3 Key Questions Every Recovery Coach Must Answer Before Beginning to Design A Website

How amazing would it be to have a Recovery Coaching website that convinces those struggling with substance use disorders to make a commitment to coaching?

And invest in your services.

Your website has to help prospective clients know, like, and trust you.

I know your excited to jump in a start building your digital home, but before you begin you have to do some preliminary work. Yes, it's just like coaching and recovery in general - You need a plan.

Before you begin designing your website you have to sit down and answer a few vital elements about your recovery coaching business.

Let's dive in

1. Who is your ideal client of your recovery coaching business?

Think for a moment about the service websites you go back to again and again. The websites which are central to improving your coaching skills, business related services, or information which interests you.

What do these websites all have in common?

These websites all speak to you. It almost feels that the web copywriter is speaking to you.

Why do you think this happens?

It happens because the business owner, designer, and copywriter have planned to speak to one specific persona. And you fit the demographics, needs, and wants of this persona who the website was written for.

When you land on a website that doesn't speak to your needs, wants, or desires you bounce. It's easy to do because there are so many others to businesses to choose from. It takes around 7 seconds for a web visitor to decide to keep scrolling and scanning your content or leave.

I cannot stress to you enough to take the time and build a profile for your ideal target audience. However, this is not enough. You then need to choose a single person from your audience and focus your attention on his or her needs, wants, and desires.

Write to one person.

Do this step before you begin writing your web copy or before hiring a conversational copywriter. You won't regret it.

Don't stop researching your ideal client with demographic information (age, gender, career, etc.) dig a deeper. Answer these questions in regards to your coaching skills and specialties:

• What is the substance(s) of choice?
• What is the most significant barrier, pain, or worry your client needs to overcome?
• Go deeper think about, attitudes, goals, behaviors, habits, personalities, lifestyle views, and motivation to change other areas in life?
• What phase of recovery is your ideal client presently in?
• What stage of change is your ideal client presently in?
• What long-term goals do the clients wish to achieve?
• Recovery resources, support groups, and other pathways to recovery will be suggested in the recovery plan?
• What is other information important to developing your ideal client persona?

Once you complete this step, find a picture to represent your ideal client, give him or her a name, and arrange all the vital research and information on a card or document. When I design my cards, I use a graphics program such as Canva or Photoshop. I make the image a little smaller than 4 X 6. I print the image out and attach it to a 4" X 6" sheet of cardstock.

Imagine an oversized baseball trading card.

The reason I print it in a larger format is so I can stand it up and see my ideal client when I am writing copy, blog posts, or email marketing messages.

Once you have a customized your ideal client card move on to answering question #2

2. What is the core message of your recovery coaching business?

A core message is one or two sentences which summarize your recovery coaching business to your ideal client. Your core message sums you up.

However, you are summing up your business, work ethics, mission, and promises of your recovery coaching business in 2 sentences.

You might think this sounds easy. Think again it takes time to craft your core message.

A difficult task, but once you nail it creating the remainder of the content for your website will fall into place.

Don't confuse a core message with a tagline. A tagline is a short catch-phrase or slogan. When thinking about taglines think about Nike's "Just Do It" or Apple's "Think Different." these phrases are short and catchy, but they do not sum up Nike or Apple's business.

Think about these topics when preparing to write your core message. Use words that impact emotions regarding your ideal client's needs, wants, and desires.

When creating a core message include:

• Descriptive, emotional, action-filled words
• Illustrate what is unique about you
• Demographics of clients and substance use disorders you work well with
• The pains, barriers, and worry you help clients overcome
• The immediate and long-term benefits a client will get out of committing to your recovery coaching business

You will use your core message as the backbone of each page on your website, social media, email, and print marketing. 

Once you create your core message - every article, blog post, Facebook Ad, Instagram post, email sent, phone call or speaking engagement will begin with this cornerstone gem of content, at the center.

After you are satisfied with your core message share it with several clients and peers who understand your recovery coaching business mission, purpose, benefits, and worth. Ask for honest feedback. Tweaked your core message one last time based on the feedback you receive.

Now let's move on to question 3#

3. What is the emotion or feeling you want your recovery coaching business website to convey to ideal clients?

This question falls into two categories: Branding and Web Design. The branding for your coaching business must align with your website. You want readers to recognize your content, logo, and social media marketing messages whenever you share information to the internet.

When deciding on colors, fonts, style, logo, and themes for your digital business card it is vital to understand how these elements all come together to create a specific feeling and emotion on your page. 

Research suggests that color, style, and font choices convey messages to viewers. The psychology of color suggests that certain colors produce specific feelings. Therefore it is vital to research the colors you will use prior to designing your website. You want your design to align with your core message and appeal to your ideal client.

The psychology of color

Colors can produce positive and negative feelings. Therefore it is pertinent to understand, the psychology of color. How warm and welcoming your readers feel depends upon the colors (hue, tint, and shade) of your recovery coaching business website. 

Purple is most often associated with spirituality or higher purposes and personas. Usually, colors such as purple, blue and greens are associated with a professional, inviting, relaxed feelings. For example, most hospitals, doctors or dental offices have cooler hues of the colors mentioned earlier. When used in darker contrast and tones these same colors can produce an unfriendly, cold, hostile environment. 

In our culture, the color red can have two opposite meanings depending on how the color is presented. Red can mean love or anger. In some cultures red always portrays luck or happiness. Yellow, orange and red tend to produce warmer soothing feelings, but once again depending on the hue, these colors can become quite unfriendly, intimidating, and hostile relating to anxiety, frustration, or stress.

Quick Color Schemes generators

The next step is to head over to Colors: A Quick Color Scheme Generator, or Adobe color wheel, or Paleton wheel page so you can get a feel for what colors and hues work well together. Which compliment, contrast, or stand out from, one another. 

I recommend a light or neutral background using plenty of white space to make it easier on your reader's eyes. Websites with dark backgrounds and lighter fonts make it difficult to read.

Once you have chosen your base set of colors to decide on several fonts which work well with the colors selected. I suggest looking through Google Fonts. Google has developed a list of web typography fonts and subfonts which can be uploaded to any WordPress site. 

A quick note on Fonts:

Serif Fonts are generally used to give a feeling of professionalism. Most news websites The New York Times use Serif fonts. Serif Fonts create a sense of authority, influence, importance, knowledge, and traditions.

Sans-serif Fonts create a modern feeling. The feeling is upscale and sophisticated. Coaching websites use either one of the two; it all depends on how you want to be perceived and the feeling you wish to convey to your readers.

Your recovery coaching business website begins with proper planning.

Your digital home for your coaching business must begin with a plan. Spend some time in the pre-developmental phase answering these fundamental questions and save yourself more time energy and money in the long run. 

Need a web designer or copywriter?

I've been writing content for the addiction recovery industry since 2012. I can help you in several ways. Click here to learn more about traits of a recovery coaches website or email me to set-up a consultation to answer questions you might have about your website.