You have a website. You are a coach. And the chair stays emptier than it should be.
I hear variations of “My website looks pretty nice, but it doesn’t bring in any inquiries” practically every week. Sometimes it’s a design decision. More often it’s a strategy decision. Almost always it’s a mix — and almost always at the same ten places.
This article walks through those ten points. For each one: the question, why it matters, what good looks like, what bad looks like, and a self-test. At the end, a scoring rubric that tells you where you stand and where to start.
You need about 10 minutes. Pull up your website in a second tab — let’s go.
1. Clarity about your niche in 3 seconds
The question: Can a visitor tell within the first 3 seconds what kind of coach you are and who you work with?
Why it matters: “Coach” is not a protected term. A visitor who searched “business coach Munich” wants to see in the first second that they landed on the right site. If they have to scroll just to figure out whether you are a life coach, a systemic coach, or a career consultant, they have already opened your competitor.
What good looks like: Your header or hero makes it clear in two keywords who you are and who you serve.
- “Systemic coaching for engineering leaders in tech — Berlin and remote”
- “Business coach for solo founders across the DACH region”
What bad looks like:
- “Coach & mentor” — too generic
- “I accompany people on their journey” — which people? Which journey?
- “Coaching for more clarity and success” — promises everything and therefore nothing
Self-test: Open your website. Don’t scroll. Don’t click. Count three seconds. Can you explain afterwards, in two keywords, what you offer and who it’s for? If not — point missed.
2. One primary, directly reachable CTA
The question: Is there a single, clear call-to-action a prospect can see and click without scrolling?
Why it matters: Most coach websites have three to five competing CTAs (“About me”, “Newsletter”, “Discovery call”, “Read the blog”, “Book a webinar”). Every additional CTA roughly halves conversion. Clear pages have one primary CTA — everything else is secondary or hidden.
What good looks like: A clear primary button in the hero, top right, and again in the footer. Examples: “Book a free discovery call” or “15-min clarity call”. Secondary links (“About me”, “Blog”) live in the nav menu, not as buttons.
What bad looks like:
- Two or three same-sized buttons in the hero — the visitor has to decide, you lose.
- “Learn more” as a CTA — vague action, no clear expectation.
- CTA only in the footer — visitors never get there.
Self-test: Load your site and count how many clickable calls-to-action are visible on the first screen. More than two? Point missed.
3. A concrete outcome in the first section
The question: Does your site promise a clear, concrete outcome up top — or does it describe your methodology?
Why it matters: Clients buy outcomes, not methods. If you talk up top about “resource-oriented coaching” and “systemic constellations”, the visitor loads the next site. If you talk up top about “More clarity for self-employed founders after three sessions”, they stay.
What good looks like:
- “More bookings for self-employed therapists — measurably more in eight weeks.”
- “From burnout back to performance, without losing your pace — in 12 sessions.”
Concrete client quotes that name an outcome (even when anonymised): “After three sessions I finally had a plan for my pricing.”
What bad looks like:
- “I work with you using systemic constellations, NLP, and integrative methodology.”
- “My approach is holistic and individual.”
Methodology with no statement about what clients will end up doing differently.
Self-test: What’s in the first 100 words of your site? Methods (method 1, method 2, method 3)? Or outcomes (what the client will do differently after three sessions)?
4. Personality, not gloss
The question: Does your site feel like a stock-image gloss festival — or like a real person with a point of view?
Why it matters: Coaching is an intimate relationship service. Clients buy the coach, not the coaching programme. If your images are stock-stock-stock, you signal “interchangeable”. If your “About me” reads like a LinkedIn bio, you disappear into the crowd.
What good looks like:
- At least one real photo of you, ideally not posed (in conversation, at your desk, in the coaching room).
- “About me” with concrete details: what you did before coaching, what you love about the work, what annoys you about it.
- Tone: how you’d speak in the first session, not how you’d write a conference bio.
What bad looks like:
- Stock image “smiling woman with laptop”
- “With 15 years of experience in personal coaching…” as the opener
- No information about you as a person beyond title and methods
Self-test: Would someone who knows you look at your site and say “Yes, that’s Anna”? Or more like “That could be anyone”?
5. At least one real, named client testimonial
The question: Do you have at least one named client testimonial with a concrete outcome?
Why it matters: “Anonymous client from Munich” doesn’t count. “Coach S., 42, Berlin” doesn’t count. What counts: first name + profession + city + concrete outcome. Without names, testimonials read as fabricated — even when they aren’t. With a photo and a link to a real LinkedIn profile behind them, they read as verifiable.
What good looks like:
“After four sessions I had my new freelance practice clearly positioned — and my first paying client in the pipeline.” — Anna B., copywriter, Munich
Ideally with a photo and a LinkedIn link.
What bad looks like:
- “Great work, highly recommended! — M.K., coach”
- No testimonials at all
- Generic quotes about the method with no concrete outcome
Self-test: Click on your testimonials section. Are the names spelled out? Are there concrete outcomes? Can a visitor find the person on LinkedIn?
Tip if you don’t have testimonials yet: Ask your last three clients directly for a two-sentence quote plus permission to use their name. Eighty percent say yes when you ask politely.
6. A clear description of what a discovery call is
The question: Does a prospect understand what happens before they click “book a discovery call”?
Why it matters: Booking anxiety is real. “Discovery call” is jargon that can mean many things: 15 minutes on the phone, 60 minutes in your office, free or paid, with a sales pitch or without. If you don’t clarify what you mean, the prospect doesn’t click — or they click and end up disappointed.
What good looks like: A small section (or tooltip) next to every CTA:
“Discovery call = 30 min, free, phone or Zoom. We clarify your situation, I explain how I work, you decide afterwards in your own time.”
What bad looks like:
- Just a button “Book a discovery call” — no description.
- Vague phrasing: “Getting to know each other and consultation”.
Self-test: When a visitor clicks the CTA — do they know what they’re committing to? How long? Free? What the next step looks like?
7. Findable on Google for your niche plus city
The question: Do you rank on Google for “[your niche] + [your city]”?
Why it matters: If someone googles “business coach Munich”, you want to be on page 1. If you’re on page 3, you effectively don’t exist for that client. Clean SEO basics aren’t magic — but they are non-negotiable.
What good looks like:
- Page title contains niche plus city: “Business coach Munich — Anna B.”
- Meta description is written specifically for the page, not generic
- H1 contains the niche
- Schema.org markup (LocalBusiness or ProfessionalService) is in place
What bad looks like:
- Page title: “Home — Anna B. Coaching” (no keyword, no location)
- Meta description is missing or identical on every page
- H1: “Welcome to my website”
Self-test: Google “[your specific niche] + [your city]” in a private tab (incognito mode so your browser history doesn’t bias the result). Are you on page 1? Position 1–5? If not, you have SEO basics to handle.
8. Mobile-first and fast
The question: Does your site load on mobile in under 3 seconds, and does it look good there?
Why it matters: Sixty to seventy percent of your visitors are on a phone. If your site is slow there or its layout breaks, you’ve lost them — no matter how nice it looks on desktop. Google also penalises slow sites in rankings.
What good looks like:
- Mobile layout thought through first, not “desktop shrunk down”
- Load time on mobile under 3 seconds (Google PageSpeed test)
- Lighthouse score 90+ across all four categories
What bad looks like:
- Text on mobile too small to read
- Buttons too small to tap with a thumb
- WordPress with 30+ plugins → 8-second load time
Self-test: Open your site on your phone, over mobile data (not Wi-Fi). Does it feel fast? Do you have time for a second sip of coffee while it loads?
9. GDPR and TTDSG set up cleanly
The question: Are your imprint, privacy policy, cookie consent, and all trackers configured to be legally sound?
Why it matters: Cease-and-desist letters over botched GDPR implementations have become routine in Germany. Several thousand euros in penalty fees for a wrongly configured Google Fonts call is not a hypothetical — it happens. And the topic is not getting smaller in 2026.
What good looks like:
- Imprint reachable, complete, with accurate details
- Privacy policy matches every tool you actually use (hosting, analytics, fonts, forms)
- Cookie banner only when cookies are actually set (TTDSG requirement)
- External fonts (Google Fonts) self-hosted or consent-gated
- No tracking before explicit consent
What bad looks like:
- Boilerplate imprint-generator text with gaps
- Privacy policy mentions tools you don’t use (copy-paste bonus)
- Google Fonts loads before consent (a common cease-and-desist trigger)
- Facebook Pixel fires without a consent banner
Self-test: Open your site in incognito mode. Which external connections are opened before any click (Network tab in DevTools)? If Google Fonts or a tracker is in there — point missed.
Note: I am not a lawyer. This is a technical assessment of what tends to be challenged in practice, not legal advice. For concrete questions please ask a GDPR-specialist law firm.
10. Multilingual — if you work internationally
The question: If you also serve English-speaking clients — can your website receive them professionally?
Why it matters: Many coaches work bilingually (DACH plus expats, or DACH plus international business). A site that only has DE or only has EN loses 30 to 50 percent of potential clients. More importantly: hreflang tags have to be set cleanly, otherwise Google ranks the wrong language version in the wrong region.
What good looks like:
- DE and EN as equally weighted languages
hreflangtags set correctly (hreflang="de",hreflang="en",hreflang="x-default")- Language switcher visible in the header
- Localised URLs (
/de/ueber-mich/and/en/about/, not?lang=en)
What bad looks like:
- Only one language even though the target audience is bilingual
- Plugin workaround with
?lang=enquery parameters - English copy that is machine-translated and clunky
- No language switcher visible
Self-test: If your target audience could be bilingual: does your site handle that without a workaround? If your audience is purely DE: this point counts as automatically met.
Your score and what it means
Count your met points now (point 10 counts as automatically met if your audience is purely DE):
| Met | Diagnosis | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| 9–10 | Your site works for you. | Keep it maintained. Update every 6 months. You’re doing it right. |
| 6–8 | Your site is okay, but it could do more for you. | Improving two or three targeted points is often enough. Start with the biggest levers (points 1, 3, 5). |
| 3–5 | Your site is losing you clients — and now you know why. | Spot improvements won’t be enough. Plan a full relaunch. |
| 0–2 | Your site is working against you. | The internet is a noisy room. A weak site is worse here than no site at all. Start over. |
What now?
If you didn’t score as well as you’d hoped: that’s the norm. Most coach websites fail on four to seven of these ten points. They’re not bad — they’re just not built for discovery calls.
Two paths from here:
Option 1: Tackle it yourself. Points 1, 3, and 5 are free to improve if you have the time. Write two new hero versions tonight, ask three clients for testimonials tomorrow, fine-tune the CTA the day after. Three small steps, a lot moved in three days.
Option 2: Have it built professionally. We build coach websites in 7 working days, fixed price from €690 — designed for exactly this: discovery calls, not awards. Three packages (€690, €1,290, €1,890), transparent, no hourly billing.
If you’d rather have the diagnostic as a PDF to take with you (12 pages, printable score sheet): download the PDF here.
For questions or direct sparring: hello@byteweb.io — I read and reply personally.
Good luck with your practice.
— Sarah