Choosing a Name For Your Life Coaching Business
One of the most common questions new coaching professionals have is around choosing a name for their life coaching business.
Choosing a name for a life coaching business is really no different than choosing a name for any other business. There is one very popular school of thought about naming a business where you make up a name that is SO unusual that you will be easy to find when prospective clients come looking for your business.
It sounds good, doesn’t it. Make an unusual name for your coaching business and that way, when your prospective clients go searching for you, you’re easy to find. However, that’s not the way it works.
I should know because I made that mistake when I named my business.
Way back in 1997 when I was choosing a name for my business, I decided upon the name Virtual Impacts. However, much to my dismay, another web development company in Texas had already secured the correct spelling. So, I picked up the catchy and edgy Virtual Impax. A few years later, the correct spelling became available and I grabbed that one too.
Over the past 12 years, I’ve created several HUNDRED websites for clients. I’ve launched over 100 blogs over the last 18 months alone! After 12 years there still isn’t a SINGLE PERSON searching for my business name of Virtual Impax.
There are people searching for Virtual Pets, Virtual Sex, and Virtual Hairstyles… but the number of people who searched for Virtual Impax last month didn’t register with any of the free keyword trackers available on the internet. There are a few people who search for me by my business name every once in a while, but for the most part, my business name isn’t helping my business one iota.
They say wisdom is learning from other people’s mistakes. This is your opportunity to learn from mine!!!
When choosing a name for your life coaching business, choose a name that includes words potential clients might use to find you!
Carol Solomon chose the domain name Hypnosis and Diet to promote her EFT Weight Loss Products. Sandy Clendenen chose Move Beyond Grief for her website. Rosemary Davies-Janes chose Miboso Training for her latest website.
Other great domain names which help potential clients find the coach when doing a web search are:
- Beyond Infertility for couples who are having trouble conceiving.
- Boost Your Low Libido for those who need to re-ignite the flame
- Clutter Busting Coach for those who need help conquering clutter
- Do Not Grieve Alone providing help for Widows and Widowers
- Effective Training Solutions for those who need effective training solutions
- Lose Weight Find Life for those who need to lose weight.
- Stress Relief for Life for those who need to conquer stress.
What does each website name have in common above? You can tell in an INSTANT what benefits each coaching professional is offering.
When you’re choosing a name for your life coaching business, try to focus on the words people who need you might use to find you.
SelfGrowth.com
Several of my clients have gotten emails inviting them to become a member at SelfGrowth.com
SelfGrowth.com is the most complete guide to information about Self Improvement, Personal Growth and Self Help on the Internet. It is designed to be an organized directory, with articles and references to thousands of other Web Sites on the World Wide Web.
SelfGrowth.com is well worth the investment of time and energy to sign up. One way that the search engines determine whether or not your website is “worthy” is by the number of links coming into your site. If Self Growth provides nothing else, this is yet another breadcrumb trail to lead to your coaching blog or coaching website.
However, Selfgrowth.com also offers you the ability to showcase your expertise through publishing articles there. That means it’s a good place to begin leaving breadcrumb trails to allow prospective clients to find your blog or website.
How to Find Paying Clients for Your Coaching Practice
Have you ever wondered how to find paying clients for your coaching practice?
You know that your website could have people racing to buy the products and services you provide, but it’s not and you don’t know why.
Most coaching websites are ineffective. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Your website has the potential to be one of the most powerful marketing tools you can use to connect with people are actively seeking a coach. That’s right… right now there are people searching the internet right now. They’re using very specific keywords like:
- cary nc business coaching
- raleigh business coaching
- leadership coaching uk
- professional life business coaching
- personal mastery and coaching
If you didn’t know what words people are using to find your products and service… then you can’t know what words to target on your coaching website.
That’s why the best investment you can make in marketing your coaching practice is:
- Sign up for an Easy Coaching Website.
With an easy coaching website, you can create search engine friendly content quickly and easily. - Sign up for Wordze
Unlike the free keyword research tools, Wordze gives you more accurate results… and shows you the keywords that are WORTH optimizing your web content around.
An Easy Coaching Website + a Wordze account deliver a 1-2 punch when it comes to potential clients finding your website.
With your Easy Coaching Website, once you’ve found the keywords that people are using to find YOUR coaching practice… you can easily create content on your page around those keywords. The thing is, these keywords change MONTHLY! Most of the free tools are reporting from old figures. But the time the figures hits one of the free tools, it’s old news. Subscribers to Wordze have already beaten you to the punch.
Your coaching website should be the best way to find paying clients for your coaching practice. If your current website isn’t delivering clients… it may be time to upgrade your website to one that works hard at attracting clients to your practice.
Blogs are the ultimate in “sticky websites”
While your 3 year old’s sticky fingers aren’t necessarily a good thing, a stick web site is. A sticky web site is one that visitors spend time exploring. The more time a visitor spends at your web site, the more likely he or she is to return or make contact with you. Isn’t that why you published a web site in the first place?
Marketing specialists all agree that it takes approximately 6 to 8 contacts from you (whether it be via email, snail mail or phone call) before your prospect will turn into a client.
There are lots of “tools” you can install on your web site to make it more “sticky”… but the positively most effective stickiness tool for any coaching practice is a blog.
The “beautiful” thing about blog stickiness is it’s YOUR insights… YOUR vision…. YOUR blog posts that keep visitors coming back for more.
Many blog “gurus” will tell you that RSS is the reason for a blog. Unfortunately, RSS (which stands for Really Simply Syndication” is not a widely adopted practice… YET! For that reason, it’s not reason in and of itself to launch a blog. (Don’t worry… there are lots of GREAT reasons to launch a blog for your coaching practice. It’s just the ability to deliver RSS is NOT one of them!)
In an effort to raise awareness of what RSS and how you can use it in your daily life, the Daily Blog Tips has announced it’s sponsoring RSS Awareness Day.
Believe me, I’m ALL for 100% adoption of RSS feeds. However, when someone like Chris Garret says he’s adding an email newsletter subscription to supplement his RSS feeds, I think we all should sit up a listen.
Chris is very “tech savvy” and as a tech savvy user, he has chosen Aweber to deliver his email newsletter. However, if you’re not tech savvy, you may find the learning curve at Aweber to be steep.
That’s why I recommend Marketer’s Choice for my “less than tech savvy” clients.
- First, the live support with Marketer’s Choice is TOP NOTCH.
- Second, they provide TONS of online videos which make calls to live support very rare indeed. If you use the link in this post, well… it’s an affiliate link but it also gives you a first month free bonus that you won’t get if you visit the site directly.
The secret to “sticky”…. lots of good quality content… and then remind them that your blog is still there with an email newsletter.
If you’re still fuzzy on the difference between the two… your blog lives “online”. The content you post there is indexed by the search engines just like a “traditional” static HTML web site. The big difference between a blog and a web site is how EASY it is to add fresh content to your blog. This ability to easily add and edit content is the BASIS of the “magic of blogs”.
Your blog will serve as a “sign up point” for your coaching newsletter. It’s where the sign up form will live so people can sign up to get your email newsletter. When you SEND your email newsletter, unless you also post that content on your blog, that content will not be available to the search engines for search.
RSS is a way for people to sign up for your blog’s content without sharing their email address. Less than 10% of web users even KNOW what RSS is. Some day, RSS will be a great reason to launch a blog. Until then, a blog is a great “sticky” website. One that allows you to communicate with potential clients BEFORE they pick up the phone and call. For that reason alone, you should have a coaching blog.
Choosing a Theme for your Coaching Blog
You’ve done it. You’ve decided to launch a blog to promote your coaching practice. Congratulations! Blogs are GREAT marketing tools for coaching professionals.
You’ve also made another great decision by deciding to take the “high road” and launching a self hosted Word Press blog. Again, another great move. (Some Typepad coaching blogs are having trouble accepting Trackbacks, which are essential to building a successful blog.)
Now, it’s time to determine how you want your Word Press blog to appear. This process should be positively PAINLESS when using Word Press. Word Press Themes can be activated and deactivated with ease, unlike a traditional HTML style web site. Applying a Word Press Theme is like “buying a dress” while choosing a look for a traditional HTML web site is like getting a tattoo.
Despite the ease with which a Word Press Theme is activated/deactivated… many coaches are paralyzed at this phase of the blog launch process. Sometimes, it’s merely a fear of “poor branding” execution. However, there are other times when I suspect that the obsession over the theme choice (and the never ending “tweaking” of the blog’s theme that follows) are merely an excuse to avoid getting down to the real task of blogging.
Make no mistake… the theme (which controls the appearance) of your blog is important. However, it merely sets the stage for the real production… your content. Whether it’s video, audio or merely the written word… your Word Press blog is a powerful communication tool. Don’t get stuck in the endless loop of moving the blog title to the left 10 pixels and then to the right 10 pixels while your “welcome to word press” post is still hanging out there for all to see!
FIVE SIMPLE STEPS TO CREATING A TRAFFIC MAGNET WEB SITE
The first essential key to creating Online Marketing Success is to CREATE A TRAFFIC MAGNET!
You’ve got a web site, but it’s not doing well. You know you need traffic, and you’ve tried everthing and nothing works. You’ve joined web rings and found they aren’t much help. You’ve tried paying $39.95 to have your site submitted to the top 1500 search engines, but all that got you was a ton of spam and not many visitors to your site.
Six steps on how to create a web site that works, or at least one that can be found by the search engines.
TERMS YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Search Engine: Search engines sift through the millions of web sites on the web and sort them into categories so that when you type in your search criteria, the search engine can return a list of sites that reasonably matches your query. The basis of the search engine model is software which can quickly and efficiently determine how to index your site. An example of a search engine is Google.
Directory: A directory is a lot like a search engine, except directories use real live humans to create the database. Inclusion into these usually requires a fee. Because of the growth of the internet, many directories are also including results from search engines. An example of a directory is Yahoo.
Search Engine Spiders: These are the programs which the various search engines use to "crawl" the world wide web, looking for web sites to index.
Step one: Where your site lives
If your web site is living in a sub folder, you’re starting the game with one strike against you. How do you know if your web site is living in a "sub folder"? Look at the REAL address of your web site. If there’s a slash in it, such as http://www.yourisp.com/your site, then your web site is located in a sub folder.
You can "point" your domain name at a sub folder on a server. This way, instead of the http://www.yourisp.com/your site address, you have a neat and tidy www.yourname.com.
Keep in mind that the URL forward can actually hurt you when it comes to the search engines. While the search engine spiders will penalize you for your site living in a sub folder, URL forwards make it impossible for the search engine spiders to index your site at all.
Best strategy: Purchase a virtual hosting account so your domain name points to the root folder. This strategy also allows you to have your e-mail address set up to be the same as your domain name.
Best Alternative: When you submit your web site to the search engines, use your "real" address and not your forward. Yes, the search engines will be able to "see" that it’s located in a sub folder, but at least the spiders will have access to the content.
Step Two: Your Web Site’s Navigation Structure
Your opening page should include links to every page within your site. These links should not be in the form of javascript "rollovers". The search engine spider is not set up to read the javascript roll overs, so linking your pages in this manner means the search engines will never get any deeper than your opening page. Using javascript rollovers is like locking the doors to all the other pages on your site.
How do you know if your site uses javascript rollovers? When you move your mouse over one of your navigation links, if the image changes in any way, then it’s probably a javascript rollover.
Best Strategy: Have your designer create your site without using javascript rollover images.
Best Alternative: Have your designer place a "site map" at the bottom of every page of your site. This site map includes links to each and every page inside the web site in text. You’ve probably seen this technique on larger sites such as Petsmart.com.
Step Three: Opening page content
The search engines crawl the web and when they come upon a web site, they begin reading…. not your web page as you see it, but your web page in it’s actual form…code. To see your web site’s code, look to the toolbar at the top of your browser. Click on View > Source in Microsoft Internet Explorer or View > Page Source if you’re using Netscape. A new window will open with what looks like a bunch of mumbo jumbo. This is what the search engine spiders "see" when they index your site.
If your opening page content is a flash movie, then what the search engine spider sees is "flm.swf". While your visitors are greated with a specatular show, the search engine spider only sees a few characters and moves on. While spiders don’t think, it’s almost as if they say to themselves, "Well, there’s nothing here for anyone to see and I’ve got millions of sites to index. Time to move on."
If your opening page is a giant image, again the search engine spider only sees "giantimage.jpg", and again assumes since there is no content, there isn’t any point of indexing the site.
The ideal opening page content is lots and lots of text. At least 100 words describing what your web site is all about. If your web site is about dogs, then make sure you talk about DOGS on your opening page.
Many search engines include in their algorithm a measurement called "keyword density". As the spider indexes your content, it makes a calculation as to how many times "key words" are used in your document. So, for example, if your web site is about "dogs", then the spider will count how many times you use the word dog in your opening page content. Ideal keyword percentages range from 5-8%. Don’t focus on including "the right" keywords until you’re done writing your copy. If you’d like to "target" specific frequently searched for keywords, click here.
Don’t try to artificially inflate the key words or the word count, for the search engines will penalize you. Long ago, a paragraph which included the word "dog" repeated 50 times would win the search engine wars. Another "trick" was to include text that was the same color as the background so the repeated word wouldn’t appear to visitors, but would appear to the search engine spiders. Today, such moves may get you blacklisted which means you will NEVER be included in their listings under that IP and domain name.
Best Strategy: Write naturally, focusing on what your visitor wants to know when they reach your web site. You’ll find you naturally include prime "keywords" in your content.
Best Alternative: Hire a content writer with experience writing for the web.
Step Four: Meta Tags
You may have heard that meta tags are the key to getting your web site listed with the search engines. Yet, we have purposely addressed them here as #4.
There is only one tag that will make or break you with the search engines and it’s the title tag. You must title each page. Be sure to title it to help the search engine spider or human editor to know what the focus of your page is. For example, if you are writing a page on how to improve your rankings with the search engines, then a good page title would be "How to improve your rankings with the search engines."
The only other meta tag that you should worry about is description tag. This is what the search engine will list when it returns your page for a requested search. Frequently, when a description tag is not found, the search engine will list the first 15 words on your site.
If someone tries to tell you that you need to include the keyword meta tag, run for the hills. The keyword meta tag was dropped from Alta Vista’s algorithm in 9-2002. They were the last major search engine to use it, and their dropping of it declared it legally dead. The death of the keyword meta tag also means death to pages using Frames, flash openings and images.
Best Strategy: Pay careful attention to page titles. WYSIWYG editors usually don’t provide an easy way to include page titles.
Step Five: Recruiting page links
Many search engines determine how "good" your web site is by analyzing how many similar sites link to yours.
When this fact got out, hundreds upon hundreds of "link farms" sprouted up all over the internet. Pages upon pages of link after link were born in an effort to inflate the number of page links any one page had.
One thing to remember about search engine technology is the search engine’s job is to return pages that contain the information for which you’re searching. When webmasters try to "cheat", whether it’s including text that can’t be seen or by linking to 100 link farms, the search engine programmers usually figure out what’s going on pretty quickly and move to eliminate such "cheats" from the system.
While having others link to you is still essential for getting a high ranking with the search engines, the links must be QUALITY links. A quality link is one that you could actually expect to see some traffic as a result of the link.
Most quality links include non-hyperlinked text surrounding the link. The link is included in a paragraph or includes a description, and isn’t just a lone link surrounded by other links.
Of course, once your site has been up for a while, if you’ve invested time and effort into creating quality content, you’ll find that other sites link to your quality content without you even having to ask!
Best Strategy: Focus on your content. Great content not only provides lots of search engine fodder, it also increases the chances that another site will want to link to you.
That’s it! Five simple steps to making sure your site can be indexed by the search engines.
Want an easy short cut around these six steps? Launch an Acumen Web Services blog instead.
Acumen Web Services blog makes creating a traffic magnet EASY and ELIMINATES the web developer middle man!
The beauty of templates
Your web site says a lot about your business. It’s the literal face of your business to anyone who visits. A sharp, clean, professional web presence is an asset.
If you’ve already mastered the basics of Microsoft Front Page or any of the other WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editors, then you probably know that the actual programming of a web page is but a small part of the creative process.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that your current site doesn’t look "crisp" and "professional". The reason is probably the images. High quality images are the result of two things:
- Professional photography and/or
- Professional image software.
Professionally shot and prepared photographs are what set apart professionally developed web sites. The same is true for other graphics on the page.
Unfortunately for most web site owners, licensing professional photographs is something strange and can prove to be expensive. Combine that with the cost of professional image software (needed to work with such images and to create other graphics such as arrows and logos) such as Adobe Photoshop (retail price: US $649.00) and suddenly hiring a professional web developer begins to look like the cost effective way to develop a professional looking web site.
There is an alternative. The best way around purchasing (and learning to use) professional image software is by using web site templates.
Web Site templates enable you to create a professional web presence at the fraction of the cost of software, let alone hiring a design professional. Templates can be used with Microsoft Front Page, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Flash or any WYSIWYG HTML editor.
The major advantages of using a web site template are time and money. You get a high quality design for just $40-$70, a fraction of what you’d pay a professional developer. Since it can take a week or two (sometimes longer) for a good graphic artist to produce a web page template, you’re also saving time…. which is a non-renewable resource.
Click here to get professional quality web site templates which will save you time and money on your next site. redesign.
Keys to creating a search engine friendly web site for your coaching practice
There’s a war going on. It’s a bloody fight occurring every day. It’s the fight for top positioning within each search engine for a specific keyword or keyword phrase.
In an attempt to win this battle, some companies will hire SEO specialists, while others will purchase software designed to “cheat” and get a site a top ranking … until the ploy is discovered. Then, the site faces blacklisting by the search engine.
Unless your company’s name is Jenna Jameson, Pamela Anderson or some other frequently searched upon term, search engine users won’t find you. Studies have shown that 75% or more users will be typing in search queries not for a specific business name, but instead for what that business does. If your site’s focus is upon your company’s name instead of what your company DOES, you will miss out, because the search engines will provide the users with sites that focus on what the searcher is looking to find.
Your company name does have a place on your website, most notably in the "About Us" section of your site. The “About Us” page provides a place for the small number of people who actually type in your company’s name into a search query to go.
Now, for the cold hard reality. Your newly created website will take YEARS to get a great “natural” (meaning non-paid) placement. Take a look at Google’s stock price. Now, catch your breath and realize that it’s in Google’s best interest for you to PAY for their service. If you could develop a web site that naturally rose quickly to the top of Google’s results, would you pay for Google Adsense? Do a search on Google and you’ll see that the top natural results are old school. Most of these listings are from the late 20th Century.
So, as you chase the every elusive top ranking with Google on your chosen keywords, realize that it’s a battle you probably can’t win without paying to play.
Now, if you’re targeting a keyword that isn’t providing any revenue for Google, you may find you rise quickly to the top of those rankings without much effort. In any event, there are some basics to creating a search engine friendly site.
1) Skip the Flash Intro.
When the search engine robots index your site, they don’t see what you see. They see the code behind the site. So while your flash intro is saying, “helping realtors achieve success in the information age” what the search engines see is this:
2) Skip the rollovers as well.
Again, rollovers are code so what you see is not what the spiders see. Spiders can’t follow javascript code. If you insist on image rollovers, at least provide straight HTML links somewhere on the page so the spiders can get in and index.
By the way, be sure to use a simple javascript code for your email address. This technique keeps the spambots from harvesting your email and will reduce the spam in your inbox exponentially!
3) Focus on the a set of keywords for each page.
For example, the About Us page should be all about your company. You’ll naturally list your company name often in this page, as well as the full name of each principle.
Other pages need to be named what the page is about. For example, if you’re a nutritional coach who specializes in working with tri-athletes, then the page on your website that is targeting the nutritional needs of the triathlete should be named nutritional_needs_of_the_triathlete.html. That page, of course, should be all about meeting the nutritional needs of the triathlete.
4) Finally, submit your site to the search engines. Remember, it will take weeks if not months for your site to be indexed. If possible, get other sites to link to yours. A great way to do that is to start an affiliate marketing program. Money is a great incentive for linking. Just realize that you’ll need to feature your own URL in the links. (Signing up for a commission junction affiliate program won’t help your seo.)
Choosing a Domain Name
Just like a sign for a brick and mortar based business, your domain name is an essential part of your online presence.
Your domain name is the part after the www. and the includes the .com, .net, .org or the .biz at the end.
A good domain name:
- Describes your business
- Is easy to remember
- Is easy to spell
It’s actually better to have a longer domain name that is memorable than a short, cryptic one that’s easily forgotten.
Remember that real words are easier to remember than cryptic combinations of letters. aNameThatIsKindOfLong.com is better than abw3g2.com. Of course, one that begins with the first five letters of the alphabet or a numeral is more likely to appear top billing of alphabetical directories.
Try to avoid hyphens if at all possible when choosing your main domain name. Of course, if you find your ideal domain name without a hyphen, it’ s a good investment to pick up the hyphenated version as well.
If you’re having trouble finding a great name, try adding a simple letter "a" to the beginning such as "Agreatdomainname.com".
Another option is to add your location to your domain name choice. Here’s the link to a word wizard tool that does just that for you.
Still having trouble coming up with a great domain name? Try doing the twist. The Domain Twist takes two essential word elements of your ideal domain name and combines them into dozens of combinations.
Finally, it’s essential that once you have your domain name, that you use it for e-mail as well as for finding your web presence. Nothing looks less professional than yourname@yourisp.com. Even if you don’t have your web site up yet, you can use an e-mail forward so mail sent to your spiffy new domain name can be delivered directly to your isp email box.
One final note: If you find the domain name of your dreams, be sure to snatch up all the extensions you can afford. There’s nothing worse than having a competitor snatch up the .biz or .net version of your domain name. It’s a small investment for the security it offers your business.
Use the tool below to register your ideal domain name!
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