SEO for Coaches (10 Coaching SEO Tips + Keyword List)

This guide covers SEO for coaches.

Below, you’ll find a list of tips that can help improve search engine optimization for a coaching website. Understanding how to do good coaching SEO is essential for getting more organic search traffic, which means more potential clients visiting your site and booking your services.

You’ll also find a set of SEO keywords for coaches to help you get started with the on-page and off-page search engine optimization process.

By the end of this guide, you’ll know how to set up a complete coaching website SEO strategy to give your business the best chance of ranking for its target keywords in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

What Is SEO for Coaches?

SEO for coaches is the process of using search engine optimization to improve a coaching website so it shows up more in the search engines for relevant keywords that attract clients. Coaching SEO focuses on getting results through organic search traffic instead of paid advertising.

Why Coaching SEO Is Important

SEO is important for coaches because SEO makes it easier to reach potential coaching clients without using paid search campaigns. Good coaching SEO is also important for understanding what your audience is looking for on Google so you can optimize content to capture that organic search traffic.

SEO for Coaches

1. Do Strategic SEO Keyword Research

The first step for doing SEO for coaches is to start with keyword research. Without keyword research, you’ll never know which words and phrases are most relevant to your coaching business and which topics have the highest potential to bring in quality traffic.

At the end of this guide, you’ll find a section with a list of good SEO keywords for coaches to help you generate ideas. But to get started here, just think about the types of words and phrases that potential clients would use to find your business on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

A keyword research tool is helpful for this process. And as a coach, you don’t need to invest in or learn complex software to get good results for your website. Instead, you can try any one of these cheap tools below for free to get started with the keyword research process. Disclosure: These are my affiliate links.

• KWFinder: This tool does quick and easy keyword research and is the tool I personally use every day for the keyword research process. KWFinder comes bundled with 4 other SEO tools like a keyword rank tracker and competitor backlink analyzer.
• LowFruits: This is the cheapest, best keyword research tool you can use for finding low competition keywords for SEO. It also uses a pay-as-you-go credit system to keep costs low.
• Keysearch: This tool is similar to KWFinder and comes bundled with a similar set of additional SEO tools. Just pick the interface you like best.

After you choose a keyword research tool, the next step is to find the best SEO keywords for coaches to target on your website. My Keyword Accelerator Playbook walks you through the process of how to pick the most profitable keywords for your business; however, the tips below will give you a crash course on the lessons inside.

• Think about the types of people you help, the struggles they have, and the types of content they look for online to find solutions.
• Enter one of those terms into the keyword research tool.
• Scan through the list of keyword suggestions to find relevant topics you can write about.
• Explore further by adding modifiers such as “how”, “what”, “why”, “can”, and “do” to the beginning of your search term to find question-based keywords for the topic.
• Look for the keywords that have the lowest keyword difficulty (KD) score. These are the easiest SEO keywords to target for your coaching website to get higher rankings and traffic from Google.
• Choose keywords that have a combination of low KD scores and high search volumes. Aim for keywords with 100 average monthly search volume or higher.

As you do keyword research for your coaching business, make sure to keep track of the terms you like in a spreadsheet. That way, you can refer to those phrases in the following steps of this SEO guide.

Here’s an example image from KWFinder showing the keyword suggestions for the phrase, “what life coach”. As you can see, other good topic ideas are displayed such as “what is a personal coach”, “what can a life coach do for me”, “what do life coaches charge”, etc.

Note: Question-based keywords typically have the lowest KD scores and highest search volume. That’s why it’s recommended that you uncover as many relevant search terms that include modifiers like “how”, “what”, “why”, “can”, and “do”. Focusing your coaching SEO strategy on these low competition keywords is a fast way to success than going after general terms with high SEO competition.

2. Create Pages for Each Coaching Service

After you’ve completed the step above for keyword research, you then want to create a web page for each service your coaching business offers. The more web pages you have, the better it is for coaching SEO because you can have more content indexed in the search engines to attract clients.

In tip 5 below, you’ll learn how to optimize each of these service web pages for on-page SEO. But for now, you just need to create an individual page for each coaching service you offer and start building it out with high-quality content that helps the user get the information they need about that service.

The keyword research tool can help you brainstorm ideas for this step so you can maximize the number of pages on your site for coaching services.

Example service pages to optimize SEO for life coaches could include:

• Productivity coaching
• Work coaching
• Time management coaching
• Stress management coaching
• Self-esteem coaching
• Relationship coaching

Just choose what works for you by using the keyword research tool to uncover relevant coaching topics to include on your website to gain clients. Then, publish a web page that targets each of those services. Again, on-page SEO tips to help those pages rank higher in Google can be found below.

3. Analyze Other Coaches’ Websites

Another tip you can use to get keyword ideas for your coaching site is to analyze other coaches’ websites. Tools like KWFinder and Keysearch give you the ability to find and analyze keywords that your competitors are already ranking for in Google. That means you can copy the best parts of their digital marketing strategy for search engine optimization.

If a competitor is getting a lot of organic traffic from Google for a particular keyword, then you should also optimize your website for that term. Essentially, this step helps speed up the keyword research process and gives you more opportunities to target on your own website without doing a lot of extra work.

All you have to do to use this strategy for SEO for coaches is to insert your top competitors’ domains into KWFinder or Keysearch and click the analyze button. The tool will then scan the website and report the ranking keywords along with the average monthly search volume and keyword difficulty score. You then just scroll through and pick the terms you like best to add to your SEO keyword tracking spreadsheet.

4. Set Up a Content Publishing Schedule

If you’re serious about improving your coaching SEO, then you need to set up a content publishing schedule for the question-based keywords you discovered in step 1 above. You basically want to put dates on a calendar for when you’re going to publish a new blog post on your website.

A good strategy is to publish at least 1 new article per week. If you can write 3-5, then that’s even better. If you need additional help with this step, then my Keyword Accelerator Playbook walks you through a simple process of setting up a long-term publishing plan that meets your needs for the next 30-90 days or even the entire year.

5. Do Good On-Page SEO

Having a list of the best SEO keywords for coaches won’t do you any good if your web pages are not properly optimized for on-page search engine optimization. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing use on-page SEO signals to help understand which queries to rank the content for in the search engine results pages (SERPs.) Without good on-page SEO, even the best quality content will struggle to rank high in the SERPs for the keywords it’s targeting.

To get the most SEO value out of your coaching blog posts and service pages, follow these basic on-page SEO tips:

• Page Meta Title: Put the target keyword phrase at the start of this field followed by an enticing reason to click on the article. The meta title is what appears for your coaching page in Google’s search engine. If you’re using WordPress, you’ll need an SEO plugin like AIOSEO, Yoast, or RankMath to edit the meta title information.
• Page Meta Description: Start this field with the keyword phrase, then add synonyms and variations to improve topical relevance. Do not go over 160 characters. WordPress requires an SEO plugin to edit this field.
• Page URL: Make this the exact match keyword phrase with dashes (-) in between each word; not underscores (_).
• H1 Heading: This is typically coded in HTML as your page’s readable title. Just copy the optimized page meta title into this section.
• H2 Subheading: Include the keyword phrase in the first H2 subheading on the page, which should appear directly after the introduction content.
• Body Content: Include the keyword phrase a few times throughout the main content of the page in a natural way. The first instance of the keyword should appear in the introduction and the last instance in the page’s summary.

If you analyze this guide on SEO for coaches, you’ll see all of these tips in practice. The only difference is that this page is ranking for the keywords about coaching SEO tips; not services for life coaches, business coaches, spiritual coaches, etc.

6. Create Internal Links

After you follow the previous step for SEO, your individual web pages will have good keyword optimization signals for the search engine crawlers. However, you can further improve the on-site signals for your pages by adding optimized internal links for SEO.

The anchor text used for the internal links is a ranking factor for SEO. Google’s crawler uses this information to help confirm what keywords the content should rank for in the SERPs.

Here are the basics you need to know to get started for coaching websites:

• Include at least 3-5 internal links from relevant blog posts to each service page within the body content of the posts. The more you link to the page, the more internal SEO power you give it.
• Use the main keyword for the target page as the anchor text for the internal links.
• For internal links you build above number 3, include additional filler words in the anchor text to avoid over-optimization.

Here’s an example of how to use this SEO tip for coaches that have a web page targeting the keyword phrase, “business coach for entrepreneurs”:

• Internal Link #1: business coach for entrepreneurs
• Internal Link #2: business coach for entrepreneurs
• Internal Link #3: business coach for entrepreneurs
• Internal Link #4: top business coach for entrepreneurs
• Internal Link #5: business coach for entrepreneurs program

Keep in mind that this internal linking SEO strategy also works to help boost the rankings for your question-based blog posts in Google. You can link between blog posts on the same topic using the main keyword phrase for the target page by following the same guidelines above.

Here’s an example of that strategy in practice for the keyword phrase, “how to choose a spiritual coach”:

Internal Link #1: how to choose a spiritual coach
Internal Link #2: how to choose a spiritual coach
Internal Link #3: how to choose a spiritual coach
Internal Link #4: tips for how to choose a spiritual coach
Internal Link #5: how to choose a spiritual coach guide

7. Set Up Coaching Business Profiles

If you have an address you can claim for your business, then you can improve the off-site SEO for your website by setting up business profiles for your coach business on Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Business profiles on these major search engines are free and can help you build high-quality backlinks and trust for your website, which are ranking signals for Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

• Create a Google My Business Profile here: google.com/business/
• Create a Bing Places profile here: bingplaces.com
• Create a Yahoo profile through Yext here: yext.com/pl/yahoo-listings/index.html

As mentioned in this other guide with a complete Google My Business Optimization Checklist, you can follow these simple steps to improve the SEO value for all of your online business profiles:

• Claim and verify your business listing.
• Include the name, address, phone number, and hours of operation.
• Include the website URL.
• Add the business opening date.
• Add relevant SEO keywords to the business description. (See this related guide for tips on how to add keywords to Google My Business which also applies to Yahoo and Bing.)
• Choose both primary and secondary categories.
• Add relevant business attributes for coaches.
• Add all of your coaching services.
• Upload photos, videos, and virtual tours.
• Pre-Populate questions about coaching services and then provide the answers.
• Set up messaging to communicate with potential clients.

8. Build Local Citations

If you took advantage of the last SEO tip for coaches, then you can further improve off-site search engine optimization to increase your website’s Domain Authority and trust through local citation backlinks.

The easiest way to create backlinks for coaching websites is to set up profiles on the business directories listed below. Then, add your business’s name, address, phone number, and website’s homepage URL to those profiles. This other page has a complete list of business listing websites for SEO link building if you want to create even more local citations.

• yelp.com
• foursquare.com
• bbb.org
• local.yahoo.com
• mapquest.com
• yellowpages.com
• hotfrog.com
• local.com
• pro.angi.com
• manta.com

9. Get Quality Backlinks for Off-Site SEO

Business profiles and local citations are good off-site resources for setting up a solid link foundation for your coaching website; however, for some competitive markets, you’ll need additional backlinks to help your site rank for relevant keywords.

Also, you want to have a natural backlink profile that doesn’t consist of only manually built links. Websites that have a variety of backlink types tend to rank higher in the search engines because different types of trusted sources are linking to that site.

To make SEO link building easy for you as a coach, just aim for getting these types of backlinks for improved off-site SEO signals:

• Be interviewed on a podcast to share your expertise on a relevant coaching topic and the host will add a link to your website in the show notes.
• Write guest posts on other coaches’ sites that are not direct competitors to your services. You can include a backlink in the content to a relevant blog post and in your author bio to the website homepage.
• Sponsor events that are known to include business names along with a website backlink.
• Donate to charities that include links to supporters’ websites.
• Reach out to other experts in your field and ask them to answer a common question your coaching clients ask for an upcoming blog post. In exchange for including a link to their websites under their answers, you can ask participants to link to the blog post from their site and/or share it on social media to generate organic backlinks.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to SEO link building for coaches. See this other guide on how to get backlinks for free for 50+ more ideas on link building for coaching websites.

10. Use Social Media for Your Coaching Website

The final SEO tip for coaches is to use social media marketing to further improve off-site search engine optimization. By setting up social media accounts for your coaching business, and optimizing key elements for SEO keywords, you can harness the power of additional digital marketing channels.

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, YouTube, etc, are easy places to get quality backlinks for your website to help drive targeted traffic. See this related guide on social media link building to find out all the ways to create backlinks for off-site SEO purposes using social media.

As for a quick strategy to implement for success, you should pick 1-2 social media platforms and publish keyword-optimized posts with links to your coaching service pages and blog posts. Tweets on Twitter, for example, rank high in Google for relevant keywords. So do Pinterest Pins and Reddit threads. Therefore, you should take advantage of the social platforms your audience is active on the most to gain more search engine visibility outside of just posting content on your website.

SEO Keywords for Coaches

Coaches Keyword Ideas	SEO Keyword Examples
“type of coach” for “purpose”	life coach for women
“type of coach” + “skills”	business coaching skills
“type of coach” + “local area”	spiritual coach in Las Vegas, NV
“coaching type” + services	mental health coaching services
“coaching type” vs “an alternative”	career coach vs mentor
what + “type of coach” + “topic”	what do life coaches charge
why + “type of coach” + “topic”	why are productivity coaches important
how + “problem that your coaching service can fix”	how to improve self-esteem
can + “type of coach” help with “problem”	can a financial coach help with credit
do + “type of coach” + “topic”	do life coaches take insurance

Note: These SEO keywords for coaches are just general ideas. You can mix and match the examples above and use other words that apply to your particular area of expertise in coaching.

SEO for Coaches Summary

I hope you enjoyed this guide on SEO for coaches.

As you discovered, the basic strategy for coaching SEO is to find the best SEO keywords to target for coaches in your industry and then optimize individual web pages and blog posts for those terms. You can also set up business profiles on Google, Yahoo, and Bing as well as get your coaching business listed on local directories to help improve the off-site search engine optimization signals. Quality backlinks are a must for competitive niches; however, there are easy ways to get high-quality backlinks for coaching websites through strategic SEO outreach as you discovered on this page.