As a new coach, your online presence is important. It’s also a little overwhelming. It’s easy to get stuck on content creation and website development, especially if you’re new to it all and trying to define your niche. In today’s digital age, there is no question that you need a website to build your personal brand and attract clients.

Once you’ve found and defined your coaching niche, your “I help X (clients) do Y (service you provide),” follow these tips to overcome the digital divide and launch with confidence.

1. Know that your website is never complete.

Whatever method you choose for message and website creation – whether you hire a freelancer or do it on your own—know that websites are a constantly-evolving, living-and-breathing “project” that you will change. Period.

Whatever you launch with will look and feel different at different points in time. You will refresh the content. You will link to other sites or change your contact form or remove that carousel of images that takes forever to load. It’s never “done.” It’s a new opportunity to experiment with different markets and positioning and messaging. 

In other words, don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good here; you’re building your brand. Launch a site that helps you establish that brand and further define your voice. Get a website up and running that checks the basics, including: 

• What you bring (the Y) to X, your target audience 
• Your why – your value(s), why you love helping people/leaders/executives
• An “About” section and a contact form

There you have it: a website framework. Keep it simple and launch it. You can, and will, change it later!

Tip: use your resources wisely!

Overwhelmed and don’t know where to start? Don’t overthink it – experiment with what you already have. If you use Google, you can create your own website for free! Google’s small business suite walks you through simple services to get your coaching business visible, including marketing materials such as a website, business profile, digital ads and videos. You can use Unsplash for quality, free-to-use photos too. 

2. Know your audience and what you offer them.

Are you working with small business entrepreneurs or Fortune 100 CEOs? Are you working with mid-level managers or overwhelmed healthcare providers? How are you helping them? Are you building boards, facilitating strategic planning sessions, or offering 1-hour coaching sessions online? Coaching applies to a wide array of audiences and knowing how and where to find yours online is vital to your visibility success.

Learn all you can about your target audience and how your unique services will help them. Use this fodder as content for your site, topics to write about on LinkedIn, and ways to build your audience and coaching business simultaneously. Link your LinkedIn articles to your website, partner with other coaches and share their content. Digital marketing relies on algorithms, and you can increase the chance of more people seeing your content when it’s organic, i.e. when more people naturally interact with your content by liking it, commenting on it, sharing it, etc.  

When in doubt, think about what someone in your target audience would search for online to find you and your services. What phrase, key word(s), or action do you want your coaching business associated with, and how does that fit your brand and your target audience?

Tip: don’t focus solely on your digital presence.

While you need a website and a voice on social, relationship building and networking will probably foster the most leads as you begin coaching. Know how your personal brand adds to the conversation, and where to best influence the conversation that’s happening around your topics – whether that’s online or in your already-established powerbase.

3. Define what step(s) you want them to take and make it easy.

So now, you’ve built content and/or a framework for an online audience that fits your demographic, unique to what you offer to whom. What’s the one action you want that target audience to take on your website?

• Call you for more information?
• Take an assessment?
• Schedule a meeting to discuss what they’re looking for, and if what you offer is the right fit?
• Share their contact information, so you can follow up separately?

Tip: Make the action easy, obvious, and mobile friendly.

Think big buttons, with the action clearly defined: “Call Today” or “Email for More.” When your target audience clicks on it (an action you want!), make it as easy as possible for the user to do whatever it is you want them to do. If you want phone calls, don’t hide your phone number three clicks in or put it in tiny print in the footer. Make it the first thing they see, and something they can do with a simple click.