#7 Website Design Tips to Distinguish Your Coaching Brand
Ever had the thought, “everyone’s a bloody coach, how do I set myself apart?” Same! I’ve been there, “everyones a Squarespace website designer, how do I set myself apart?”
The first decade of my career was spent in the fashion industry. I worked as the right hand woman to the CEO of a high-end designer in London. Whilst working there my role expanded from fashion and print designer to website designer, email marketer and photographer. It was the latter 3 roles where I truly learnt the value of personal branding.
You see we sold beautiful luxurious clothing but what set us apart from everyone else was the founders personality. She infused who she was into her clothing, she was funny, bold, bright, vivacious, sexy and thus so were the clothes. Whilst designing the website and all the email marketing, I was injecting who the founder (the label’s namesake) was into the company's online presence. Our clients loved it!
A company's brand story is important. And as service providers, our brand is us.
THAT is what will set you apart from everyone else.
When I remembered this story when doing my own websites rebrand, it helped me to really delve deep into who I was and how I could best get that across on my website.
I think I did a pretty good job of it.
Within 72 hours of my website rebrand going live, I sold over £10,000+ worth of website design work.
That’s why I want to share my fave website design tips with you so you can create a kickass website that sets you apart from everyone else and gets you attracting (and converting) your dream clients too.
Let’s do this!!!
#7 Website Design Tips to Stand Out in Your Industry
As with the founder of the fashion label, myself and all of the 50+ coaches I’ve worked with to date, all knew the importance of distinguishing your brand, especially in the highly competitive coaching & personal development industry.
So check out my website design tips below to help you stand out...
#1: Stay True to Yourself
I want you to dig deep and think about what makes you you?
Brainstorm some words that describe you and your values, for example;
Kind, funny, bright, calm, passionate, spiritual, positive, capable, no-nonsense etc
Look at your words and think about the type of colours that they evoke, the type of fonts that are suited to your personality. For example if you as a person are bright, passionate, capable, no-nonsense - I would use bold colours yet keeping it simple and I would use san serif font (that’s the type of font that I”m writing in here, not in a handwriting style).
If you’re funny, I want you to make your copy more humorous, be playful in your photos or with a highlight colour you use for your call to action buttons. Maybe you add a fun shape as part of your branding look and feel - I have hand drawn stars on mine - part of my ‘magically’ make your websites, because I’m your Fairy Brandmother.
Who you are can come across in your branding more easily when you do this exercise. Watch my How To Create A Brand You Love workshop here to get a more in depth look into how to stay true to yourself and create a beautiful brand for your business.
#2: Don’t get stuck in the Comparison Trap
Want to know the key to standing out in a crowd? Don’t try and be like everyone else. You may look at your competitors and think, well they’re doing such a great job, I need to be more like them, have my branding more like them. I call bullshit on that. They’re successful because they’re doing them, not you.
I’m saying this because I’ve been there myself and I'm a bloody website designer haha - I teach this! What happens is that you get diluted even when you take little bits from everyone, it all gets so mashed up that it’s not cohesive and again, it’s not you.
#3: Speak to Your Target Audience’s Pain Points
I’m sure you may think, “everyone in my industry is already covering the same pain points that I will be to my clients” - wrong! Or maybe it’s a little bit true.
But you will be doing it differently because you will have had different experiences with your clients and know exactly what pain they’re in and most likely you’ve been there too. So you will have a unique take on this and how you can help them.
#4: Make Sure Your Website is Clear and User-Friendly
Oh gosh please, please, keep your website simple, jargon free and don’t use really reaaaaally long bulky paragraphs of text. People get bored nowadays reading through long winded website copy. They want easy to read, bite-sized sentences. Get to the point and be super clear what you do and how you can help them.
Make your calls to action NOTICEABLE. We want your would be clients to know what they have to do if they want to work with you. Do you want them to book a call with you? Do you want them to send you a message on your contact form? Be clear!
#5: Include the Most Important Web Pages
The most important pages you want on your website are;
Homepage
About
Services (this can be one page detailing them all or separate ones per offer)
Contact
Extras;
Blog
Research and/or Resources
Testimonials
#6: Tell Your Clients What Sets You Apart
Be ballsy. Tell your clients exactly what makes you different to everyone else. I’ll go first…
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When you work with me expect a creative partner and a cheerleader. I care about your growth.
My alchemy is a combination of 15+ years expertise in design and my secret weapon… Intuition. You want your soulmate client to connect with you instantly. Together, we make that happen. And then some.
Free from jargon and agency vibes, I operate a little differently to others in my field… my superpower is my ability to translate the energy of each client into a truly authentic visual brand. One that attracts instantly and tells your story.
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This is on my homepage. I tell people from the get go what makes me different from other Squarespace website designers. Tell your would be clients straight away :)
#7: How do You Want Your Clients to Feel?
This is a question I have on my client onboarding questionnaire and my clients always tell me they never really thought about it before but what a great question it is and how it really got them thinking.
This goes back a little to the first question where I wanted you to think about what makes you you? For instance one of the words I gave as an example was calm. If that was one of your words, it’s highly likely that you want your clients to feel calm when they land on your website.
My client Dr Genevieve had calm as one of her words to describe herself and how she wanted her clients to feel upon landing on her website. Click here to see her website and how I took the word calm and brought it into her branding & website design.
Put These Website Design Tips into Practice
I hope these website design tips were helpful and if there’s one takeaway I’d like for you to most remember it’s this; don’t look to others and get stuck in the comparison trap, be true to who you are because who you are is perfect.
A quick recap for you…
#1: Stay True to Yourself
#2: Don’t get stuck in the Comparison Trap
#3: Speak to Your Target Audience’s Pain Points
#4: Make Sure Your Website is Clear and User-Friendly
#5: Include the Most Important Web Pages
#6: Tell Your Clients What Sets You Apart
#7: How do You Want Your Clients to Feel?
Feel free to contact me here if you'd like to learn more about how I can help you build a website that stands out from your business competition in the coaching and personal development industry.