1- Create an Indelible Impression from page one!
As a coach or consultant, you are selling yourself first! People want to know who you are, what credentials you have, what is your experience in the field, what you can do for them and how you will go about it? People want to know how you will propel them to the next level better than the next consultant they search for.
Your bio page needs to create an indelible impression and draw clients to you as a person and as their coach/consultant. This begins with telling your story, sharing some client testimonials and showing them your professional credentials. Be your most honest and authentic self. Include glimpses into your personal life with pictures that convey your interests, hobbies, values, etc. Include pictures or short clips of you in action, teaching a seminar, working with a team or leading a workshop.
The fine line with this first page is to keep it manageable (2-3 minutes of reading) while conveying the essence of you as a coach, consultant and person. The tendency can be to add too much to this page, which can overwhelm a prospect. Make sure you are communicating just the authentic best of yourself! Editing will be especially important for page one.
Invite potential clients to connect with you on your favorite social media sites to engage more fully with them over the course of their decision process and beyond.
Make sure you include a contact form as a call to action. The truth of the matter is that if your first website page creates an indelible impression then most of your leads will come from your bio contact form.
2- Communicate Uniqueness, Authenticity and Brilliance in text and images.
What sets you apart from the myriad of other potential coaches or consultants available, at the press of a few keys, to a potential client?
- What makes you unique?
- Where did you get your experience?
- What is your expertise in your field of work?
- Through what means did you grow and advance in your career?
- Does your story and bio ring true?
- Do readers perceive you as honest and authentic?
As potential clients move through your web pages it is vital that they not only experience you to be professional and an authority but that they believe you are authentic and honest.
Authenticity involves clear and professional communication to readers on your website through the use of brilliant images and text. Images should not be stock since you are selling yourself, most should be professionally produced, although a few personal shots are great, and at least some should capture you in action. Your written content must be professionally written to tell a compelling story of you and carefully edited in order to fulfill the third way of making your website credible and powerful.
3- Offer Clear & Concise Information in a Clean Design.
Your consulting website design is extremely important! First and foremost it must reflect who you are, then an overall theme for your work and clear specifics about how you will help your client. And it should also offer concise information about all your offerings peppered with reviews and testimonials to support your contributions to the success and growth of your clients.
A video introduction is a great way to reveal your most authentic self through your facial expressions, voice and body language. These videos have become the hottest links on websites and are favored by a large group of people accustomed to video information and lacking the time to read bio sheets. Including links to video testimonials will have maximum impact for those looking for what you can offer them and their businesses.
Web pages should never overwhelm people with pictures and words. Clients respond best to tightly formulated informational paragraphs amidst compelling photographs, quotes, testimonials, and calls to action.
4- Infuse your website pages with clear, value-laden calls to action.
Business consulting websites and business coaching websites must have excellent clearly written information for potential clients to peruse, absorb and reflect upon. However, since what we all want from our website is for them to effectively turn potential clients into real-life paying clients, we are going to need to make plenty of calls to action.
Your website should place at least one call to action on every website page. A simple ask for a name and email address to make further contact works great! However, offering people who visit your website something of value for their information is also a great way to to draw further interest from those who are “just browsing”. These value-laden calls to action can offer a phone consultation, free downloads, a newsletter subscription or an ebook for information.
Your final step will be adding some pizzazz to your calls to action by placing them in colorful well placed boxes with easy to follow instructions and simple to use button graphics that make it simple and inviting to take action.
5- Optimize your website for search engines.
Our final coaching and consulting website design tip is to make sure your website is optimized for search engines. When people search for business coaches or consultants in their web browser you want your business consultant website to show up on the first results page. If it doesn’t you are losing a lot of traffic to your business coaching website.
