10 Reasons Why You’ve Got Wellness Website Envy
{Guest post by Wendy, founder of Wendy Neal Design}
Hey there Health Pro! I’m Wendy – a web designer and online business strategist for Health & Wellness Business Owners.
Prior to that, I was a practicing health coach myself, and even though I was also a web designer, I made several mistakes with my own health coaching website early on.
You’ve probably even got a few favorite health coaching and wellness websites that you love. You know the ones…
They’re visually beautiful, have great content, stellar engagement, and they really speak to you personally — and you wish your website could evoke these same feelings in your potential clients.
Well, it can… if you know exactly what you should include on your site. Perhaps even more than knowing what you need for your website is knowing what your website may be lacking.
Why Your Wellness Website May Not Be Hitting the Mark – and is leaving you green with envy!
Let’s take a closer look.
1/ You haven’t identified your niche or target market.
Probably the most important aspect of your health coach website is making sure to identify your very specific target market or niche.
You may think you want to help everyone, but it’s really important to narrow down your niche and identify your ideal client.
What very specific problem do they have?
How can you relate to it?
How can you help them solve it?
Your website should make very clear WHO you help, and exactly HOW you can help them. It should also be very clear what results they can get by working with you.
2/ You have web copy that’s not converting and messaging that’s not resonating.
Because you haven’t nailed down your niche and/or your ideal client, your messaging and website copy aren’t going to be effective at attracting those people that you want to work with.
Your copy should always be aimed directly at your ideal client, making them feel like you understand their issues and frustrations, and that you have the solution for them. It should be less about you and more about them and the benefits that they’ll receive by working with you.
You also want to make sure that your messaging is consistent between your website, social media accounts, and anywhere else you have information about your business on the web.
Have you seen the new Brand Audit & Copywriting services with Krista Goncalves Co?
“From the very first call, I knew that I made the right decision hiring her. She knows the industry, understands trends AND the art of compelling copywriting.” – Alethea C., Plant-based Health Coach
3/ You have inconsistent branding.
Branding is much more than just your logo, colors, and fonts. Your brand should evoke a specific feeling that draws your ideal clients in.
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen coaches make with their websites is using images that don’t match their brand. Oftentimes these come from free stock image websites. There’s nothing wrong with using free images as long as you make sure that every image you choose is aligned with your brand.
If your images are all pieced together from different stock image websites, even the paid ones, chances are they won’t look cohesive, as different photographers have different styles and perspectives.
I highly recommend using a stock image website that was created specifically for the purpose of creating unified brands. This means that all the images are usually taken by a single photographer.
Two of my favorites are Haute Stock and Wellness Stock Shop.
In fact, I built my entire website using collections from HAUTE STOCK, and you can see that it has a clean and consistent vibe throughout. It was a huge time saver too because once I decided which collections were most in tune with my brand, I had a large selection of matching images to choose from.
Wellness Stock Shop (by photographer Briena Sash) is another great image site for Health Pros and one that Krista frequently uses and recommends. There are so many beautiful and soulful wellness-themed images available.
Like this one☝️
Krista also recommends Inspired Stock Shop (by photographer Claire Morgan), and you’ll see many of Claire’s beautiful images throughout Krista’s Instagram feed – like these ones👇
4/ Your site is not user-friendly.
I could write a book on website usability, as it’s long been a passion of mine.
But, to sum it up:
- It should be very clear to your users what they should do once they land on your site.
- Guide them to where you want them to go.
- Very explicitly tell them what you want them to do next.
Also, your website should have a consistent look and feel.
Some examples:
- The top menu links should be identical across every page of your site (unless it’s a sales page, in which you typically hide the top navigation links).
- Page headers should match the link names that got them there. It should be easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for.
- It shouldn’t take more than 2 or 3 clicks to accomplish something.
And I could go on and on! But, the bottom line is, be sure to take some extra time to test the user experience. Many people don’t realize what it takes to ensure that a website is user-friendly.
There’s an analogy I like to use when I explain this:
A well-designed website is like a clean house. It doesn't always get the full appreciation it deserves, but when it's messy everyone notices! @WendyNealDesign Click To Tweet
So take that extra effort to clean up your website, because it will be evident if you don’t.
5/ You’re using an unsuitable theme or template.
You may have obtained a free or cheap theme to use for your website, and chances are the layout is not ideal for a health coaching or other wellness website.
Website templates for nearly every industry will include About and Contact pages, so I won’t go over those here. There are, however, other web pages and sections you’ll want to include on your health & wellness website that may not be available in some of the standard website or blogging templates:
LEAD MAGNET – This is a special call-to-action (CTA) where you give your website visitors a valuable free resource in exchange for their email address. This should be placed on the home page near the top of the page.
(Read more about CTAs in the next reason why you’ve got wellness website envy!)
TESTIMONIALS – You’ll definitely want to have some client testimonials on your website. If you’re a brand new coach just starting out, you can offer a couple of free coaching sessions in exchange for testimonials.
You could also find another coach just starting out who would be willing to trade coaching sessions with you. You can have a separate page or just a section for testimonials on some of the key pages throughout your site.
WORK WITH ME – This is typically a separate page that lists out all your coaching programs and services, along with a way to contact you for more information, or a link to an order page.
SALES/LANDING PAGES – For your higher-end coaching services or programs, you’ll want to have a sales page that leads to your payment page. This page should paint a clear picture of what specific problems your program will solve for your ideal clients and not just the features & benefits!
For example…
6/ You don’t have any clear calls-to-action.
As mentioned in the previous point, you want to have very clear calls-to-action (CTAs) throughout your website. I outlined one example above (building your email list with a free download on your home page), but the truth is you should have a clear CTA on every page of your site.
For example, if you want your website visitors to book a free discovery call with you after they’ve read your Work With Me page, then ask them to!
Have a large section on the page that clearly asks them to set up a call with a large button that links to your scheduling program (or takes them to your Contact form if you don’t have an auto-scheduler set up).
You should include a CTA at the bottom of every blog post. These could be different things depending on what the content of your post is.
For example, it could be a link to your free download if the subject of the blog post is similar, or it could be a link to your premium program sales page or a link to your Instagram feed that has similar relevant content.
Your blog’s sidebar is also a great piece of real estate to include one or more CTAs – but don’t jam it full of promotions!
Something I haven’t mentioned yet is a link to join your Facebook group or affiliate links to products or services that you recommend – bonus 🙂
7/ Your site is not mobile-friendly.
With more and more people using their mobile phones to browse the internet, it’s imperative that your website is optimized for mobile.
Many website themes have mobile views built-in, but you’ll still want to be sure to test your entire website on both a phone and a tablet. You’ll also want to double-check that all your text and images are resizing correctly on mobile and that the text is big enough to be read easily on smaller screens.
Perhaps the biggest reason you want to make sure your website is mobile-friendly is that Google requires it to be! In fact, your website will be penalized in Google’s rankings if it’s not responsive. Yikes!
You can check to see if your site passes Google’s mobile test by using their free Mobile-Friendly Test tool. It will tell you if your site is mobile-friendly or not, and also show any page loading issues if you have any.
8/ Your content is outdated and stale – ouch!
There’s nothing worse than finding a website you love, but then notice it hasn’t been updated in a few years.
If you’re going to blog, then the number one rule is to post consistently. It doesn’t matter if that’s every day, once a week, or once a month. It’s far better to only post once a month, but be consistent about it, than to post sporadically.
Someone once told me you should treat your blog like a TV show. You know exactly what day and time your favorite TV show will be on the air. Your visitors will come to expect the same thing.
If you don't deliver a new post on a consistent basis, your audience will lose interest and stop following your blog (or you) altogether. @WendyNealDesign Click To Tweet
Be realistic when determining your posting frequency, and if you have doubts, there’s nothing wrong with only posting one new blog a month.
9/ Your website is too slow.
In today’s fast-paced society, nobody wants to wait for anything anymore, especially a slow website. If it takes more than a few seconds for your website to load, people will leave your site.
Not only that, but Google now also penalizes slow-loading websites, so your website probably won’t be found in the search engines, which obviously will affect your site traffic.
If your site is loading slower than you’d like, there are a few things you can check:
- If you’re using WordPress, make sure you only have the absolute minimum number of plugins necessary. Having a lot of plugins can slow your site down considerably.
- You also may want to compress your images, add a caching plugin to your site, and make sure you’re using a good web hosting company. Bluehost and Siteground are the two that I recommend to my clients.
10/ You have broken links and other functionality issues.
You can have the most visually stunning website in the world and it may even avoid all the other mistakes mentioned above. However, if your website isn’t working properly or has broken links, it will appear unprofessional – at best, and could be penalized by Google – at worst.
You may be wondering how your site could contain broken links, especially if you tested them when you created them. External websites that you link to could eventually be taken down, or perhaps the link address has changed. This actually happens frequently when websites get migrated to a new domain and they fail to make sure all the old posts redirect properly.
There are several ways you can check your website for broken links:
- If you find any, you definitely want to fix or remove them right away.
- If something else is broken it could be an issue with your web hosting company or one of your plugins, so it’s important to test frequently to make sure your site is up and running optimally.
- Also, be sure to thoroughly test any integrations with other systems.
For example, if you’re giving away a free guide or other freebie resources to subscribers, test the entire process yourself. Make sure your email address gets added to whatever marketing automation software you use, and that you receive the email with the download link – and that it all flows properly.
Gotta love the good flow and vibes… but, are you still experiencing a bit of wellness website envy?
Check out Wendy’s hub of wellness website-building resources at www.WendyNealDesign.com
These will allow your website to become the one everyone is envious about!Plus you can grab her comprehensive guide while you’re at it.
👉How To Start Your Online Wellness Biz on a Shoestring Budget 👈