You started your journey as a life coach to help others be the best versions of themselves.

People are putting their well-being in your hands – you need a polished website that makes them comfortable doing so. Therefore, someone needs to take care of your well-being too. Your online business well-being, that is.

Hiring a website designer is one of the investments you’ll make in your life coaching business. If you’ve never hired a website designer before, you might not know where to start.

There are hundreds of thousands of web designers out there, and not all are created equal. You need to have a strong vetting process for how to choose the right web designer to form your online presence.

Experts advise to re-vamp your website roughly every three years. (But, hey, we’ve got clients who are going on 10 years with the websites we built for them and they are still going strong). Whether you’re looking to build from scratch or re-design an existing website, you need someone who sees eye-to-eye with your vision. This is especially important in web design for life coaches.  

In this article, we want to provide the ultimate life coach’s guide to choosing a web designer – and the essential steps in the vetting process.

Let’s get moving.

Gauge Their Style: Look Through Their Portfolio

Every web designer brings something unique to the table.

Just like a person needs a life coach that jives with them, you need a web designer with a compatible style.

Start by looking at their past projects – all experienced designers will have a portfolio.

They may not have experience in web design for life coaches specifically, and that’s ok. 

Try to identify projects within the coaching or health field. Beyond their style of web design, there are a few critical considerations to make as you peruse their portfolio:

• Does their design style create a sense of professionalism and trustworthiness?
• Does the user experience motivate people to take action?
• Is the content easy to understand?
• Does the messaging genuinely evoke real human emotions?
• Are their designs unique to each client or are they trendy and same-same?

Look at their projects through a customer’s scope.

Would you feel confident enough to engage with this company and trust them with your money – and your emotional well-being?

Be candid with your assessment. It’s perfectly fine to be picky at this stage.

The bottom line: Your website will be your first impression to a lot of your potential clients. You need to choose a web designer that matches your ethos.

Don’t Shy Away from Web Design Pricing

Nothing good comes cheap. This is especially true when choosing a web designer.

The entire process of how to choose web design will boil down to pricing – it’s best to address it early. When talking about the web designer’s cost, we recommend looking for a few things.

We’ve been designing websites for a long time. We can tell you that every client we’ve ever worked with appreciates transparency in pricing. No one likes getting hit with hidden fees and unexpected upcharges.

The best web designers have simplified their pricing as much as possible.  When you discuss the web design cost, they should explain everything down to the last detail. This is to ensure there are no unwelcome surprises when the project gets moving.

Now, most web designers request an upfront deposit. Some of the more advanced designers with a reputation may request you pay everything upfront. Some agencies will invoice you percentages of the project at specific milestones. At Tall Poppies Design, we work with the client to develop an ideal monthly payment plan.

The bottom line: Be open and honest with the web designer about pricing. No one wants to put in hours of planning only to find out you’re on different pages about costs. Most designers are flexible and can find a solution (within reason) that works for everyone.

Ask About Website Copywriting

Copy – the text – tends to be an overlooked aspect of the web design process.

Words can be boring compared to images and color schemes – but without copy, coaching websites have no direction or purpose.

As a life coaching business, the copy on your website can’t just be slapped together. It needs to motivate people to take the first step to improve their day-to-day life.

Now, when choosing a web designer, it’s rare to find one who will also commit to crafting compelling website copy. We highly recommend working with a web design agency that includes a professional copywriter throughout the project–whether it be your own chosen copywriter or someone you are introduced to that feels ideal to you. Website copy and design must work in harmony – and the writer and designer should have chemistry.

This is difficult to achieve when you hire a web designer and a copywriter separately – and they have never worked together before.

Writing web copy is more difficult than it looks. You need a writer who can understand your client’s pain points – and appeal to them on an emotional level. This is especially true in the life coaching sector.

Don’t compromise on copywriting, trust us.

The bottom line: Your website’s copy can either enhance or undermine the user experience – no matter what the aesthetic appeal of your website looks like. Try to find a team of designers and writers with an established process and track record working with each other. This is a HUGE advantage in a web project.

See if Web Design Includes SEO

When someone needs coaching services, they’re not looking at the yellow pages.

They are turning to Google to find coaching websites with searches like:

• “find a life coach”
• “how to find a life coach”
• “where to find a life coach”

Your website needs to show up on these types of Google searches.

Enter search engine optimization – or just SEO.

New websites need to adhere to SEO best practices – which are woven into the website copywriting, design, and development processes. If you want your life coaching website to appear on Google searches, SEO needs to be a top priority when choosing a web designer or agency.

Ask them about the following SEO components – and how they plan to incorporate them into your life coaching website:

• Keyword analysis
• Optimization of website structure and navigation
• Creation of natural-sounding, keyword-rich copy
• Quick website loading speeds
• Mobile-compatible design

This only scratches the surface of SEO and website design projects.

The bottom line: Your life coaching website won’t do much good if no one can find it online. Web designers should have a good grasp of SEO best practices – or work closely with someone who does.

Ask About Turnaround Times

When selecting a web designer or web design services, you need to understand the timeline for the project.

Web design is a time-consuming job. There are many boxes to be checked before you see your shiny new online presence:

• Discovery and digital strategy
• Web copy
• Page design
• Web development
• Search engine optimization
• Quality assurance

On average, a website can take a minimum of 10-12 weeks to complete.

Another thing to keep in mind is reputable web designers – and web design agencies – are in high demand. In other words, they probably have several projects in the works and timelines might be longer than expected.

Now, a good website designer is busy, but this doesn’t excuse flakiness. There are a few indicators that suggest you’ve landed a competent one, regardless of how many projects the designer is juggling,

• Do they establish practical expectations concerning timelines?
• Are they good about responding to emails?
• Do they have project management systems in place to track everything?
• Have they clarified their timelines for revisions?
• Have they explained their procedure to keep everything on schedule?

The bottom line: Exceptional web designers and agencies establish transparent expectations from day one – and understand the value of good communication. The last thing you want is to feel left out or that your project is insignificant to them.

Have Them Show You Their Website Design Process

The true value of a web designer – or web design agency – lies in the process.

In addition to the quality of their work, seasoned web designers have spent years refining their process to better understand a client’s values, vision, and expectations to make every project run like clockwork.

And they should have no problem telling you about it – including the day-to-day, website builders, and other tools they use.

This starts with a discovery process.

Each web design process is unique, but a professional designer will invest the time to understand your needs and vision in detail.

If their discovery process seems somewhat superficial, it’s a giant warning sign. It suggests that the web design agency—lacks a solid process and may not be the ideal fit for your life coaching website.

The web design process should kick off with a comprehensive discovery phase that dives into:

• Your life coaching narrative
• The core values present in every client relationship
• What sets you apart as a life coach

A great web designer will interview you (and key decision makers on your team) about ALL aspects of your business, from your goals and vision to your customers, current marketing, and even your revenue streams. 

The entire project will be significantly more successful if you a prepared to show up and transparently answer ALL of these questions. Because, bottom line, a successful website is not just a glossy brochure for your business. It’s a super-human member of your team that works 24/7 to take care of your customers.

You should have 100% confidence that the designer has a concrete understanding of your specific needs before the project gets off the ground. Trust your intuition here – your gut is usually right.

The bottom line: A good web designer doesn’t use guesswork. They have a rock-solid process in place to understand your needs and get the project done right the first time.  For starters, if the discovery phase doesn’t seem very important to them, they might not be committed to creating a website that resonates with your vision and stands the test of time.

Give Your Life Coaching Website the Love it Deserves!

Selecting a web designer – or a web design agency – to build your life coaching website calls for a careful decision-making process.

Bear in mind, this specialist (or team of professionals) will shape how you represent yourself to prospective clients – and the online business world as a whole. It’s ok to be picky and have discretion.

We hope our post helped steer you in the right direction to find the right web designer for your life coaching business.

Here at Tall Poppies Design, we specialize in full-suite web design for life coaches. This includes the whole package of branding, web design, web development, copywriting, SEO, ongoing maintenance, digital strategy, and more. Reach out to our dedicated team today!