The Website Planning Checklist for Coaches

Hey there and welcome to this week's blog video. I am so excited to talk with you today about building a website that you are in love with now and that will grow with your business. So, we're talking today about how to build a website now that doesn't make you kick yourself later.

So building a website, it's a whole lot like shopping for a house and you need to identify what your needs and wants are before you get started. When you're shopping for a home, you need to consider things like how many bedrooms, bathrooms, garage parking spaces you need.

When my husband and I bought our first house, we really didn't plan very far ahead and it kind of bit us in the butt. It was the perfect size for the two of us and our baby girl and we made it work when we had our second daughter, but we were pretty cramped. But that house never would have worked for us when our son joined our family. We could've decided that sleep wasn't optional, but that's not a good way to live life or be a parent.

So many of my clients come to me, and they're in the same boat when they find me. They've simply outgrown their current website. They need a website that will fit their business now and as it grows and that's going to position them as a premier option in their niche and it needs to make their lives easier with automation.

So I've put together this training, which is really a “Now and Later Planning Kit” in order to help you get clear on what your website needs are; what you're going to need in a website now, as well as what you're going to need in the future.

There's a bunch of questions here to help you map out what you're going to need before you start building your website.

Start Your Website Planning Here

So number one when you start your website planning is, why are you looking to redesign or build a new website? What are your goals with this? Is it to get leads, sell products? Maybe you want to automate your workflow and fill your calendar. Whatever it is, get clear on what your goals are.

You also want to think about how this new website is going to help you reach your business goals. As far as growing and scaling your business, you need to make sure that you're thinking ahead as far as how the website is going to help support the future growth that you want to achieve in your business.

If you're redesigning your site, it's a really good idea to take a look at your existing site and make a list of the things that you like and dislike.

You'll probably want to take a look at your overall business and what things need fixing or improving. Do you have systems that really aren't efficient? Are you doing some things manually that maybe you could automate? Take a look at those things and figure out what you can do.

You also want to think about what functions you want your website to have, the things that you want it to do for you and your business in order to help you leverage your time.

Now, for the Checklist

So there's a bunch of them. I'm going to run through a big old list for you. This is where I really want you to think now, like right now, what you need in your business, but then think ahead six months, a year, two years, three years ahead, and make a list of things that you're going to want in a website right now, as well as things you're going to want down the road as your business grows.

Email Opt-In Forms: And so, obviously we all need opt-in forms, right? We need a lead magnet and a landing page or a squeeze page in order to get people to subscribe. This is really a great way to increase the number of warm leads that you get from your website.

Phone Number/Call Now Buttons: You also want to make it really easy for people to call you from your website. Most people are going to search out your site on mobile and so you need to have a clickable phone number and call mail buttons.

Site Messenging: How about site messaging? You've been on sites before where they have this. There's a lot of programs online. Active Campaign, which is an email marketing tool that I use with my clients, allows us to put site messaging on so that we can generate leads and interact with our website visitors right on our websites.

Google Maps: How about Google maps? Do you have a physical business and you need to make it easy for people to find you and come to your business location?

Appointment Scheduler: And an appointment scheduler. Let's make it super easy for people to get on your calendar so they can book an appointment with you for a strategy session or a paid session.

Blog: How about a blog? We all want to establish authority and a blog is a really great way to attract visitors from search and social.

Videos and Podcasts: And videos and podcasts. You're going to want to expand your content to videos and podcast. Repurpose things. It's more places that you can share content in order to attract visitors back to your website.

Testimonials: How about some testimonials? Testimonials are a great way to create some social proof and build that know, like, and trust or that relationship and rapport with your website visitors.

Portfolio: How about a portfolio? Are you a photographer or a graphic designer or something like that? Create a portfolio on your website so that you can showcase your work to attract new clients.

Visual Editor: A visual editor will make it super easy for you to make changes to your website yourself without having to hire a designer to do it for you.

Document Library: What about a document library? A lot of companies and businesses have certain documents that they need to share with their clients on a regular basis. It could be client intake forms, it could be resources list, maybe catalogs, how-to training guides, whatever it is. It's really awesome sometimes to create a document library on your website for people to go and get what they need.

E-Commerce Store: How about e-commerce? We all want to make some money, right? So, increase sales by selling products and services right from your website.

Subscription and Payment Plans: Subscription and payment plans are a perfect way to create some recurring revenue and it's really nice too if you've got higher ticket items to be able to offer payment plans to your clients and you can do that with a subscription e-commerce plugin.

Membership Site: How about a membership site? Do you want to create some exclusive content that you only share with members, people who are a part of the inner circle, maybe paying to be part of that membership. That's a great option to add to your website. And even if it's not something you need now, you need to be considering these things for the future, so that the things you put into your website are going to be compatible with that future growth or those future goals.

Learning Management System: How about a learning management system so that you can have courses and programs in an online training portal for your clients?

Event Management System: And event management. So maybe you host workshops or events. You'll be able to sell tickets and book registrations right from your website.

Quizzes, Surveys, and Assessments: And quizzes, surveys, assessments, questionnaires, those kinds of things are always great to have to learn more about your audience. You can ask them questions, and quizzes can also be a really fun lead magnet that you can use in order to grow your email list.

Recipe Plugin: How about including a recipe plugin? Are you a health coach who shares some really yummy, awesome, healthy recipes? Well, add that function into your website so that people can use and share and print and download recipes right from your site.

Payment Gateway: How about payment gateways? How are you going to get paid? It's really awesome if you can just send somebody a link to your site and they can pay you directly there rather than having to connect with them in person in order to swipe a card or something along those lines.

Digital Contracts and Agreements: You can also incorporate digital contracts right into your checkout so that if you have to have a client agreement or a contract signed, they can do that as part of their checkout process.

Search Engine Optimization: And search engine optimization. We all love free traffic from Google, right? So, you want to make sure that your new website is going to be optimized so people can find you on Google.

Social Media Follow Buttons: Add social media follow buttons so that you can grow your audience on your different social channels.

Social Media Sharing Buttons: And some social media sharing buttons so that your visitors can share your content with their friends on social media. This is a great way to increase your reach and get more visitors coming back to your site.

Pixel Integration: Pixel integration. If you're going to do any kind of digital marketing, I really recommend that you take a look at installing pixels, whether it be from Facebook or Pinterest or Google, or whatever it is. You want to be able to include those tracking things so that you know which things are converting well, what your conversion rates are, and as well as being able to re-target visitors with paid ads.

Google Analytics: Google analytics. Do you want to see the behavior of people on your site? What are they doing? What are they clicking on? What are they finding interesting and where are they spending time? Which pages have a really high bounce rate? That kind of information can really help you continuously improve your website.

Let the Website Planning Begin!

Okay, so that's it. That's the checklist, the “Now and Later Checklist” in order to help you be able to plan a website that's going to fit your business now and grow with it as your business grows.

This kind of information is super helpful when you're planning your website. And I promise that any designer or marketer who is building a site for you, if you come to them with information like this, you are going to make their day because it'll be so much easier to know how to serve you and how to give you a website that's really going to help you get results.

And if you're looking for someone to help you build a website, I would love to help you with that. Let's build you a website that's beautiful and conversion-focused, ready to generate leads and grow your business.

I want to say thank you so much for watching. Please go ahead and subscribe, comment, share, and like. I'd love to get to know you on social media. Come follow us on the blog, subscribe to us.

If you are interested in getting help building a site, please book a strategy session with me. I would like to talk with you about the things that we've covered today, and what you need in a website, and help you decide what type of package would be the best fit for your goals, your budget, and your needs.