It’s not a matter of whether you need a coaching blog or not.

If you’re a coach you need one – there’s no avoiding this one – the real question is when is the right time to get a coaching blog?

 

The short and snappy answer to that is – right now…

 

The longer answer is… ideally as soon as you start trying to sell your coaching, it should be part and parcel of your lead generation strategy, alongside launching your first website.


If you know you need to blog but you’ve waited a few years, fear not – you can still follow these tips and get results. (even quicker results if your website has been around for 2 years or more)

 

But before we jump into the meat of how to create a blog that generates leads and inquiries from your website, let’s talk about the elephant in the room…


TIME

Many coaches think that they don’t have enough time to blog.

BUT blogging is a big time-saver.

It can replace your social media campaigns and generate faster-converting leads without needing your constant input.

 

You write a blog post once and it will keep generating leads for as long as it keeps ranking (more on that in a minute) 

Blogging creates a snowball effect – the more posts you rank, the more leads you’ll get. Even people who don’t know how it’s done can rank 1 out of every 10 blog posts on the 1st page of Google (you can rank 6 times that if you learn how to optimize each post)

Writing is a lot easier than creating quality videos. It’s easy when you blog because you can write how you speak. Blogs also convert very nicely whilst building your authority in the long term.

AND if you plan to write a book one day – blogging is the best way to start sharing your expertise and creating a writing practice to improve your writing.

 

The most important reason to blog however is that It helps you find better matched coaching clients.

Your tone of voice, approach and client stories will filter out those people who are not a good match for you, leaving you with a coaching practice that feels absolutely amazing!

 

 

 

 

Here’s how to start a coaching blog that helps you find coaching clients:

1. Start your Coaching Blog right – Clarity first

You’ve heard this ad nauseum, I’m sure. 

But it still stands.

 

Clarity trumps effort.

Get clear on your audience (a.k.a ideal client avatar / persona) and half the heavy lifting is done. Now I know in the beginning of your coaching career (or when you’re pivoting) it can be hard to feel clear about our ideal client.

 

But seeking some level of clarity is important.

If you’re not quite sure about who your audience is, try to pick a niche. Find your ‘thing’, that thing you want to be known for and start blogging about that.

 

 

2. Writing your coaching blogs

I’ve worked with many people who couldn’t or wouldn’t write.
And they all cracked in the end – if you can speak and read you can write.

No one starts off writing well. (It’s like wanting to run before you can walk) and I understand it’s public so you want people to think it’s great – but we all have to start somewhere and that somewhere is the beginning.

Here are some questions answered – I get these a lot from coaches who are just starting to write blog posts.

 

– How do I write how I speak? – I was taught to write really difficult copy at University/College

There are two simple ways. The first and most obvious is to speak and use a dictation app or speech-to-text on your computer to transcribe it (you can also use professional tools like rev.com that remove all your filler words (like uhms and aahs.)

 

The second… speed writing

 

Start off by writing your blog post in 10 to 20 minutes without stopping to edit anything. Just keep going (you’ll edit it later).

Once your fast ugly draft is ready, go over it and improve it.
And finally, read it out loud.

Reading it out loud will help you make sure it sounds like something you would say. Edit those parts that you can’t say naturally.

Eventually, your writing will need less and less editing – until it will be barely necessary at all.

If these still don’t work for you – there are some tools out there that will do the heavy lifting for you such as the Hemingway Online Editor. It helps you understand the level of your writing and makes suggestions to simplify your writing (aim for Grade 5 reading level).

If you feel you have some blind spots – this app will help you a lot. 

– How do I write ‘valuable’ blog posts?

The word value is a very vague one – but Google and people keep saying that they’re looking for ‘value’ in your blog posts. So what does ‘value’ actually look like?

 

The easiest way to give value to your readers is to share tips that are easily actionable, dispel myths that are misleading them and break down a complex thing into simple steps.

 

Do any of these 3 in your blogs and both people and Google will find value in your posts.

– How do I keep people reading?

The easiest way to keep people reading is to write a kick-ass introduction.
But blogging is something you do every week, so your titles won’t always be top notch. Don’t worry that’s normal – you can just aim at making them more clickable for now (but that’s a topic for another post).

So here’s a simpler way to keep people reading…

– Use paragraph subtitles

Sub-titles are great because people can skim or scan your article before reading it (most people will) if they’re missing people will find it hard to skim your content and might give up reading before even starting. On the other hand if your sub-titles promise what they were looking for when they clicked your post, then they will go ahead and read it.

 

And if you still think you cannot write, there’s a solution for that too – get yourself some clients or a part-time job and pay someone to do it for you. My client Nathalie did just that and now she gets 

 
In her own words…

“ I’m getting 5 appointment requests a day from one blog on my website, two from another and it keeps growing – I’m so happy!”

She was able to achieve this by ranking most of her posts… which is why you need to add SEO optimization.

 

 

3. Blog SEO optimization for coaches

SEO is expensive and difficult.
That’s what every SEO agency out there wants you to believe. The truth is very different.
Unlike Facebook, Instagram and social media in general, Google is actually on your side.

You and Google want the same thing – to get great quality content in front of the right people.

This is why you’re already winning when you pick SEO-ed blogging as your lead generation strategy.

And I can promise you it’s not that hard. There are a few things you need to have in place but it’s nowhere near as hard as people want you to believe. I used to be a programmer and learnt SEO by programming sites for blind people. It forced me to look at how ‘text to speech’ software was analyzing the content on websites – the same way Google analyses it.

 

Here are 4 simple things anyone can do to rank their blog in search engines:

– Organise your content
Organizing your content logically so that search engines can understand what you do and who you do it for is very important. It’s also easy when you’re a coach because you’re not dealing with thousands of e-commerce products and your topics are going to be pretty consistent.

 

– Share on social (automate)
Share on social media. You’ve probably heard of social media. You’ve probably heard about backlinks. Backlinks help your blog get found and gain authority. The simplest type of backlink you can get is a link back to your site from your social media platforms.

This doesn’t mean you have to go back to posting daily – just add some automation to your site and post your blogs on social media every time they go live. This is especially important if your website is brand new.

– write evergreen content
Evergreen content is content that never goes out of context or ‘fashion’. Blogs that contain information that will stay true and keep helping people in the long term.


– Quality Content EAT algorithm
Writing quality content is key. Google released an algorithm update called EAT in 2021. Thanks to this update Google has shifted to preferring high-quality content and the customer experience above all.

To create content preferred by the EAT updates, provide content that can be actioned, that shows a step-by-step system, that has its sources clearly quoted and is easy to read and navigate. (more content on this coming soon)

– Add imagery
Adding imagery to your blogs might seem a basic thing that is ‘just visual’ however it is very important both for your readers and for Google.

Adding imagery gives you an opportunity to add tags to your content and also helps you break up the text visually for your users. You can also use it to add ‘mood’ to your content.

For instance, using serious imagery will make you come across as a serious coach, whereas lighter, metaphorical or comical imagery will lighten up the mood. Animated gifs will also entertain if that’s your style.

 

 

4. Convert visitors into coaching clients

 

 

Doing all of the above will bring more and more eyeballs to your blog, this is why it’s important that you’ve thought of how to convert them into clients.

The first step is to pick 1 goal.

Yes, it’s hard because we want to sell everything at once, but hear me out for a second. If you ask for more than one thing, a large percentage of your audience will have decision paralysis and just click away.

It’s very easy to navigate away from a site – any feeling of friction can do that. So add a CTA that has a simple YES/NO answer. And ideally, keep your call to action the same for every blog post (when it makes sense).

For example, if the most important thing for your business is to book more discovery calls, then your blogs’ call-to-action should be ‘Book a Discovery Call’ 

 

NOT

Book a Discovery Call or Download the Free Checklist.


Pick one.

You also want to make sure that you share some client stories (not in the call to action but in the blog post). 

 

Sharing client stories helps people understand how you work and what kind of results you create for your clients. This is key to getting people interested in booking a call with you. If they’re not sure how you can help them – they’re not very likely to book.

 

A clear content plan that is based on solid client research and brings all the elements above together will create a strong source of consistent leads for your coaching business.

If you’d like to talk about how I could help you blog successfully Book Your Free Discovery Call Here

 

 

 

 

 

———————— About the Author: Stephanie Fiteni

Hi, I’m Stephanie, a Content marketing strategist and traffic growth coach, creator of the Profitable Content Marketing Method for Coaches. I help coaches generate more traffic, clients and discovery calls through their content and websites. And automate their social media posting.

My clients get fully booked with just 2 – 3 hours of marketing per week.

I have over 15 years of experience creating websites, writing blogs that convert, and ranking content on the first page of Google.
I can teach you how to create content that will convert your visitors into discovery call bookings. Let’s Talk