There is Significant SEO Opportunity for Local Life and Career Coaches
Hundreds of people are searching for keywords in the Twin Cities that are directed at life and career coaches, and many contain location specific keywords, so hundreds of potential clients are searching with buyers intent, in this case hoping to make a first appointment.
78% of local mobile searches result in an offline purchase, and 60% of PC searches result in a purchase.
– searchengineland
Overview
By capturing the local Minneapolis search market, a life and career coach would be able to get at least 20 (and up to 40)new leads per month from search results alone. If you retain your clients from this approach there is significant value to be added to your firm over the course of a client’s lifetime. In this guide I will prove that the field is open for an interested coach to demonstrate themselves as an authority in the local market. I will first look at the opportunities for life coaches and then look at the terms specific to career coaches. There are over 1000 local search queries related to life and career coaching each month, and a few sites are already doing well in capturing leads associated with these terms. I will focus on the most successful of these sites: beginagaincoaching.com and review how their keyword SEO strategy is driving clients to their site. I will also point out some weaknesses that their site has in order to show that any individual coach could top their results with a proper strategy.
We can start with an overview of the market for life coaches, gathered using a software that compiles site visits and ranking factors for keywords:
Overview for the Search Keyword “Life Coach Minneapolis”
The largest volume keywords for life coaches are “life coach Minneapolis” and “life coach Minnesota”, each at ~200 searches per month. Notably, the more specific the search term the higher the purchaser’s intent to buy services. A top ranking for the term “life coach Minneapolis” would translate to 40-50 visits to a site per month from ranking for the term and 1/2-1/3 of those would result in commitments to a life coaching session (with a proper website designed to convert). Ranking for “life coach MN” would lead to something like 20-30 visits (Figure 2) and ~10 commitments. This is at minimum and without considering variations on word order and other small changes that make 20+ search terms relevant for Minnesota life coaches. (As seen in Figures 6 and 7)
Top 10 Rankings for the Term “Life Coach Minneapolis”
The top two ranked Minneapolis firms are Asnaburza.com and katrinawidener.com which are each are getting 20-30 visits per month from their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for the term “life coach Minneapolis”. (Figure 2) Notably, directories are ranking higher, which is a sign that the market is open for a leader to emerge. This is confirmed by the fact that the difficulty of ranking this keyword is 1/100.
Note that the top 3 results are directories and the 10th ranking result is an NPR article from 13 years ago! Also note that the top 3 ranking individual firms have more backlinks than the rest. You may wonder why jasnaburza.com ranks higher when it has fewer backlinks than karinawidener.com, but that’s because Jansa’s links are higher in quality and have more power to rank. Building backlinks is key to any site’s success, and Jansa does this best, making her the result leader.
Overview for the Search Keyword “Career Coach Minneapolis”
Figures 3 and 4 show that there are many people searching for local career coaches. Linkedin currently offers a search service that is highly trafficked, and considering that they have the most authority of any results, it is unlikely for a small firm to rise above the 2nd spot in rankings. Google prioritizes this Linkedin result (even with no backlinks) because clients looking for a local coach can easily sort through some options on Linkedin, thereby meeting the searcher’s needs. When searcher’s needs are met, Google sees that they spend longer on the page and click around less, so are engaging in the site’s content more, therefore this site must be excelling in that regard.
We can see here that beginagaincoaching.com is taking the lead in individual coaching firm results and ranks highly for life coaching terms, so we will explore their strategy more in the following sections. We can find out what makes them a leader and learn what can be adopted from their success.
Overview for Ranking Leader beginagaincoaching.com
Beginagaincoaching.com has become successful in search rankings because it has been able to channel its authority in the field. Its viewership has grown as its keywords have grown, as seen in figure 5. It is regularly ranked in the top 10 ranking spots for many of the most searched and lucrative terms (Figure 6 and 7). When totaled these search volumes for terms related to life and career coaching field exceed 1000. It is their ability to rank for these terms that makes their total number of visitors far better than average when compared to most others in the field. Their strategy still is not perfect, but this range of 200-240 visitors per month sets a good baseline for any coach to reach within a year.
Traffic and Keyword Overview for beginagaincoaching.com
Top 16 Terms beginagaincoaching.com is Ranking for Locally by Traffic
Begin again coaching’s strategy is informative for other coaches looking to succeed. In essence, they built a good (but surpassable) backlink profile and have succeeded at SEO because they have built themselves as a local authority for career coaching. They notably have articles in Women’s Press and Minnesota Monthly linking to their site, which is key to their success.
Authority building for digital campaigns is my specialty. While most other marketing firms don’t see the potential of this approach for building local marketing campaigns, or don’t execute it properly, I take pride in building authority. I enjoy this approach because I love seeing my clients succeed as leaders in their field and gaining clients as a result. Google in turn loves this approach because it means that their ranking leaders aren’t just pages with the term “life coach MN ” crammed 30 times into a paragraph or trying to game the system with any other trick. Instead, we find that the ranking leaders are the ones who are worth linking to and worth visiting, something that is impossible to fake. Not only is their site linked to more often, but as seen in Figure 8, it has a variety of content that can be linked to, further building their authority.
Weaknesses of beginagaincoaching.com
This site is leading the local results, but there still are significant weaknesses in their strategy. Here are just a few. I am unable to give them a complete SEO audit like I offer most firms, but I am able to see the most egregious of their mistakes.
- There are some technical issues that slow the site speed and reduce rankings. Now that google has emphasized mobile accessibility this has become increasingly important.
2. They have a very poor “Google My Business” signals. They have no reviews and their “Google My Business” profile (while claimed) has not been optimized for local search. It is specifically this issue that makes their competitor Jansa Bursa have 2 rankings higher than them and why Jansa has received 50% more leads for life coach search terms.
3. Their site lacks a clear NAP (Name, Address and Phone) on every page to establish a local connection. To succeed in local SEO, connections to the local area should be as clear as possible, so this error as well as poor citations from other local directories holds them back from reaching their full potential.
Summary
The life coach and career coach field is wide open for any local coach to take the lead relatively quickly. There are over 1000 unique searches per month related to the industry and most coaches aren’t tapping into this digital market. This means that 20-40 leads/month are up for grabs by any interested coach. Furthermore, life and career coaches are suited very well to a content marketing campaign that builds them as authorities on related topics. By building this authority, coaches can top results and get motivated clients. Elsewhere on my site you can read more about my approach to authority marketing.
We can learn much from the current local leader of the Minneapolis- St.Paul market beginagaincoaching.com, but we can also build on their success. There are notable weaknesses that any coaching firm could overcome and could easily outdo in terms of content, and (by not falling into their weaknesses) in turn usurp their authority and gain clients.
If you are interested in learning more about what your business can do to better increase your inbound leads. Contact me at [email protected] and I will give you a full digital marketing audit to point out what your business can improve on. Likewise, if you have any questions about how to build your authority locally and nationally, I’d look forward to talking with you. After having a quick look at other large markets like Chicago and Houston, I can see that this trend is occurring nationally, so coaches across the U.S. can benefit from a strong SEO campaign, so if you want to reach national clients with tele-consults that is possible as well. Contact me today.