Having a high quality and active blog on your coaching site can help you in several ways.
First off, it increases your pool of potential clients because you will have active social media profiles and will come up in search results. This means you can reach clients that are not local to you.
It also allows you to build a relationship with clients before you actually meet them. You can build trust and credibility through blogging without having to be there in person.
Increases Your Pool of Potential Clients
Without a website, you have to build trust in person, which is very limiting. It's difficult to meet people outside of your local area. You have to go to networking meetings, get referrals, or maybe get some speaking gigs to expand your reach.
But having a solid internet presence lets you expand your reach to the entire country or world. These days, no one would think twice about hiring a coach they can only have video calls with. You just need to get in front of the right people. Blogging allows you to do that.
Provides Content to Post on Social Media and Email
One way to expand your reach is through social media. You've probably already experimented with this.
The point of your social media accounts should be to attract ideal clients to your business. But it can be hard to constantly come up with new stuff to post. Blog posts go a long way to solving this problem.
Your articles are the perfect thing to share on social media. If you publish regularly on your site you'll always have fresh and helpful content to put out on your social media channels.
Best of all, that content will have your voice and be squarely focused on helping your ideal client.
Plus, having regular helpful content will grow your social channels which is important for “social proof”. In other words, if you have a lot of followers you must be good. It's just one more indicator to a potential client that you know what you're doing.
New blog posts also give you something to send out to your email list. This keeps your readers engaged with you and keeps you top of mind if they ever decide they are ready to commit to coaching.
Potential to be Found through Google
Getting into search engine results takes time but if you can definitely start working towards this. Imagine someone finding your site because they Googled “business coach” or “help with XYZ” and you popped up.
Those people are actively looking to hire a coach and you will served up as an expert. Sweet.
Having a blog increases your chances of coming up in search results. The more articles you have the more chances you have to “rank” in Google. As you write about your area of expertise Google will start to see you as an expert in your field. If you provide a good user experience Google will start sending traffic your way.
Related: Trouble Ranking? Here's the Part of SEO You're Missing
Lets Potential Clients Get to Know You
I know a business coach who sent out a bunch of direct mail advertisements to his local area and didn't get a single call. People don't hire coaches until there is some trust in the relationship.
But having to build a personal relationship with each and every potential client takes a lot of time and severely limits the number of people you can help. However, having a high quality helpful blog allows you to start building trust en masse.
Through your blog posts, clients can start getting to know your style, the types of clients you work with, an the issues you can help solve. If you can help someone solve a problem with a blog post they will know you could definitely help them with phone call.
Showcases Your Expertise
Having a large collection of helpful articles showcases your expertise. It gives your potential clients a glimpse into what it will be like working with you. And it proves you actually know what you're talking about.
Having a blog will also allow you to get more speaking gigs (since event planners can see what you're about) and even get mentions in major media outlets.
Both of these opportunities can go a long way to building your credibility.
A Regularly Updated Blog Shows Commitment
Publishing regular content and having active social media accounts shows potential clients that you are committed to your work.
This isn't a test to see if it works — you're serious. You want to help people and you are building something. This is a real business that is going to be around for a while.
Allows You to Help People Who Can't Afford Your Services
Every coach comes across clients who need your help but can't afford to pay you. What do you do? It breaks your heart to not help them but offering free coaching has it's own set of issues.
Having a blog allows you to have free content for those who want your help but can't (or aren't willing to) pay you. It makes it possible to offer something for free other than your time. If those clients are serious they will take full advantage of your free content and maybe become clients some day.
And if they aren't serious enough to get value from your articles, then it was probably a good thing you didn't offer to coach them for free.
Potential for Other Revenue Streams
Blogging alone can make money. If you build a blog that gets real traffic you will have the option to expand out from one on one coaching.
Other streams of income could be:
- group coaching
- courses
- book sales
- product sales
- speaking gigs
- affiliate marketing
And the list doesn't end there. Depending on how deep you want to get with it (and how far away from coaching) you could do things like sponsorships or display ads.
Tips on Making it Work
If you've decided to start blogging (or you've already started but you are ready to get serious) here are some tips to making the most out of blogging.
Write to Your Ideal Client
The point of your blog is to attract your ideal client. When you sit down to write, visualize your ideal client in your heart and head. Imagine that they are sitting at your kitchen table and have asked you for the information in your article.
You can't write to everyone. Don't try. It will just water down your content until it's not helpful to anyone.
Solve a Problem
Personal stories are a great way to connect with your reader, but the reader didn't come to your site to read your biography. They came to get an answer to a question.
While planning out your article make sure you know what problem you are solving and be sure to give the answer to that problem in the article. Preferably near to the top of the article.
When you write an article make sure you understand exactly what you want the reader to get out of it. I call this the “reader takeaway”. The reader takeaway is what you want your reader to think or do after they've read the article.
For example, for this article I want you (the reader) to start publishing articles on your coaching website.
Offer a Freebie in Exchange for an Email Address
If someone comes to your site and enjoys the content you want a way for them to stay connected. You don't want them wandering off back into the internet with no way of ever talking to them again. If they leave, you can't work to build trust over time — which you'll need to do if they are ever going to become a client.
To encourage people to leave their contact info offer them something of value that they can get if they sign up for your list.
Typically this is some sort of downloadable PDF.
Make it something truly helpful to your ideal client. My ideal client is someone who wants to grow and improve the content on their blogs. So I offer an editing checklist. This is something I use for each one of my clients so that I'm confident I've taken care of all the little details.
You can get that below. 🙂
Summary
Blogging can build your coaching business in many ways. The main one being the ability to reach more people with your message — both higher numbers of people and in a wider geographical area. No more having to handshake for every single client.
If you want help creating the best content on the internet my course, Hit Publish, does just that. You can check it out here.
