A Better Way to List Your Services on the Internet - Part 1

A professional coach recently asked me how to make the best use of his website via online coach listings.

For example, listing professional services on the following type of sites….

SelfGrowth.com

BigLife.com

FindACoach.com

Here are three truths about using these sites as a marketing strategy:

1.      Who visits these types of sites? You or your potential clients? You and your colleagues, not your clients. You get paid because YOU seek this out, not your clients.

2.      They won’t hurt, but they won’t really help.

3.      This is a static, relatively un-engaging way of reaching out to your potential clients.

“Well, Karin, what about those business networking sites like…”

Linkedin.com – This is good if you are transitioning from a corporate career into your professional services and your corporate colleagues use the service. It would be a great way to keep those “networks” alive.  Mostly these are people who are staying in touch with colleagues or looking for a job/promotion.

The International Coach Federation’s coach listing website – If you’re an ICF accredited coach, by all means, use their free listing. Mostly use this site because it is referred to often in the media, it’s worth having your profile (and picture!) on there claiming your training.  

Here is a better strategy for leveraging your website and listing your services that is considerably more effective:

Go Local

You don’t want to make the mistake of listing your services where you go for fun, education and entertainment. You want to think in the mind-set of your potential client. When people in your community look for a service, they most often start their search locally.

So ask yourself, where do consumer’s of health, wellness and “change your life” information go in your community? Where do people who have the problems you love to solve go?

Go there.

Simple ways to do this is:

-          If you like to write, send weekly press releases to your local paper about your talks/upcoming events (once you’ve written one, they practically write themselves)

-          Include your events (even tele-classes!) in the free listing of “calendar of events” in your local paper

-          Get a local features writer to do a story on you, your work and what makes your services unique

-          Send a letter campaign (this means sending more than one letter, each letter educating your receipient about how you solve one of their challenges) to area businesses, organizations, or associations that you would like to offer a series of workshops to.

-     Become a regular columist for a local publication that gets read by your target market

Stay tuned for another engaging idea for listing your business online using Google.com.

Karin

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