Want to know how to start a blog for a life coaching business? Who better to ask than an expert? Ally Wieser is a well-known Personal Development Expert, Certified Coach & Coach Trainer. She owns and operates World Coach Institute, a top 10 coach training school, as well as Ally Wieser International Coaching Services, a company offering Life & Wellness, Small Business & Career, & Enlightened Living coaching products and services. Here, she answers a few questions about setting up, maintaining, and utilizing a life coaching blog.
How to Start a Blog for a Life Coaching Business
What tips do you have for someone who is interested in starting up a life coaching blog?
When creating a life coaching blog, always start with a measurable objective in mind. Some good examples of a measureable objective might be to obtain x number of visitors per month or to obtain x number of client leads per month.
What kinds of information should be included in the blogs?
The information on a coaching blog, or any blog for that matter, should provide an even value exchange for your desired audience for the time they are spending to read your posts. Types of posts that hold great value are those that solve a problem or those that offer a unique solution to a challenge your audience may have.
How important is a blog to a life coaching practice's success?
Not every successful coach has a blog and not all coaches with blogs are successful. Again, it is entirely about the value exchange. At World Coach Institute we recommend that our coach training students choose just a few marketing channels to focus within and become an expert in those channels. Some students choose blogging while others choose from the plethora of other marketing channels available to most everyone today.
How can a life coach decide if blogging is right for her?
Are you good at writing? Do you want to be good at writing? If not, perhaps audio podcasts, radio shows or video would be better for you. Know your strengths and passions!
Promoting and Maintaining the Blog
What is a good method for coming up with timely blog posts and for sticking to a regular posting schedule?
Ask yourself first how committed you are to the cause. On a scale of 1-10 how much do you really want to achieve your measurable goal for the blog? And then how willing are you to take action to make it happen? After determining that you have the necessary level of commitment, decide what part of your week will be dedicated to your blog. If necessary, clear space in your schedule and decide what time slot you will blog regularly each week. This may involve giving up something else.
How do you market your blog?
Blog marketing can involve a whole host of activities such as:
- Networking with other bloggers; get to know them and then ask for a link-swap if they have a good ranking that is similar to or better than your ranking (use Alexa.com to find out). Ask them to post their link on your blogroll and vice versa.
- Posting comments on other blogs in your niche or on blogs that have the same audience.
- Review others' products and promote about one to two percent of these through joint venture or cross promotion deals.
- Submit your blog to blog directories and use Ping-o-Matic to ping blog directories every time you post.
- Add a link to your blog in your email signature file, on your website, in your newsletter and on your business card.
- Have an RSS feed that people can subscribe to.
What do you do to increase traffic and how do you monitor the traffic on your blog?
Posting links to your blog articles on Facebook and Twitter is a great way to increase traffic. Setting up a feed on MyYahoo.com so your blog is regularly spidered by the Yahoo search engine is another great way to increase traffic. Many blogging platforms offer tracking or tracking plug-ins. When an article is successful in terms of generating traffic, analyze that particular article's content, title and structure and stick to what is working!
What is the best way you've used your blog to market your life coaching practice?
I started my life coaching business on a blog! My coaching business, Ally Wieser International, grew from just a few clients to 30 per month within six months and my blog played a big role in attracting the right coachees for me at that time.
From a Client's Perspective
What kind of certification should a potential client look for on the life coaching blog before becoming too invested?
2009 was the year the life coach certification became necessary from a client perspective. Before this time anyone could call themselves a life coach. All certified coaches will indicate they are certified either with a certified coach logo from the school they attended, letters behind their name such as "CLC" for Certified Life Coach, or they will reference their credentials in their bio. You can always ask too!
In what ways can a life coaching blog help or inspire a reader before they even sign up with a life coach? What kinds of information will help a reader and leave them eager to become a regular client?
According to a study released by the ICF in March 2009 the top five reasons someone hires a coach are: Confidence, rapport, compatibility, coach approach, & coach certification. Compatibility is often a result of the authentic story the coach shares through his/her website or blog. Open ended coaching questions and reflective responses to these are always inspiring! Other compelling content includes experiences the coach has had that the client can relate to or the client would like to have.
When you're wondering how to start a blog for a life coaching business, decide how much time you want to put into it, look at it as a phenomenal option for marketing, and keep your clients' perspective in mind when adding new content.
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