SEO for coaches is one of the most important things you can do to make your coaching business successful.
…But it’s not always easy to know where to start.
In this complete guide, we’ll show you everything you need to know about SEO for coaches, from choosing the right keywords to setting up your website and tracking your progress.
We’ll also give you some tips on how to stay ahead of the competition and get more clients through SEO!
Ready to get started? Let’s jump in.
What Is SEO And Why Do Coaches Need It?
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of making your website and coaching business more visible in search engines like Google.
This can be done by optimizing your website content, building backlinks, and using the right keywords.
Lost already? Don’t worry, we’ll explain in detail further on.
Why is this important?
When people are looking for coaching services, they’re more likely to find and choose a business that appears higher in the search results. For example, if I’m looking for a life coach, I might type something like “life coaching near me” into Google.
If your website appears on the first page of results, I’m much more likely to click through and contact you than if your website is buried on the 10th page.
In other words, SEO can help you attract more clients and grow your business!
There are a few other benefits of SEO for coaches as well:
- SEO can help you build trust and credibility with potential clients. If your website appears high in the search results, people will see you as an authority in your field and be more likely to contact you.
- SEO can also help you stand out from the competition. If other coaching businesses in your area are not doing any SEO, you can easily outrank them by making a few simple changes to your website.
- And finally, SEO is an affordable and long-term marketing strategy. Once you’ve optimized your website, you can continue to attract new clients for months or even years without spending any additional money on marketing.
Now that we’ve answered the question “what is SEO and why do coaches need it?”, let’s move on to how you can start optimizing your website for the search engines. Don’t worry; I’ll try to keep it as simple as possible.
To start, I’ll explain the most important SEO vocabulary.
Understanding SEO Vocabulary
There are a few terms that you need to know before we dive into the nitty-gritty of SEO for coaches.
Here’s a quick overview:
- Keywords: These are the words and phrases that people use when they’re searching for coaching services online. For example, some keywords for a life coach might be “life coaching,” “career coaching,” or “relationship coaching.”
- Backlinks: These are links from other websites to your website. Backlinks are important because they help improve your website’s ranking in the search results.
- Search engine: This program indexes and retrieves data from the internet, like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
- Search engine optimization (SEO): This is the process of making your website more visible in the search results.
Now that you know the basic vocabulary that we’re going to use in this guide, let’s take a look at the basics of SEO.
How To Optimize Your Website For SEO
There are a few different things you can do to optimize your website for SEO.
Here are some of the most important things to keep in mind.
1. Use The Right Keywords
The first and most crucial step in SEO is to choose the right keywords.
These are the words and phrases that potential clients will use to search for coaching services like yours.
For example, if you’re a relationship coach, some of the keywords you might want to target are “relationship coaching,” “dating advice,” or “marriage counseling.”
To find the right keywords for your business, you can use a keyword research tool like Keysearch. This tool will help you see how often people search for specific keywords and phrases. To learn more, you can check out my guide to finding keywords with Keysearch.
That said, there are different tools out there, so pick one that suits your needs and budget.
Once you’ve chosen the right keywords, the next step is to use them throughout your website.
Use them in your titles, in the headers of your blog posts, and the alt text of your images. The more places you use them, the better! Of course, everything should look natural, so it doesn’t look like you’re doing “keyword stuffing”.
For example, if your business is about life coaching, you might want to make sure your homepage, sales page, and about page all have the keyword “life coaching” in them.
Then, you could write blog posts that are at the top of your sales funnel. For example, if you specialize in coaching anxious people, you might want to write blog posts about “how to deal with anxiety”, etc.
Now, the goal here is to target low-competition keywords that you can realistically rank for.
There’s no point in trying to rank for “coaching” because it’s such a broad term with a lot of competition. However, if you focus on more specific keywords like “anxiety coaching” or “career coaching”, you’ll have a much better chance of ranking in the search results.
If your website is relatively new, I’d recommend using long-tail keywords.
A long-tail keyword is a keyword that is more specific and usually has less competition. For example, “relationship coaching for men” is a long-tail keyword.
To sum things up, choosing the right keywords is one of the most essential steps in SEO. So, take your time and choose wisely!
2. Optimize Your Website’s Title And Meta Description
The title and meta description of your website are two of the most important places to use your keywords.
Your title is the text that appears in the search results, and your meta description is the brief summary that appears underneath your title.
Both of these places are great opportunities to use your keywords and help improve your click-through rate (CTR) – which is the percentage of people who click on your website’s listing in the search results.
Here are a few tips for optimizing your title and meta description:
- Use your keywords at the beginning of your title.
- Keep your title under 60 characters.
- Write a compelling meta description that’s between 150-160 characters.
- Use your keywords in your meta description.
3. Publish High-Quality Content Regularly
One of the best things you can do for your website’s SEO is to publish high-quality content regularly.
This could be in the form of blog posts, videos, or even infographics.
Not only will this help improve your website’s ranking in the search results, but it will also give people a reason to keep coming back to your website.
To make sure your content is high-quality, make sure it’s well-written, informative, and engaging. You can read our guide to blogging for coaches to learn more.
It should also be keyword-optimized, which means using your keywords throughout your content in a natural way. You should also make sure the URL includes your main keyword.
We also recommend you use different variations of a keyword.
For example, if you’re writing a blog post about “career tips”, you could use variations like:
- Career advice
- Career guidance tips
- Career growth
- How to advance your career
4. Optimize Your Images
In addition to using keywords in the text on your website, you can also optimize your images for SEO. This is done by adding “alt text” to your images. Alt text is a brief description of an image that appears in the search results.
To add alt text to an image, simply open the image in your website’s editor and add a brief description. Make sure to include your keywords!
5. Build High-Quality Backlinks
Backlinks are incoming links from other websites to yours. They help improve your website’s ranking in the search results because they show that your website is popular and authoritative.
In other words, backlinks are like a vote of confidence from other websites.
There are a few different ways to get high-quality backlinks:
- Guest blogging: This is when you write a blog post for another website in your industry.
- Broken link building: This is when you find websites that have broken links and offer to replace them with a link to your website.
- Infographic submission: This is when you create an infographic and submit it to websites that accept infographics.
To find websites that might be interested in any of these strategies, simply do a Google search for “[Your Keyword] + guest post”, “[Your Keyword] + infographic”, etc.
For example, if you’re in the life coaching industry, you might search for “life coaching + guest post” or “life coaching + infographic”.
6. Use Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool that lets you see how your website performs in the search results.
It also lets you submit your website to Google, which can help improve your ranking.
To use Google Search Console, simply go to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ and enter your website’s URL.
Once you have content published, you’ll find lots of keyword ideas in there too, which can be helpful to keep optimizing your content in the future.
7. Track Your Progress
Finally, it’s important to track your progress to see how well your website is performing in the search results.
You can do this by checking your website’s ranking in the search results for your target keywords.
You can also use Google Analytics to track how much traffic you’re getting from the search results.
To do this, simply create a free account at Google Analytics and add your website.
Once you have Google Analytics set up, you’ll be able to see how much traffic you’re getting from the search results.
Then, you can use Google Search Console to see what keywords people use to find your website.
8. Hire An SEO Specialist
If you want to take your SEO to the next level, you can always hire an SEO specialist.
An SEO specialist is someone who is an expert in optimizing websites for search engines.
They can help you further optimize your website and content, build high-quality backlinks, and track your progress.
You can contact me if you’re interested in hiring an SEO specialist. I offer SEO services and can customize a plan for you.
Tools And Resources That Can Help You With SEO
There are several tools and resources that can help you with SEO. Here are some of the most popular:
- Google Analytics: This is a free tool that allows you to track your website’s traffic.
- Google Search Console: This is a free tool that allows you to submit your website to Google and track your website’s performance in the search results.
- Yoast SEO: This is a popular WordPress plugin that allows you to optimize your website and content for the search engines.
- Moz: This is a paid tool that offers a number of features to help with SEO, including keyword research and link building.
- Keysearch: This is a paid tool that allows you to evaluate the competitiveness of a keyword.
Tips For Staying Ahead Of The Competition
If you want to stay ahead of your competition, there are a few things you can do:
- Publish high-quality content: This is the most important thing you can do. If you publish high-quality, informative, and engaging content, people will naturally link to it and share it on social media.
- Promote your content: Once you have great content published, make sure you promote it. Share it on social media, repurpose the content into other formats (like an infographic or ebook), and reach out to influencers in your industry.
- Keep track of your progress: Use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track your website’s traffic and performance in the search results. This will help you identify what’s working and what needs to be improved.
- Hire an SEO specialist: If you want to take your SEO to the next level, consider hiring an SEO specialist. They can help you further optimize your website and content, build high-quality backlinks, and track your progress.
Coaching Keyword Ideas
There are many niches within the coaching industry. Let’s look at the main ones and see how you can come up with keyword ideas for your content.
- Life coaching
- Business coaching
- Career coaching
- Relationship coaching
- Health and wellness coaching
- Executive coaching
- Financial coaching
- Fitness coaching
- Spiritual coaching
- Parenting coaching
- Personal development coaching
- Blogging coaching
- SEO coaching
- Marketing coaching
- Sales coaching
If you specialize in one of these niche areas, be sure to include keywords that reflect your specialty. For example, if you’re a business coach, some keywords you may want to target are “business coaching,” “coaching for entrepreneurs,” and “small business coaching.”
Let’s see different keyword ideas you could come up with – simply replace the “XYZ” with your specialization:
- XYZ coach
- XYZ coaching
- XYZ coach near me
- What is a XYZ coach
- XYZ coach in XYZ city/country
- Coaching for XYZ
- Coaching about XYZ
- XYZ coaching for XYZ
- Etc.
To brainstorm ideas, you can also take a look at questions asked in Facebook groups, on Instagram, or even on Google.
For example, Google has the “People Also Ask” section where you see popular questions and answers. You can get inspiration from the questions there.
Top Of The Funnel Ideas For Coaches
If you want to generate leads from your website, you’ll need to have content that targets people who are at the top of the funnel. For example, content for people who are just beginning to learn about your topic.
Some ideas for top of the funnel content include:
- How-to guides
- Lists of resources
- Introductory articles
- Tips and tricks articles
- Overviews of different concepts
- Comparison articles
Remember to include keywords that reflect what people are searching for at this stage of their journey.
For example, if you’re a business coach, some keywords you may want to target are “how to start a business,” “business ideas for beginners,” and “how to be a successful entrepreneur.”
Middle Of The Funnel Ideas For Coaches
If you want to generate leads from your website, you’ll also need to have content that targets people who are in the middle of the funnel. For example, content for people who are considering your solution but aren’t quite ready to buy.
Some ideas for middle of the funnel content include:
- Case studies
- Product demos
- Free trials
- Coupons and discounts
- Sample coaching sessions
- Templates and worksheets
- Cheat sheets
- Toolkits
Remember to include keywords that reflect what people are searching for at this stage of their journey.
For example, if you’re a business coach, some keywords you may want to target are “business checklist,” “business plan template,” and “business tools for beginners”
Bottom Of The Funnel Ideas For Coaches
If you want to generate leads from your website, you’ll also need to have content that targets people who are at the bottom of the funnel. For example, content for people who are ready to buy your coaching services.
Some ideas for bottom of the funnel content include:
- Sales pages
- Pricing pages
- Webinars
- eBooks
Remember to include keywords that reflect what people are searching for at this stage of their journey.
For example, if you’re a business coach, some keywords you may want to target are “business coaching services,” “business coaching programs,” and “business coaching prices.”
Final Thoughts On SEO For Coaches
SEO is a complex topic but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By starting with keyword research, you can get a better understanding of what people are searching for and then create content that targets those keywords.
If you want to generate leads from your website, be sure to create content for all stages of the buyer’s journey. This means having top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel content.
Finally, remember that SEO is an ongoing process. You’ll need to regularly create new content and optimize your existing content if you want to see results. But if you’re consistent with your SEO efforts, you should see steady traffic and leads coming to your website.
Don’t have the time to figure out SEO? You can hire me to take care of your SEO or learn our proven techniques with our course SEO From Scratch.
Need help with SEO? Read one of the following guides:
