose of a coaching website
• Why copy should come before design
• The messaging mistake that makes websites confusing
• Why nobody will visit your website unless you promote it
• The two foundational things every coaching website needs

🔗 Links Mentioned

Website

 https://elevatelifecoaching.org

Free Resource:

 7-Step Roadmap to Build Your Coaching Business & Get Clients

YouTube Channel

Marketing, But Easier for coaches

Meet Your Host:

Hey, I’m Michelle — The coaches’ coach.

I'm a Business and Visibility marketing Coach who helps female life coaches build a coaching biz, get seen at all the right places, and attract paying clients.

I believe your coaching business should feel beautiful and profitable — without sacrificing your sanity, your weekends, or your personality.

Using my 7-Step Client Enrollment Method, I help you build a coaching business that clients can’t help but say, “OMG, that’s who I need!”

More clarity, more clients, more champagne moments. 🥂

Because building your dream business shouldn’t be a nightmare — it should feel like coming home.

🐦 SOCIAL STUFF:

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Transcript

Why A Website Isn’t First

Michelle Kuei 0:00

I hear a horrifying story where coaches jump into making their website, and me included, because when I first started out my coaching business, I thought that I need to have a website first because website that makes you feel legit. And that was the very first thing that I decided to do, besides my business card that I was holding in my hand when I went to a networking event. So the website was the first thing I wanted to send traffic there. I wanted to send my audience there. Little did I know that in order to have a functional website that people actually go to your website and they actually do something, there's a lot of things that you have to pay attention to before you actually put it out. If you just want to have a domain, if you just want to have a website that says your name, has your logo, has like a service button, contact me button, which half of the time it's probably going to be other marketer pitching you inside that contact form, then you really need to do some foundational work. So today we're going to talk about what are those foundational words before you hop into making your website. Hopefully, this is going to save you thousands of dollars. Hey coach, welcome to Make It Visible Podcast. I'm Michelle Kwei, your visibility marketing coach, and I help female life coaches to get seen in all the right places, attract happy paying clients, and build a coaching business that actually feels good to run. Even if you are still trying to figure things out. Each week I'm giving you visibility tips, simple marketing strategies, and showing you how to create the kind of content that connects with your audience so that you can stand out, build your authority, and attract clients who's already feeling like a yes before they jump onto your discovery call. So grab a notebook, pour yourself a favorite drink, and that's make your coaching business visible. Today I want to talk to you about building a website. I get that feeling of yes, having a website is important, but that is not the first on your priority. This is something that I learned from as a copywriter. You want to have the copy first. Copy meaning the words that you're gonna put onto your website, that come first. Then you put it out, have a website designer to create it for you, and not the other way around. Here's what I see coaches do they go to a website, whether you found Fiverr, Upload Work, someone who's doing this professionally, or maybe it's a brand designer who helped you put this website together, no matter what your budget is and how you go to them, there's so many different options of how you can make this website happen. Now, before you go to them and before they sit you down and here's your branding color, here's your logo, here's your all these designs. I want you to really think about what goes on to the website because essentially your client is not going to a website and say, Oh my goodness, this looks so pretty. I'm so attracted to the design, and therefore I'm wanting to take out my wallet and I want to hire you as a coach. They are probably going to sit there and they're going to read through what is on the website. The design helps for our reading, our eyes to read, it facilitates the reading process, but that is not the design, it is not the determination of why or how people are doing the purchasing or how people hire you. So the rule of thumb is you want to make sure that you have the copy or you have the words on your website dialed in before you share that with the designer, not the other way around, never the other way around. And that this is a mistake that I have made before, where I actually built my own website. So I have years of as working as a blogger, so I started my internet experience as a blogger. So I have years of blogging experience creating my own website. I have knowledge for the coding, so I know the HTML, the CSS code. So all that it was because I had to learn that from my blogger life. So my first website as a coach, I put it together and it was built on WordPress. It was all coded, it was a lot of template. I got this, I put it out there, and basically I broke the rule of having the copy first before going to design, which led to I was not connected to the website anymore because my messaging had changed. So I can tell you how many times I have gone back to fixing my website, and clients are slowly trickling in as my message got better and better on my website, and I got clearer and more clear on what is it, who is it, and how I'm going to help them. So all these things need to happen. So your copy needs to happen before you put it onto the design. And the design is important. So here's the horrifying story that I hear coaches spend thousands of dollars hiring a brand designer or website designer, and then it looks pretty, it looks absolutely gorgeous. And I can tell you like if I go to a coach community on Facebook, I can pull up all these fabulous, amazing, beautiful websites. But when you look at the copy, and this is something that I saw the other day from a coach who shared inside a coach community, she said, I have the website, but it's not resonating and people are not connecting to it. So I actually went onto her website, clicked it, and I went to her website and I took a look. And the first thing I noticed was she was targeting three different people. She was targeting creative artists, she was targeting people who wanted to include creativity in their lives so that they can address the burnout, they can have more creativity, they can have more joy in their life. And she was also targeting the people who are who are career changers. So people who are going through career transition, helping them addressing the burnout so that they can bring more joy and happiness in their life, which totally legit if you look at each individual person. This artist probably feeling burned out because the artwork is not selling. This is a starving artist who's trying to get make a living out of the art, and this person is not happy because my artwork is not selling, right? Or nobody's appreciating my work. I create, I spend all this time creating art, but no one is appreciating. Whereas your career changer, if you look at what they want, the career changer, they're in the process of finding a new career. Do they have time to actually sit down? No matter how burnt out they are. Do they actually have time to sit down and creating art? Chances are they're probably working on their resume. So that is not what they're looking to have. Now, the last group, which is the people who's looking to have more creativity. Now that could be something. So just from page, I didn't even have to scroll. I can already tell that the copy is not something that it's not resonating with whoever is visiting the website. So now we have this beautiful website, but no one visits. So what's the point? And you spend thousands of dollars to create this beautiful website. If you can't get the foundational thing done, then it doesn't matter how much you spend, still, no one's going to visit. So the goal for your website is really coming down to you want to be able to put it out there and to attract your client. But more importantly, it's not the design that attracts your client. It's the words that you said, the message that you put out, the package, is it clear? Is it easy to read? Is it easy to understand? What am I going to get when I signed up with you? Those are the things that's going to be to matter the most when you put it onto the website. So you can have the most beautiful design, but if your word or your copy or your presentation is not clear to the people who's actually doing the hiring and doing the purchasing, it doesn't matter how much how beautiful it looks. And this is why coaches putting out a pretty website, but there's no traffic to it. So that's one of the reasons why you create a website and there is no one clicking or buying. It doesn't work that way. So if you created a website, chances are you want to drive the traffic to your website. And just because you create it doesn't mean that it's there to be found. So just like anything that you create in your business, your website now becomes an offer, becomes a package, a free package you want to present in front of your ideal client. So what do you do? You need to launch it, you need to advertise it, you need to promote it. So every now and then in your content creation, you wanted to make sure that you talk about your website. You want to talk about here, have you check out my website this week? It's that I have a new blog, I have a new article, I have a new podcast, I have a new video here on the website. So every now and then you should be driving the traffic to your website so people actually can visit your website. So those are the two mistakes that I see coaches are making in terms of their website. First, they create the website without actually working on the foundational piece, which is the niche, the messaging, the copy, knowing who this website is built for. Those are the essential things before you even hop on and doing the website at all. So that's mistake number one. Mistake number two is they never talk about they actually created such a beautiful thing. So if you don't talk about it, how would anybody know that you created it? So here are the two things that you should be aware of when it comes to building your website. I would love to hear. I want you to comment down below if you have a website, you created a website, I want you to drop it into the comment. Let me take a look and say audit in the comment if you want me to go and visit your website to give you some feedback so that we can make it better. Thank you for listening to Make It Visible Podcast. If you love this episode and want deeper support for your coaching business, head over to elevate lifecoaching.org and see how we can partner together to turn your passion into a profitable business. I help female coaches launch and scale their coaching business faster than ever without wasting time and money, filling the gaps in your marketing strategies, creating a simple and easy to follow system so you can accelerate on the path of coaching business that you love to wake up to. Head over to elevatelifecoaching.org and grab a free strategy out of today.