Table of contents:
Why Business Coaches Should Use SEO
How SEO Can Help Clients Find You
The Competition Isn’t Doing It
SEO Keywords for Coaches
Why SEO is your new marketing BFF
As a business coach or strategist, a big chunk of your time is probably spent trying to find different ways to market your business and increase your brand visibility and discoverability online. And while social media does a lot of the heavy lifting for you when it comes to nurturing potential clients, there are other marketing channels that you need to be leveraging to create a solid foundation from which to grow your business coaching brand.
Enter SEO, the original internet hype girl.
Why Business Coaches Should Use SEO
I know, I know. The word SEO often evokes a strong emotion for so many people. Usually one of dislike or distrust and dare I say, maybe even a little disdain? But it doesn’t have to be that way!
I see a lot of people in the “industry” making sweeping generalizations about the state of SEO, while knowing absolutely zero about how it actually works. So let’s just clear up a few misconceptions about before we continue.
- No, SEO is not dead.
- Not, it’s not too technical.
- Yes, it 100% matters for the growth of your business. Period.
Ok, now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s talk about the benefits of integrating SEO into your marketing strategy.
There are dozens of reasons why business coaches should be investing in SEO marketing, but here are just a few the things that SEO can help you with:
- Understanding what your dream clients wants/needs
- Understanding what questions they are asking
- Understanding what words and phrases they use
- Understanding what kind of content best serves their needs
And once you have clarity on these things, you can start crafting an SEO marketing strategy that not only meets your ideal client’s needs, but also helps to position you as the expert in your specific niche.
Because at the end of the day, SEO is really about meeting the user need. And when done well, it’s also really great at helping you create connections.
SEO Can Help Clients Find You
What do I mean by connections? Think of it this way: Amanda is looking for a very specific kind of business coach. Let’s say a holistic one. You just happen to be a holistic business coach and you’ve crafted some amazing and authentic blog topics on holistic business coaching and how it can help a business owner just like Amanda. And because you’ve integrated SEO into your overall marketing, Amanda sees your blog post or video right away when she searches for “holistic business coach.” She goes to your website, gets on your email list and 6-months later enrolls as a client.
See how cool that is?
The Competition Isn’t Doing It
And while SEO is a connection creating work horse that will help expand your visibility online, there is another great reason you should using SEO marketing for your coaching business.
Any guesses?
Ok, here’s a little secret. The chances are hight that your competition isn’t utilizing SEO.
That’s right. So many business owners are focused on instant gratification channels like social media and not focusing on the long-game.
I know what you’re thinking. Short form video is where it’s at right now. And yes, it’s an amazing discovery tool and there are ways to leverage SEO to make short-form video work for you too, but this medium alone cannot do all of the heavy lifting for your business. A long-form content strategy (that can include video) is necessary for not only scaling your business, but for establishing you and your business as an authority online.
If you make SEO front and center from the get-go, you’ll be driving traffic on autopilot (yes, this is a thing and yes, it’s possible) one year down the line while they’re still trying to figure out how to make the latest TikTok algorithm update work for their business.
SEO Makes Content Repurposing Simple
One of the biggest objections I hear from clients when we talk about making SEO a regular part of their marketing strategy is time. Writing content for SEO is so time consuming they tell me, plus trying to find the right keywords, maneuvering all of the on-page optimization, actually finding time to write. It can be A LOT.
I get it. Time is precious. Especially when you’re a solopreneur or small business owner because we wear all of the hats and do all of the things. But what if I told you that creating an anchor piece of SEO content on a regular basis will actually save you time?
That’s right.
When you create a legacy piece of content – either long-form written content, a video or a podcast – you can easily use that as an anchor to create micro pieces of content for social media, Pinterest, other legacy platforms and more.
Content repurposing can be one of your biggest marketing allies, and when you start with a piece of content centered on topics your potential business coaching clients are actually searching for, you’ve already done 50% of the hard work.
TIP: You don’t have to create content and repurpose it across EVERY single platform. Pick a few that resonate with you, your audience and your brand vibe. From there, create a consistent and realistic schedule to create, repurpose and publish!
SEO Keywords for Coaches
Hopefully at this point you’re starting to see that investing in SEO is definitely something that you want to add to your marketing to do list, but maybe you’re not sure where to start.
Before you do anything, you need to start with your SEO anchor, aka SEO keywords.
Keywords are the foundation for your SEO bridge, and your SEO bridge is what helps connect your next dream client with your amazing offer or service.
TIP: If you’re brand new to keyword research, a great place to start is my quick guide to keyword research blog post!
Look for keywords that are long-tail, meaning low search volume, but also low competition. These terms will help you rank more easily for content as you start to build your expertise, authority and trustworthiness (E-A-T) in the eyes of Google. Over time, you will be able to rank for short tail terms that are broader, but more competitive.
Here’s an example. The term “business coach” has 6,600 average monthly searches but a keyword difficulty of 59 (out of 100). This means you’re going to need a lot of high quality content with tons of backlinks to rank on the first page of this term.
On the flip side, a term like “holistic business coach” only has 30 average searches a month but a keyword difficulty of 0! That means with a well thought out blog post, you have a very HIGH chance of ranking for this term.
My Favorite Keyword Research Tools
Choosing the right keyword research tool is important! Fortunately, there are tons of different options available, ranging from free to $$$.
Here’s a breakdown of some of my favorites plus which one I use.
- Google Keyword Planner (awesome tool, but you need to create a Google Ads account first).
- WordStream – a free tool with a decent database of search terms. https://www.wordstream.com/keywords
- Google’s Suggest (start typing a search into Google and see what they suggest. A gold mine of potential ideas)!
- SEMRush (not free), but my all time favorite tool and the one I use on the daily!
- Ubersuggest – free and a great tool for when you’re stuck on ideas.
- Keyword Tool – probably one of my favorite tools, but the best results are hidden behind a paywall. One of the more expensive options.
- Keywords Everywhere – Chrome extension. Inexpensive! One of my favorites.
And, if you’re looking for a jump start to your SEO marketing, I’ve put together this comprehensive list of SEO Keywords for Business Coaches! This list includes 75 keywords that you can start using today to create kick-ass, SEO optimized content to start expanding your discoverability!
That’s A Wrap!
Here’s the thing. SEO is a marathon, not a sprint, but with a little keyword research, well thought out content and SEO basics, you can start laying down a foundation for elevated visibility for your coaching business today!
