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SEO For Coaches:
How to Sneak Into
The Search Results
of Your Dream
Clients
As a coach, you want to find the right kind of clients so you can help them
improve their lives. If you don’t have a good lead generation system set up,
however, you could spend more time trying to get clients, than working with
them.
Facebook ads, social media posts, cold outreach… There are plenty of ways
coaches can promote their services to their target audience online, but most
of them have this in common: once you stop investing time (and money) into
them, they stop working.
Search Engine Optimization or SEO for coaches is di erent.
While it definitely takes time to optimize your coaching website and create
blog content that can rank, the result you get from those e orts are ongoing.
Once a post ranks, it can rank for years, and the better optimized the various
parts of your site are, the more they’ll lift each other up and help you get
found on Google.
In this post, we’ll discuss why SEO for life coaches is important, as well as
what you need to do to boost your coaching blog on Google.
A Quick Glossary
Before we dive into SEO for coaches, let’s go over a few basic SEO terms. If
you’re already familiar with SEO, you can skip this section, but if not, this short
list will help you understand what follows.
Search Engine Optimization: the combination of many di erent acts and
strategies that help visitors easily find your website when they’re Googling
for something.
keyword: a keyword is what people type into a search engine’s search
bar, to get a list of sites that provide the information they’re looking for.
These search terms can be one word, like “coaches”, or a group of words,
like “SEO for coaches”.
keyword research: the process of figuring out which exact keywords
people are using to find the information you can provide them on your
website.
keyword rankings or position: how far down the list of search results
your website can be found. If you have an article targeting the keyword
“abundancy mindset in relationships” and that article is the third result from
the top down when someone searches for “abundancy mindset in
relationships”, you rank on position 3 for that keyword.
search volume: how many people search for a specific keyword on
Google, every month.
The Importance of SEO for Coaches
Create brand awareness
Unless you’re an internationally renowned coach, like Brené Brown or Tony
Robbins, the majority of your ideal clients probably haven’t heard of you or
your services yet, which means you need to put your name out there. Guest
posting, networking, and engaging on social media, are some of the active
ways you can do that, but you can also set up a system that puts you in front
of those clients while you’re doing a client call, preparing dinner, or taking a
few days o .
That system is your optimized coaching site, and more specifically, your
coaching blog.
Instead of focusing on promoting your coaching business directly, SEO allows
you to understand what your audience is looking for on Google, so you can
write quality optimized content that answers those questions. Each time
someone searches for something and your site provides the answer, you’re
introducing yourself to them in the best possible way: by helping them.
Generate qualified leads
By being selective about the kinds of topics you write about, you can control
the type of readers – and thus clients – you attract. If you’re a life coach
focused on helping successful entrepreneurs live a meaningful life, you might
have a post about “What to do after selling your business” as many of your
target clients may struggle with this question. However, you probably
shouldn’t publish an article about “How to know you’re ready to quit your job”
as that appeals to a whole di erent crowd.
The better you know your target audience, the better you can focus your
keyword research on topics they care about, and the more likely you are to
rank for articles they’ll want to read from top to bottom.
Build trust
By continuously providing valuable quality information for your target clients –
and making sure they can find you when they’re looking for that information –
you grow their trust in you. Each time you answer a question, you build your
authority, so that when they’re ready to hire a coach, you’ll be the first one
they contact.
The Basics of SEO for Life Coaches
Any kind of marketing strategy works best when you have a solid plan, and
that’s especially so for SEO. While you can figure out some things as you go,
there are certain best practices to take into account.
The steps below don’t dive deeply into the technical side of things. They show
you the most important things to do for the highest chance of ranking your
site high on Google.
1. Create a content strategy
Brainstorm topic ideas
First of all, you need a content plan. Make a list of all the possible pain points,
questions, and topics your target clients could be Googling for. Next, group
those related topics together.
As an example, imagine your target audience consists of single moms. One of
your topic groups could consist of the keywords:
dating as a single mom
how to tell your date you have kids
when to introduce your new boyfriend to your kids.
All of these have to do with dating as a single mom.
Another group could have the keywords:
is it okay to get a nanny
when to hire a cleaning lady
can I ask friends to watch my kids
All of these have to do with seeking help as a single mom.
The more possible blog topics you can think of in this stage, the better.
Find rankable keywords
Next, you’ll want to keyword research all of these topics. There’s a wide range
of tools available online to help you with this. The below is a selection, based
on pricing and how serious you want to get with this stu .
AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is more of a keyword idea generator than a true keyword
research tool. It allows you to type in a word, or group of words, and then it
spews out a bunch of related keywords. Other than that, it’s fairly limited in
the information it provides.
Google Keyword Planner
Google’s own Keyword Planner is pretty basic, as it’s meant to be used for
Google Ads. It doesn’t give you the specific search volume for a keyword, only
a very broad range, and it only categorizes keywords as “low”, “medium”, or
“high” in terms of competitiveness, rather than attributing a score to it, as
many other keyword tools do.
KeySearch
Keysearch isn’t that well-known, but it’s a great budget-friendly alternative for
the top keyword tools mentioned below and because of that, is fairly popular
in blogging communities. It provides data on search volume, CPC (cost per
click), and PPC (pay per click), suggests similar keywords to look at, and it
allows you to track your keyword rankings.
The great thing about KeySearch is that it gives you information about the
pages that are currently in Google’s top 10 and gives each keyword a score,
that indicates how hard it will be for your specific site to rank for that
keyword.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is possibly the most popular SEO tool out there. Aside from keyword
research, it helps you do a bunch of other stu , and as such, it’s tailored to
professional SEOs. However, many site owners who depend heavily on SEO
for tra c and lead generation use it too. While all it’s features may seem
overwhelming, you can start by using only their keyword tool and explore
from there.
SEMrush
SEMrush is similar to Ahrefs, and someone who’s serious about SEO will use
one or the other, or sometimes even both. I personally use and like Ahrefs,
but if you also do PPC, SEMrush is the better option.
Many of these tools have their own guide on how to do keyword research.
Another great place to get started is this article on Backlinko.
Check what your competitors are writing about
If you find it hard to come up with topics to write about, or you’d like to
expand on the list you already have, there’s another way to get ideas: by
looking at what other coaches in your niche are writing about.
While you can simply browse through their blog, a better way to go about this
is to plug their website into a more advanced SEO tool, like Ahrefs, to get a
list of all of the keywords they’re ranking for and what those rankings are.
Take into account competitiveness
Just like your coaching business has a certain authority in the eyes of your
target clients, your website has a certain authority in the eyes of Google. If
your website is brand new, that authority will be pretty low. The more content
you start to rank for and the more other websites start linking to you, the
more that authority will grow.
Going into the di erent factors that a ect your site’s authority would take us
too far, but it’s important to know that it plays a role in which keywords you
can rank for, and so you should take it into account when researching
keywords.
To keep things simple, and assuming the keyword tool you’re using gives you
this data, here are a few basic things you want to look out for:
Ideally, 3 pages currently in the top 10 on Google have a lower DA
(domain authority) than your site.
Ideally, they’ll also have fewer backlinks than your site.
You’ll have a better chance of ranking if these “weaker” sites don’t have
the exact keyword you’re going for in their article’s title, URL, and/or meta
description (the little text Google displays in the search results below the
title of your article).
There should be at least a few other blogs ranking in the top 10. If all the
ranking pages are ecommerce sites, for example, your coaching blog posts
probably won’t make it.
Putting it all together in a content calendar
Once you’ve decided which keywords you want to create content for, you can
put together a calendar with what to write, when. This can be a simple Google
spreadsheet or part of your project management tool, like a Trello board.
There are three main ways to decide which posts you’ll tackle first:
1. Purely keeping in mind SEO purposes. In this case, you’ll want to focus on
the keywords with the best combination of high search volume and low
competitiveness, first.
2. Based on seasonality. If you plan to write articles related to certain times of
the year, you want to make sure those are published at least a month before
that time of the year.
3. Based on your resources. Perhaps there are articles you can easily write
yourself, whereas others you’ll want to outsource, or maybe you already have
material for some articles which would make them quick to write.
Whichever way you decide to go, it’s key that you’re honest about how much
time you’ll be able to spend on your content calendar. It’s better to do just
one article per month than to feel overwhelmed because you had planned to
publish once per week and you now have a backlog of 10 posts, just a few
months after having launched your blog.
2. Write or outsource optimized content
Create a briefing
Now that you have your keywords and your content calendar, it’s time to start
writing. The easiest way to make sure you write a well-optimized article, is by
creating a briefing. Most people think briefings are only needed when you
decide to outsource your blog content, but even when you write your own
posts, they’re crucial.
Your briefing is like a checklist that tells you how to optimize each post and
that helps you make sure you haven’t forgotten anything.
Things to include in your brief:
the main keyword for that post.
secondary keywords. These are keywords you discovered about the
exact same topic that should go into the same post, but that have less
search volume, only cover a part of the topic, or are harder to rank for.
the desired word count. This is how long the article will be. Ideally, your
article should be at least as long as the average length of the other relevant
articles ranking for that keyword on the first page of Google.
who the article is for. This is important if your audience consists of
di erent sub-audiences. For example, if you’re an abundancy mindset
coach, you may be working with both entrepreneurs and executives.
other articles on your site to link to.
which call-to-action to add. This could be a signup form for your
newsletter or a note for the reader to book a free discovery call.
Make an outline
It’s much easier to write a great article when you already have an outline in
place, than it is to get started with a blank page. To create your outline, have a
look at the articles that are currently on page one for your keyword. Make a
list of the topics they address and the headings they use.
Your article should cover everything your competitors cover (as long as it’s
relevant) and add extra information.
Open this SEO content checklist
You can go very far in optimizing an article, but here are the basic key things
you need to get right for every post:
Use your main keyword
in your article title (the one shown on your blog).
in your meta title (the one shown on Google).
in the meta description.
in the URL.
in the first 150 words of your article text.
Use all of your secondary keywords at least once.
Make sure your images have descriptive titles.
Resize your images, so they’re not bigger than whatever space they’ll
take up in your article.
You can copy/paste this quick checklist, to use whenever you’re working on an
article.
Tools to help you write
If you want to go beyond the basics, there is software that helps you analyze
your competitors’ pages and that gives you a report of all you need to include
in your article and how you should include it. While these tools are handy, they
also make the writing process considerably longer and require quite a bit of
SEO experience, as their advice needs to be interpreted, rather than purely
implemented.
If you’re interested in taking your SEO e orts a step further, this is a selection
of content software to check out:
ClearScope
Surfer SEO
Topic
MarketMuse
Page Optimizer Pro
3. Create internal links
Linking your blog posts to one another is key, as it helps Google better
understand the structure of your site and it helps readers find more valuable
information. It also keeps them on your site for longer, which in turn increases
your authority in the eyes of Google and heightens the chance that they’ll
subscribe to your email list or take another action.
When creating internal links (links within your website), you want to follow
these guidelines:
only link between posts that are related to each other topic-wise.
if you have a main page about a topic (say, dating for single moms) and
then a few posts about subtopics (introducing your boyfriend to your kids,
what if your kids don’t like your new partner), always link from the main
article to the sub-posts and vice versa.
4. Build external links to your content
I already mentioned before that your site’s authority increases as other
websites link to it. That can happen organically, or you can speed up the
process by writing guest posts for relevant websites, giving podcast interviews,
and sharing your content on social media, so that it spreads more quickly.
5. Get your website in top technical
shape
Unless you come from an IT background, this last step is one you’ll want to
outsource. A pretty car isn’t going anywhere when its engine isn’t working, and
the same applies to your website. The slower it is and the more technical and
structural errors you have, the harder it will be for your content to rank.
There are SEO agencies that focus on the technical side of SEO, but in my
experience, it’s more cost-e ective to learn a bit about what needs to be
done, and then hire a developer to do it.
Tracking Your SEO Success
The only way to know whether your SEO e orts are paying o , is by tracking
them. Easy and free tools for this are Google Analytics and Google
Webmaster Tools. The former gives you information about your website
visitors, their behavior on their site, and how many visits your site gets. The
latter gives you data on keywords you rank for and any structural problems
Google may see when crawling (basically, visiting) your website.
For more extensive tracking, I recommend signing up for Ahrefs. The cool
thing about Ahrefs is that it runs frequent audits for your site, giving you a
detailed report of what needs to be fixed.
Don’t Neglect SEO for Coaches
Clients come and go, and when life happens, you may not have the time to do
cold outreach or post on social media every day. Even when you’re fully
booked or are getting great results from other types of marketing, that might
not always be the case.
In those cases, the SEO you’ve done beforehand will keep drawing people to
your services.
While it may seem a bit daunting if you’ve never done SEO before,
remember, you don’t need to do everything at once. Follow the steps in this
article, and if you get stuck or keep procrastinating, you can always hire an
SEO agency or an SEO writer to help you out.
Want more tools to help you focus on what you do best? Check out
Paperbell’s integrated software. It makes client management a breeze!
Further Reading
Get Leads From Your
The Coach’s Guide to
How to Get Coachin
Coaching Blog: How to
Finding Your Niche
Clients: 18 Strategies
Create a Simple Funnel
Work Today
That Works Around the
Clock
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By Sofie Couwenbergh
April 22, 2021
Sofie Couwenbergh is a content strategist and writer who helps brands rank
their blogs and generate more leads. She specializes in digital marketing
and anything that has to do with communication, from chatbots to
interpersonal communication experts. Her work flows from a love for flu -less
information and is fueled by many cups of tea.
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