Website for coaches and therapists – what’s the best website builder?

Are you just starting out with your website, and not sure of what’s the best website builder for your business? In this blog post, I will walk you through why you need a website, when you should create your website, which systems you need in order to be able to create a website. I will also give you my recommendations about website systems, including website builders!

Why a website?

Even though it is possible to grow a business without a website, especially a service based one, I 100% recommend having a website for coaches, healers and therapists.

Here’s why:
➤ A website is yours, a social media channel can be taken away from you without any reason. Just last week, I had someone contact me who had been locked out of her own Facebook Business Page, which no way to get access back. Having a website gives you a platform that is yours and yours alone.
➤ A website is the perfect platform to build your authority and grow your audience, through blogging.
➤ Most products and services need detailed information on a sales page, which you cannot easily add to a social media post. A website is the right place for that info.
➤ Having a website gives you credibility (or the other way around, not having a website lowers your credibility).
➤ Most people still like purchasing form a website (compared to from a social media platform for example)

When do you need a website as a coach or therapist?

I wouldn’t say you need a website right from the beginning, please don’t let not having a website stop you from talking to people and researching your audience. But once you are ready to start properly selling, I would recommend you have your website in place!

Who needs a website?

Every coach or therapist who has products or services for sale!

What systems / providers do I need to create a website for coaches?

When you hear the term “website builder”, it can mean a few things. In any case, if you want to build a website, you will need a few systems. No worries by the way, most website solutions include most of these systems! 

• Hosting. Hosting is basically “where your website lives”. For some solutions, you will need a separate hosting provider, for some solutions, the hosting will come with the website system (see my recommendations for systems below).
• A domain name provider: the place where you purchase your domain name and where the domain name settings are handled. This can be the same provider as the hosting provider, but doesn’t have to be the same. I like having everything with the same provider, so that in case of an issue, 1 provider can not blame the other haha.
• A content management system: a system that helps you create your content, so you don’t have to code and all the content is easily accessible. The most famous one is WordPress.
• A theme. The theme is part of the content management system, but you usually purchase it separately. The theme manages how your site looks. A good theme can make your site look like it has been designed by a designer (but it was actually you haha)
• An e-commerce system. This is the system that handles online transactions (such as sales of products / services / memberships / courses / digital products)
• A payment solution provider. This is the system that handles the payment for the e-commerce system.
• An analytics package. This is the system that will show you how many people visited your website, which pages, and so on. Your website statistics basically.

What is the best solution to build a website for coaches?

There are TONS of options out there.

Here are my recommendations, based on my own experience, plus my clients’ experience. Some of the links are affiliate links, which means that if you’d decide to purchase through this link, I will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. I ONLY recommend systems I know, like and tested.

Best website builder if you have some tech skills: WordPress with Woocommerce & Divi

This is perfect for you if you want to focus on blogging, if you sell services, or if you sell products and you are okay with handling some tech (or you have a VA / tech person who handles this for you). This is what you will need to make this solution work:

• Hosting and domain names: I can 100% recommend Siteground. They have the BEST customer services and actually know how to speak to non-techy people.
• Content Management System: WordPress (free with Siteground). WordPress is the most flexible system, that can basically do anything you want. The downside is that it is not super easy or intuitive to learn. So if you are afraid of tech, or you want something easy, I would choose one of the solutions mentioned below.
• Theme: Divi. Divi will help you create beautiful website pages, even if you don’t know how to code. You can buy it here.
• Ecommerce platform: Woocommerce (free with Siteground)
• Payment solution: Stripe. You will always need to have a separate payment solution. Stripe is the easiest one, and it is more affordable than for example Paypal.
• Analytics: Google Analytics. This is free.

Best website builder if you want to sell courses and programs: Kajabi

If you sell, or if you are planning to sell online courses or memberships (which I think you should do as a coach, healers or therapist, because it will free up so much of your time), then I recommend Kajabi. I moved my website there from Divi / WordPress, because I wanted an easier solution.

Here are the benefits of Kajabi:

• It’s all in one: you get a website builder, video hosting, basic email marketing, courses, memberships, ecommerce, landing pages and hosting. That means, you won’t have to install various plugins, or combine various systems.
• It’s easy to use. There is a bit of a learning curve in the beginning, but after that, it is so much easier than WordPress. Kajabi literally saves me hours and hours compared to the WordPress setup.
• It has a fabulous community. The Facebook Group is full of very successful coaches and course creators who are both helpful and inspiring.
• Is was built for coaches and course creators. WordPress or Wix or Squarespace are more generic, targeted at any small business owner, whereas Kajabi is specifically for course creators and coaches.

The drawback of Kajabi is that it is less flexible than WordPress. On WordPress, you can basically build anything, whereas on Kajabi, you are limited to what the owners decide to add to the system. And it is also more expensive. Quite expensive even I would say. But the fact that it saves me so much time makes it worth the investment!

You can sign up for Kajabi through my affiliate link here.

Here’s how it will work with Kajabi:

• If you choose Kajabi, you will get your hosting, Content Management System, Theme, Ecommerce platform all from Kajabi
• Domain names: Siteground
• Payment solution: Stripe
• Analytics: Google Analytics

 Best option for easy to build, but basic website: Wix or Squarespace

As a third option, there’s Wix or Squarespace. Both systems allow you to very easily create a nice looking website! I want to mention them as an alternative, but I don’t have any personal experience with them, but because the functionality is fairly limited, especially when it comes to courses and programs, they would be a temporary solution as far as I am concerned. A way to quickly get started before you are ready for the real work.

So that’s it: who needs a website, which systems do you need for your website, and which systems I recommend! Enjoy building your website.

What’s next?
* You can read more about websites on the blog.
* If you need guidance with your website, then I can help you through my coaching services.

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