Why Your Website Isn’t Getting You Clients Yet (And What’s Missing)
You have a website, but no one is booking. Maybe you DIYed, or maybe you hired a website designer - either way, you may be wondering if your site is part of the reason bookings are down, or not happening at all.
I’ve designed and “seo’d” 100s of websites, so I’m going to break this down into simple steps you can take to make sure your website is set up for success. (It won’t be EVERYTHING, but it will be things that will help).
1. Make Sure It’s Clear What You Do and Who It’s For
Go to your homepage.
Look at the very first section of your homepage (known as the “top of the fold” - think newspaper).
Ask yourself:
Can someone understand what I do in a few seconds?
Can they tell if this is for them?
If your homepage is vague or wordy, people won’t stay long enough to figure it out.
You just need:
what you do
who it’s for
Clear and simple. (maybe someday you will add more but for now this is step 1.)
EXAMPLES:
“Family Systems Therapy for Parents in Ontario”
“Breathwork for GenX Women in Ottawa-Gatineau”
“Life Coaching for Teachers in Chelsea, Quebec.”
2. Make Sure Your Website Includes Your Location
Even if you work online, your location still matters.
Search engines need to know where your business is based.
Check that your location is written clearly on your site:
homepage
contact page
footer
For example:
“Based in Wakefield, Quebec”
or
“Serving clients online from the Ottawa–Gatineau region”
This helps your website show up when people search in your area - and don’t worry, you will be found beyond your location too - but you need to give the search engines and AI a homebase.
3. Make Sure Each Page Has a Clear Description
Every page on your website needs a short description, which is a snippet of text that describes your page. The page description gives search engines and AI the information they need to serve your pages to the right people. THEN the right people will often see and read your page description in the results.
You will need to go into the “back end” of your website to fix this.
Your page description needs to include:
what you do
who it’s for
where you are
You have 70-155 characters to do this. Anything over 155 characters will not be read by “the bots”…so don’t waste your time.
EXAMPLES:
“Step-by-step, at your pace, I make clear copywriting and SEO make sense so your clients can find you online. Based in Ottawa-Gatineau, Canada.”
“Family Systems Therapy for parents in Chelsea, Quebec. Offered in-person or online.”
“Deep Tissue Massage for women who want to feel better in Pontiac, Quebec. Sessions take place in a beautiful farm setting.”
Start Here - I promise it’s going to make a difference!
You don’t need to fix everything today.
When you focus on the right things, even one step at a time, it makes a difference.
If you want to keep going, you can explore more useful steps here.
