Why Your Coaching Website Is Not Generating New Clients — And What To Do?

Published in

The Startup

28 min readNov 28, 2018

You create your own website for your coaching business & showcase a course, a particular product or a service that you want to provide to your coaching clients.

But the website doesn’t seem to work.

There is no traffic on the site.

You are not getting any email subscribers.

And you don’t seem to be able to reach out to the people who need your service.

You begin to worry, doubt yourself, and think you are falling into an endless pit of failure.

Stop right there! Worrying is waste of time.

Today I am going to show you the essential elements required to create a conversion optimised landing page for your coaching business.

Here’s what you will learn from this article –

The essential elements that make or break any Landing Page
Techniques that work for Landing Pages in 2018
Factors that influence the conversion rate of your website visitors turning into coaching clients
Tools & templates for you to design & develop the Landing Page for your own Coaching Business

WHAT IS A LANDING PAGE?

Sarah Peterson simply describes it as –

“A page that your users first land on (duh) which has a call to action on it.

Usually, it calls the visitor to click a button to go to another page of your website, or subscribe to a mailing list or for a discount or freebie.

Typically, on a landing page, the magic all happens above the fold. Just like a folded newspaper, the top section of the paper should tell you exactly what the paper will be about.

The same applies for a landing page, you shouldn’t have to scroll down to get more information.”

WHY MIGHT YOU USE A LANDING PAGE?

You could use a landing page for anything you want your user to do. For example,

You are giving away a freebie to attract people to sign up for your email list.
You are using it to collect emails before you launch your coaching website or blog.
You just have a specific call to action you want somebody to take — like signing up for a webinar or registering for an online course.

Now let’s consider these three scenarios:

Let’s say One landing page is selling all-terrain tents to hikers & campers.
Another landing page is inviting in-house marketers to a weekend convention in Glasgow.
A third landing page is asking binge sitcom watchers to take an online quiz.

“The page that works for any of these three is unlikely to work for either of the other two.

That’s because there’s an incredible amount of variation among their audience, purpose, intent, product, angle, focus, industry, niche, perception, buy-in, cost, messaging, value proposition, and testimonial approach.

Despite the huge potential for variation, some things do remain constant. High-converting landing pages often have several characteristics in common.” — Neil Patel, CrazyEgg

Your Key Messages Will Truly Resonate, If They Echo Your Customers’ Needs.

“Customers ‘switch on’ when topics that they care about are on the table. Instead of wasting money on irrelevant content and advertising, take the time to first tailor your key messages so that they echo your customers’ needs. By doing this you will speak in a language and on topics which your customer will genuinely be interested in.” — Brian McCarthy

Any customer or client spends their money primarily on two things.
First, they readily spend money to combat pain. Second, they spend money to pursue pleasure.

Jon Burgstone and Bill Murphy, Jr. from FastCompany list pain and pleasure in that order for a reason.

All things being equal, the more acute the pain or problem, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to offer a compelling solution. The more compelling the solution, the more quickly the customer will pay.

By referring to pain rather than needs or preferences reinforces the point: Customers are people. They appreciate the world through the prism of their experiences. They sense what challenges or bothers them–their pain–but they often can’t even conceive of the solutions–their needs.

Finding Your Ideal Client’s Pain Points –

How would you know what their needs, problems and pain points are?

Stop guessing. All you have to do is ask yourself this:

“What does my ideal client do when they need help? Where do they go, both online and off?”

Ilise Benun, in her blog post — How to Find Your Ideal Client’s Pain Points, wants coaches and consultants to focus on asking themselves this question every time they seek to understand their client’s wants, needs and major sources of pain.

These online & offline places are a thriving hub of potential coaching clients who are discussing and airing their grievances daily. All you have to do is go to these places, patiently go through the problems, and figure out which ones to prioritise based on your coaching niche.

Where can you begin, you ask?

Check out popular magazines in your line of business. One recommended strategy is to go through Amazon reviews of books that relate to your coaching niche. They are great sources of discussion and you will find problems & solutions people are seeking out online.

There are a multitude of niche blogs available that are already catering to readers & their pain points — GrowthHackers, StoryBrand, HubSpot, Neil Patel’s Blog are a few to name.

Social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram) are good sources too, but these niche blogs serve as secondary discussion forums (Reddit being primary) that have their own dedicated reader base. Tap these sources relentlessly.

Facebook groups are also great places for you to have conversations with potential coaching clients and help solve issues that people discuss thoroughly on a day-to-day basis.

But hands down, the best way to understand your audience is to interact with them directly. Face to face or via online video calls, either way, you get to know their exact emotions & feel their pain points in a better way.

The first rule of Copywriting talks about researching your target audience. Through direct interactions, you get the exact words & phrases that your audience is using to talk about their pain points. Using the audience’s language you are then able to create awesome copy for your coaching website.

The more you delve deeper into researching and understanding your potential client’s pain points, the more your landing page will attract traffic and result in successful conversions/lead generations every month.

“A deep understanding of your products and services, A DEEPER understanding of your target customers” — Elizabeth McCravy

Once you have a dedicated list of pain points, you’d then have to set up the messaging/copywriting on your coaching website and simultaneous email campaigns to talk about these problems & their solutions.

As Ilise Benun writes, this way your ideal clients would come to know three very important things –

That you understand what they’re struggling with
That you’ve seen it before
And that you know how to deal with it.

If you approach your self-promotion this way, it goes a long way toward building trust, especially with clients who don’t know you yet and how great you are. If you don’t address their pain points first, you may never get the opportunity to tell them how you can help them. Their pain is the doorway to a conversation. — Ilise Benun, HowDesign

Testing for Customer Pain

Jon and Bill, in their blog post — Why Customer Pain Is Your Most Important Resource, highlights the simplest method available for coaches to figure out whether a new venture idea will actually address a real-world customer pain or not.

All the previous pain-points research boils down to this:

“Can you describe the pain your company solves–and why anyone should care–in just a few words? Can you then persuade a prospective customer to purchase your product or service using your simple explanation?

Innovators and founders who need paragraphs to describe their market or persuade potential customers demonstrate that they haven’t refined their businesses sufficiently

Is it fatal if you can’t articulate a compelling customer pain? It can be eventually, but it also means simply that you haven’t fully formed your new venture idea yet. Many great entrepreneurs go through numerous iterations before they figure out the best uses for their innovations. It can take time to find the pain.

“A great message is NOT when your ideal client understands you, it’s when your ideal client feels understood BY YOU.” — Elizabeth McCravy

The following is a list of few trigger questions by Strategyzer can help you think of different potential customer pains:

What does your customer find too costly? E.g. does it take them a lot of time, cost them too much money, or require substantial efforts?
How are current solutions underperforming for your customer? E.g. which features are they missing, are there performance issues that annoy them, or malfunctions they mention?
What are the main difficulties and challenges your coaching clients encounter? E.g. do they understand how things work, do they have difficulties getting certain things done, or do they resist certain jobs for specific reasons?
What’s keeping your customer awake at night? E.g. What are their big issues, concerns, and worries?
What are barriers keeping your coaching clients from adopting a solution? E.g. Are there upfront investment costs, a steep learning curve, or are there other obstacles preventing adoption?

How to Align your Brand with your Customer’s Pain Points?

You’ve begun to understand your target audience, their needs & desires. Now you translate that understanding into your coaching website design & messaging (branding & copywriting). This becomes your perfect communication medium to attract coaching clients & generate leads for your business.

Elizabeth McCravy, in her insightful post — How To Speak To Your Customer’s Pain Points In Your Marketing, wants you to focus on exploring more about your brand alongside the pain-points research you are doing.

Ask yourself: What is the solution you are offering through your coaching website? Read over your past testimonials and look for patterns of problems solved.

When you’re speaking to a potential client, what do you they say? What are they looking for?

Survey your audience on social media or your mailing list and ask about their problems in relation to your products/services.

Ask yourself: How can your products/services make someone’s life better?

Is there a bigger issue that your brand is defeating?

What will your ideal client’s life look like if they DON’T get what they want? What happens if they never discover your offering?

And here are a few awesome yet simple ways you can show that authority in your coaching niche.

Testimonials — Let others do the talking for you with proof that you can solve the problem your potential customer is seeking help with!

Content Creation — Create content relevant to your niche daily. Show that you talk the talk and walk the walk when it comes to your potential customer’s problems & solutions. The mediums to showcase this are plenty — Blog posts, Guest Blogs, Podcasts, Tweets, Instagram Posts, and answering niche questions on forums
Awards and/or certifications — Are you certified in what you do? Are you “award-winning?” Let’s show it!
Statistics — It’s often overlooked, but quite powerful in making a strong first impression on your coaching website visitors. Customer success, Business ROI, Years of Experiences, No. of Clients served etc. are a few vital statistics that you should mention on your landing page.

A Footnote about Marketing & Sales –

“I know some people (ok, A LOT of people) struggle with feeling sleazy when they use marketing strategies to sell their products/services. I get that. I’ve been there. Here’s something for you to consider that has completely changed my own perspective:

Do you believe that your offering can really help people? Do you believe that you have the solution to people’s problems, if only they can find you?

If you care about helping people solve their problems with your solution, then it’s your job to sell your offering with confidence, boldness, and strategy. When you really care about your coaching clients and believe in what you’re doing, the selling part comes easy!” — Elizabeth McCravy

With pain points & customer research done and dusted. Let us now talk about the essential elements required to create a conversion optimised landing page in 2018.

“The simpler your landing page design, the easier it will be for your visitors to navigate, and then convert.” — Neil Patel

Essential Element 1: Headlines –

“Trouble is, oftentimes the headline on a landing page is an afterthought. Or worse, it’s written by a designer so that it “looks” good. This is a surefire way to kill your conversion rate and ruin the effectiveness of your landing page.” — Eric Sloan, Unbounce

One of the easiest elements to change on a page is the headline. It’s also one of the most important parts of the page to optimise if you’re trying to get a lift in your conversion rate.

However, when tasked with writing an engaging headline for a marketing piece, many marketers get it wrong. In an interview, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director, MECLABS, speaks about this problem.

The top-performing headlines all emphasise what the reader will get from reading more. They conveyed the attitude that (in Dr. McGlaughlin’s words) “You deserve something from me before I ask something from you.”

This is very important because, as Dr. McGlaughlin pointed out, “they have to have the perception that what you’re offering is more valuable than the perception of the cost.”

Marketing Experiments enlists the Two Key Principles marketers should use when crafting headlines –

Principle #1: All marketing messages must be centered primarily around the interests of the customer. Therefore, when it comes to crafting headlines, emphasise what the visitor gets rather than what they must do.

Principle #2: The goal of a headline is similar to the goal of the opening scene of a movie — to capture the visitor’s attention and get them into the first paragraph. Therefore, utilise a “point-first” structure (i.e. placing the value at the front of the headline)

“Headlines are our first point of contact between a piece of content or a call to action, and a headline is what hooks us into engaging with that Call To Action.” — Sarah Peterson, Sumo

Here’s what a perfect headline needs, as listed by Unbounce –

Focus — An effective headline will not be vague. It will cut to the chase. Lose the fluff and keep things simple.
Relevance — The headline should relate to the offer that is on your landing page.
Benefits — Any great headline will tell the visitor — right away — what problem(s) this page can solve.

The headline should be short. Never make it more than 20 words, and preferably limit it to 10.

Throw in some power words and numbers. Power words can make a mediocre headline amazing, as explained brilliantly by WordStream –

#you — When we read the word “you,” our brains respond in a similar way as they do when we hear our own names. They appeal directly to our sense of identity, making them a powerful way to connect with your prospects. This approach also reinforces prospects’ desire to be treated as an individual, rather than just another customer.
#easy — If you can solve a prospect’s problem and make it as easy as possible for them to do so, you’re onto a winning formula. People want to solve their problems, but they also want to do as little as possible to accomplish their goals.
#save — When it comes to committing to a purchase, most prospects are looking to minimize two things: how much it will cost them, and how long it will take. Even if time and money aren’t your prospects’ primary concerns, the word “save” has powerful implications that can make your landing page copy much more persuasive.
#results — The best salespeople know to let the product do the talking for them. So whatever you’re trying to sell, include real examples of how your product or service has helped existing coaching clients. This not only serves as a trust signal, but it also proves that your product does what it says it does.
#guarantee — Your prospects are even warier of the possibility of losing something, whether it be time, money, or something else. That’s what makes the word “guarantee” so powerful — when used correctly, it effectively removes the risk of at least trying whatever you’re selling.

Sumo has these amazing Headline Formulas you can use to insanely boost your landing page conversions.

Here are a few Landing Page Headline Examples that are right on the money. They draw in their visitors and hammer home the offer –

MailChimp — It’s still a few months from 2019, but they are clear about what they are providing for their target customers. And the fact that they’ve managed to club New Year Resolutions with Business Goals is quite clever.
StoryBrand — A clear message in the headline for specifically targeted audiences, and a clean website design all around. And when it comes to headlines, Donald Miller knows all the subtleties & the sweet techniques that help him convert website visitors into coaching clients. A masterful copywriter indeed.

A few more awesome links to headlines that hit the brief & help immensely in terms of conversion rates for any coaching website-

Headline Examples that work and that don’t — Neil Patel

Successful Landing Page Headlines — Eric Sloan, Unbounce

5 Proven Formulas for High-Converting Landing Page Headlines — Brad Smith

Essential Element 2: Persuasive Subheadings

“Not all landing pages have a subhead, but a good subhead can be incredibly compelling and draw people in almost more than the headline.
Your headline captures the attention of your visitor, and your subhead holds their attention, leading them to take action on your call to action.” — Sarah Peterson

And we mentioned earlier there are no specific rules for landing page elements and their positioning.

Yes, a persuasive subheading is usually positioned directly below the main headline.

It should have a certain element of persuasiveness. If your headline captures the attention of your coaching website visitors, the subhead should hold their attention & lead them to take action on your Call To Action Button (which we’ll be discussing in depth soon enough.)

The subhead can go into more depth & detail than the headline if your branding so requires.

Let’s take a look at a good example — Medium

Their headline, “Welcome to Medium, where words matter.”, is precise & attention-grabbing.
Their subhead allows the reader to learn more about their platform. And it is clear that the user can access Medium from anywhere on the go, which is an added benefit to using their services.

So the headline & the subhead together makes the visitor more likely to click the “Get Started” button than they would after reading the headline alone.

Neil Patel gives us another lovely example that the explanation doesn’t always have to come after the page’s most compelling statement.

HelpDesk, for example, flips their headline and subheadline on the following landing page.
The page’s main headline, as indicated by the larger font and central positioning, is, “A delightful customer experience.”

Although “A help desk for teams that insist on” is placed above that main headline, it’s clearly the subheadline. It’s much smaller and not featured as prominently.
Still, it elaborates on the headline’s general idea by explaining who the platform is for.

The position switch seems to be intentional. Taken together, it forms a complete idea of what HelpDesk offers.
Plus, with the way it’s presented, visitors’ attention is first directed to that emotionally-loaded phrase: “delightful customer experience.”

Essential Element 3: Testimonials

As a coach, in any field or business, you will be dealing with people. And, for people to hire you as their coach, they need to trust you first.

Now, there are many ways you can build this trust:

You can provide them with great content via your newsletter and blog. But, that takes time.
You can tell them how long you have been working in a particular industry. This will tap into the authority bias and people will trust you. But, it’s not personalised to their current situation.
The best way to build trust in a service business or for that matter in any kind of business is by showing them the results of your previous customers/clients via testimonials and case studies.

Tell them the story of your previous clients. How they were dealing with the same issues as your prospective clients are facing. And, how your service helped them overcome their struggles.

A landing page’s testimonials are some of its most important trust signals
A trustworthy testimonial goes a long way in cultivating their trust.

That’s all very common and maybe you already have some testimonials on your coaching website. Right?

But, what makes a great testimonial?

Which testimonials encourage your website visitors to take action?

Which testimonials increase your sales?

Which testimonials will help you build lifelong trust?

CrazyEgg has this article on Handy tips while incorporating testimonials –

Use testimonials from real people. Celebrities and experts are great, but you don’t need testimonials from these people. Choose testimonials from people who are most relevant to your target audience
Make sure you use pictures. Pictures are the keystone of trust in testimonials. It’s important that every featured testimonial is accompanied by a photo of a real person
Testimonials should be specific. Glittering generalities don’t make great testimonies. The best testimonies are those that are backed by real numbers, real data, and specific applications

We went through plenty of websites for coaches, and they rarely hit the brief when it comes to client testimonials. As mentioned above, they either don’t display any testimonials (which doesn’t boost your trust & authority one bit) or if they do have any, these testimonials are not convincing enough. Bad design, poor layout, lack of authentic pictures, or irrelevant context degrade the quality of testimonials you put up on your coaching website.

You can take a look at a few examples of Client Testimonials here.

Brian Dean’s latest course — SEO That Works, includes a wide variety of client testimonials either in text or video format. And he hasn’t cluttered up one section of his landing page with a large number of testimonials. No, instead he has bunched up 2–3 testimonials (few text ones with a video testimonial) and used them wherever it is relevant to the visitor.

This works because instead of the visitor having to read through a detailed FAQ section, they can now simply read or view a testimonial and clear their doubts right away.

Brian still has an FAQ section at the end though. But as we’ve come to expect, he has been quite clever about this as well. Instead of just having a traditional & dull Question-Answer format, he’s mixed things up nicely with excellent copy & video testimonials as answers to any query his audience might have.

It’s insane how much value he has put on display in his website currently. It’s not an overload of information, but rather an excellently delivered course on a platter for his visitors & target audiences.

“With testimonials, you are already reinforcing the effectiveness of your service and building your authority. You can go a step further and add snippets from social media as well where your clients have sung their praises about your service & ability. Showcase these. It pays to showoff such elements which overall add up to improve your authority & increases trust in your website visitors, thereby increasing the email conversion/lead-generation for your coaching business.” — Sarah Peterson, Sumo

Social proof is equally important to improving your credibility & building trust in your audience. Anything from likes, shares, subscribers, pins, tweets etc. is social proof of your company & its popularity. Display these prominently on your landing page.

Essential Element 4: Benefits — Product or Service Fascinations

The benefits describe the problem you are solving, and the features describe what it does. Do not consider it as an additional explanatory chunk of text for you to fit after the Hero Section.

To turn your features into compelling benefits, you must first determine the features of your product or service. If you’re not sure what those are, start by asking these questions:

Does it take less time than your competitors to work? Is it easier to use? Is your product more cost effective than others?

Are your results longer-lasting?

“Prospects don’t want features. They want you to change their lives for the better.” — Clayton Makepeace

The ultimate goal is to make your customer feel like your product or service is the thing that will positively change their lives.

Sure, you can close a sale here and there by listing the features of your product. But you’ll make more sales by explaining to your customer why you can help them. Whether that’s to save money, worry less, or improve their life!

Just remember, people don’t want to be sold. But they do want to be wealthier and happier. If you can express that your product will get them there, you’ve got a customer eager to purchase. — Ryan Domm-Thomas

Apple always showcases their new products in such style and vivid detail that you are captivated completely from the moment you land on the page. They have smart animations, the precise amount of text regarding each feature & model, and then right at the end of the page (as you see below), they list these seemingly basic yet compelling benefits. By the time a user scrolls down to this part, they are already sold. That’s the level of attention-grabbing & fascination you want to achieve with your product or service.

SweatBlock’s website is also amazing. They have a clean website design throughout. And in the right places, they have displayed such relatable and real-world benefits & product fascinations.

They deliver a promise of sweat-free 7 days & clearly describe situations where SweatBlock customers can excel in their day to day life. It’s brilliantly simple, yet highly effective.

Essential Element 5: Guarantees –

We talked about the Power Word #Guarantee
And truly, your customers, or any customer for that matter, love guarantees.

A guarantee, regardless of what it is or how it’s presented, can help people feel reassured while on your landing page.

The word on its own improves the likelihood of a conversion.

Here’s what to keep in mind as you create one for your landing page, as told by Neil Patel:

Guarantees can take many forms. Choose a type of guarantee that works for your business type, and state this guarantee on your landing page.
In the absence of any explicit product guarantee (e.g., satisfaction, money back, etc.), you can provide a different type of guarantee: e.g., “100% No Spam Guarantee.”
Position your guarantee statement close to the CTA. This proximity will help the user receive a final bit of assurance, and be ready to convert.

As you write your guarantee, you don’t necessarily need to delve into the legalities of it. Just say it. The point is that you have a guarantee, and the customer knows it.

Let’s use Ramit Sethi’s course — How To Talk To Anybody as an example. He gives his customers a killer guarantee and goes into detail to explain how it works:

This money-back guarantee is extremely compelling for users who are on the fence about investing in the course.

But your guarantee doesn’t necessarily need to be this extreme. For example, take a look at the reassurance Help Scout includes at the bottom of their landing page:

Although it doesn’t necessarily give an explicit guarantee, they do provide a level of comfort that’s similar to a guarantee. The award and shield icons are also reminiscent of trust badges, further enhancing this assurance.

Brian Dean mentions a 30-day guarantee for his course — SEO That Works.

The fact that he’s added a “No-Questions-Asked” phrase to his Money Back guarantee makes the course he is selling even more compelling for interested visitors. Anyone in doubt prior to purchasing this course would now readily invest in it because of such an explicit guarantee.

Essential Element 6: A Powerful Call to Action –

The Call to Action button is the most essential element of your landing page.

This is the element that the rest of the content on the page is designed to drive visitors’ attention to. It’s what ultimately converts visitors into coaching clients.

Your button should be the first thing your visitor’s eye is drawn to on your landing page.
You want it to be what people notice when they initially land on your page. Not your image, not your headline, and not your subheading. Your button.

While offering an opt-in bribe in your Hero Section or just inviting your visitors to subscribe, create a swoon-worthy headline. It’ll boost your conversions like crazy!

That means not making your button blend in. It shouldn’t be part of the upholstery. It needs to pop.

And you can make your button pop off the page and grab the visitor’s attention by using an action color.

An action color is any color you use across all of the things you want your user to — you guessed it! — take action on. Links, buttons, and calls to action should all be this particular color — and it should be bright, eye-catching and stand out on the page. — Sarah Peterson, Sumo

It’s the first thing your eye is drawn to on the page (even if you didn’t realize it!).

CrazyEgg lists a few CTA must-haves –

The actual CTA copy is the most significant copy on your entire landing page. Don’t use the word “submit.” Instead use something explosive, exciting, and persuasive
Use a button. Users have been trained to expect the CTA to be a button. Do not attempt to force back years of expectation by using something other than a button. Stick with the tried and true. People know what to do when they see a button
Use a contrasting color. Your landing page, your company, your stylebook, and your designers all have certain colors that they like. Your landing page has a color scheme
At the most basic level, your CTA needs to possess color. And, to make it stand out, that color needs to contrast from the other colors on the screen. Contrasting colors help to attract the eye and compel the click

Mixpanel takes a similar approach, positioning their CTA at the bottom of their landing page

You’ll also notice that contrary to what Sumo tells us about using a contrasting color on the button itself, Mixpanel designers chose to use a contrasting color for the entire CTA section.

And positioning is an essential consideration for the CTAs on each of your landing pages. It can make or break whether users click them.

SweatBlock also has this amazingly high-contrast CTA button.

By being this contrasting green, it stands out from the grays, and blacks of its surroundings.

ElegantTheme’s CTA uses pink instead of the green but achieves the same effect of showing the contrast & drawing the visitor’s attention to the CTA.

It’s big, bold, and impossible to ignore. That’s exactly what you should aim to achieve with your CTAs

With these above examples and all the necessities that involve the CTA button, this following checklist by HubSpot should help you to create your landing page’s CTA button.

20 Critical Do’s and Don’ts for Your Landing Page CTA Buttons –

DON’T use “submit” on your form buttons.
DON’T hide your CTAs where no one can see them.
DON’T use the same or similar colors in your CTAs as the page’s background color.
DON’T use teeny, tiny CTAs that no one will notice.
DON’T make the design of your CTAs look flat.
DON’T use CTAs in the wrong place at the wrong time.
DON’T be too wordy.
DON’T use vague, cliché, or passive language.
DON’T oversell and under-deliver.
DON’T link your CTAs to your homepage.
DON’T use too many CTAs on one page.
DON’T forget to build trust through design and copy.
DON’T miss opportunities to promote your CTAs.
DON’T use the same CTAs for too long.
DON’T forgot to search engine optimize your CTAs.
DON’T use Flash or complicated animations.
DON’T use branding as the only objective of your CTA.
DON’T use the same CTA for everyone.
DON’T cram your CTAs into little spaces.
DON’T obsess over a pixel-perfect design.

Button Copy –

“Your call-to-action button is the bridge between the content your visitor is already interested in and an offer of higher value. Your CTA button has to be relevant and enticing enough to be persuasive, so it takes some effort to get it right.” — Neil Patel, CrazyEgg

As you develop your CTAs, look for ways to provide immediate value to your visitors.

The sooner they can start seeing the benefits of taking action, the more compelled they’ll be to do just that.

Creating effective CTA buttons doesn’t need to be a complex process. In many cases, the most obvious, logical option is the most effective.

As long as you keep your users in mind and aim to make it as easy as possible for them to do what you want them to do, you’re on the right track.

But if you’re looking to make your buttons even more effective than they already are, here’s a quick recap of the button characteristics as listed by David Zheng –

They are buttons. Save your creativity for other parts of your website, like the copy surrounding your CTAs.
They have a compelling copy. Use verbs. Some of the most effective are Start, Stop, Build, Join, Learn, Discover. Ideally, ones other than the word “submit.”
Combine these verbs with power words mentioned previously to generate some solid phrases that increase conversions manifold. Eg — Only X days left, Limited supply, Closing soon, While supplies last, Today only, Last chance, Offer ends on “date”, Hurry, Immediately.
They have a logical placement. Eyes move in paths, not jumps. Put your CTAs where they’ll be seen.
They use a contrasting color. Don’t spend too much time testing different shades, but make sure that your button stands out from the other elements on the page.
They have a close proximity to the previous action. The mind and the pointer have a symbiotic relationship. Your CTA becomes part of that as it moves directly into the cognitive and visual flow of the user.
They aren’t forced to compete. Don’t lose conversions by crowding out your CTA with other, less-important actions. Your CTAs should be the clear focus of your landing pages.

Button copy is benefits-driven.

When you’re writing button copy, keep it simple and specific. You want the reader to know exactly what to do at a moment’s glance.

Focus on just one message and communicate it simply and clearly.

And don’t try to be clever! There should be no question about what you mean. Do all the work for the reader so they know exactly what they’ll get when they click the button.

So for your newsletter, instead of just using “subscribe”, try something that clearly spells out what they will get (“I want to See the Case Study”) — Sarah Peterson, CrazyEgg

“Copy is the most important part of a CTA.” — David Zheng, CrazyEgg

Essential Element 7: Methods of Contact — The Trusty Footer

As a coach, you are definitely running a legit business. So make perfectly clear on your landing page.

Provide multiple contact methods such as your phone number, a physical address, email address and even include a contact form if it is necessary.

You could even use easy-to-setup chatbot plugins like Drift, that popup whenever visitors are on your coaching website and provide further help & information as & where required.

Here’s what to keep in mind as you add contact information to your landing page:

At the most basic level, provide some assurance that you are a real company. Usually, this involves a physical address and a phone number.

Live chats featured in a popup can be helpful, but not a must-have. Using live chat is somewhat controversial. If you insist on using one, do your homework, and make sure you have some convincing reasons for keeping it there.

The main idea behind providing such multiple methods of contact is to show that you are present & responsive to your client’s needs & queries.

ElegantTheme’s support is quite brilliant and quick. Their forums are also pretty detailed & the chat service is very helpful.

And right after the contact info or rather, at the bottom of any landing page comes the vital Footer section. It is important to mention your company details & contact information here, but it is also equally crucial for you to mention links to your Privacy Policy & Terms and Conditions Pages.

Businesses & individuals who are looking to hire your services will no doubt go through the legalities of your Terms & Conditions and Privacy policy at least once. So mention these links clearly in the footer to enhance your credibility and showcase your professionalism.

Slack’s footer is pretty simple but has all the important links that a visitor might need. Such optimised footers are what you should try an implement for your business.

BONUS — Check out Hello Bar. It is a very handy tool that you can implement on your landing page. As you can see below the Hello Bar appears above the main navigation. Here you can have a quick sign-up form or you could announce some sale or discount or even provide a freebie. This way you keep your website visitors intrigued and convert more into your coaching clients.

So now that we’ve covered the essential elements of a landing page, let’s do a quick recap of what we’ve covered in this article –

And here are a few handy tools, resources & tips for you to create your perfect Landing Page –

7 Best Services For One-Click Landing Pages That Convert — CrazyEgg
9 Quality Sources for Beautiful Landing Page Templates — WordStream
19 of the Best Landing Page Website Design Examples You Need to See in 2018 — HubSpot
Use relevant images, screenshots & videos in your landing page to capture the visitor’s attention & give more emphasis wherever necessary — Unsplash, Pexels
Turn screenshots into neat & beautiful design mockups — Screely
You can use exit popups for your coaching website. It doesn’t disturb the flow and it only appears when your visitor is about to leave your site. They help you build an email list for your business which is probably the most important thing in any online coaching business. Learn more about them here.
Drive more traffic using browser notifications. Get started in less than 10 minutes — Subscribers.com

“A high converting landing page is a place where all your efforts come to fruition. This is the place where customers click, people buy, and you earn revenue.”

Final Thoughts –

I hope you received some value from this article.

I can understand there is so much you are doing as a coach or consultant. It must be really difficult to take care of everything — meeting new prospects, understanding their needs, creating content for growing your business, maintaining your website and social media presence.

Best of Luck for your coaching journey!