As a new health coach, you know you need a website.
It’s where potential clients will find and get to know you. It’s the first place referrals will turn to learn more about you. It’s where you’ll sell your products and services, invite contact requests, brand yourself in your niche, and show off what you know. It might also be where you host your webinars, offer group coaching programs, publish a podcast, create a blog, and even set appointments with clients.
Whew! That’s a lot of jobs for a single website to do.
WordPress For Health Coaches: The Only Website Builder You’ll (Probably) Ever Need
If you’ve never created a website before, the thought of starting from scratch can be quite overwhelming (I know – I’ve been there!)
If you choose a versatile content management system such as WordPress though, you can easily incorporate those tasks you need it to perform and so much more. Here are 3 excellent reasons why you should consider using WordPress for your health coaching website.
Fast and Easy Website Setup
In the time it takes to finish your morning coffee, you can have a website created and live on the Internet using WordPress. Most hosting companies offer “one-click installs” for WordPress, meaning it will take only about 5 minutes to create your website. From there, it’s a matter of choosing a theme and adding content.
Even if you’re not technically inclined, WordPress is simple to use. And with a huge, helpful community of users, you can quickly find the answer for everything from “how do I install WordPress” to “how can I create a membership site” with just a Google search.
It’s Your Site, It’s Your Style
With thousands of free and premium themes available, it’s easy to find a look that’s just right for your brand and business. Want something more customized? Many themes offer easy, drag-and-drop editing of layouts, colors and more, but if you want something designed just for you, there are thousands of capable developers to build you a custom design.
Plugins Add Greater Flexibility
Originally designed as a blogging platform, WordPress earned its early popularity by making this rather technical chore easy for thousands of new bloggers. Today it’s no longer known as just a blogging tool. Instead, site owners use WordPress as the basis for:
- Shopping carts
- Membership sites
- Sales pages
- Wikis
- Personal journals
- Online directories
- Non-profit fundraising
- Video blogging
- Podcasting
- News sites
- Recipe blogs
- Photography sites
- And dozens of others
The combination of themes and plugins—small software add-ons that install directly into your WordPress site—make the possibilities nearly endless, so no matter what you need a website to do, chances are good that WordPress can handle it.
Website Security 101: Keeping Your WordPress Site Safe from Hackers
Are security concerns keeping you from enjoying the flexibility and power of WordPress? If you’ve bought into the hype that WordPress is inherently insecure, then you’re missing out on all the great things WordPress has to offer, for no good reason.
The fact is, while WordPress sites do get hacked, they are no more dangerous than other php-based websites. The problem is that WordPress is open source, which means that anyone can read the code—even the bad guys who spend all their time looking for vulnerabilities they can exploit. Couple that with the enormous popularity of WordPress, and it’s easy to see why you hear about hacks on a regular basis.
But that doesn’t mean WordPress is unsafe. By implementing just a few security best practices, you can greatly reduce your risk of being hacked.
Keep Your Site Up to Date
This is by far the biggest risk when it comes to security. New vulnerabilities are discovered in WordPress and its plugins and themes on a regular basis, and if your site is out of date, it is at risk. Hackers actively search for outdated websites they can attack, so make it a point to keep your site up to date. That includes plugins, themes, and the WordPress software itself.
Use Strong Passwords
Second only to out-of-date installations when it comes to inviting hackers, weak passwords are regularly exploited with a technique called a “brute force” attack. Simply put, a hacker sets a computer program to repeatedly attempt to log into your site using thousands of the most commonly used passwords and what are known as “dictionary” words.
This type of vulnerability can be easily avoided simply by choosing good passwords. Ideally, your passwords should:
- Be longer than 12 characters
- Contain upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols
- Never be used for more than one site
- Never be stored in plain text on your computer
- Never be sent by email
Also, consider using a password manager such as LastPass to generate and securely store good, strong passwords. You’ll never have to worry about remembering your passwords, and you’ll greatly reduce your risk of being hacked.
Be Smart About Your Hosting
Unlimited domains! Unlimited space! Unlimited bandwidth! And all for around $8 per month. You’ve probably seen the claims and may even have a hosting account with one of these companies.
Here’s the problem. This type of shared hosting is inexpensive only because they overload their servers with thousands of websites. Just as close proximity in crowded classrooms allows human viruses to quickly spread, close proximity of websites on a shared server means one infected site is a risk to all the others.
Rather than looking for the least expensive (and riskiest) hosting option, choose a host that allows you to isolate each site on its own cPanel. Doing so will greatly improve the security of your website.
In the end, the safety and security of your site and its data is entirely up to you. Keep your software up to date, use good passwords, and choose a secure hosting environment, and you’ll be well ahead of the curve on this.
Myths vs. Facts about the World’s Most Used Website Builder
For something so popular, there certainly are a lot of myths surrounding WordPress, its uses, and its viability in certain situations.
If you’re searching for a website solution for your coaching business, you’ve likely heard many stories—both pros and cons—about WordPress that have left you scratching your head in confusion. Here are some of the most common misconceptions, and what you really need to know.
Myth: WordPress is a Security Risk
Fans of static HTML sites like to drag this out as the reason for remaining stuck with difficult-to-manage sites. While WordPress is definitely less secure than HTML (that’s just the nature of php-driven websites) it is by no means the security risk some people would have you believe.
Fact: Good Security Practices Greatly Reduce Your Risk
Driving a car increases your risk of having an accident but that doesn’t mean you don’t drive. It just means you takes steps to reduce your risk. WordPress is no different. With a few security measures in place, your risk of being hacked is nearly non-existent. To start:
- Use strong passwords and change them often.
- Never use “admin” as your user name.
- Create user accounts for your staff and give them only the permissions they need. Don’t make them administrators if they don’t need to be.
- Choose a secure hosting environment.
- Keep your site and its plugins and themes up to date.
Myth: WordPress is Difficult to Learn
Most often heard when discussing drag-and-drop website builders such as Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly, this myth is the one that keeps many people from even considering WordPress.
Fact: Every Website Builder has a Learning Curve
Yes, WordPress can be pretty overwhelming at first glance. But here’s the thing: any software that offers as much flexibility and versatility as WordPress does is bound to have a learning curve. And those other builders? They all have their own quirks and difficulties. The difference is that the WordPress community is huge and incredibly helpful. If you need to know how to do anything on a WordPress site, simply spending 30 seconds on YouTube or Google will reveal the answer.
Myth: WordPress is Only for Blogging
While it’s true that WordPress was originally developed as a blog platform, changes over the past several years have made it the ideal choice for a variety of website needs.
Fact: Plugins and Themes Make WordPress Work for Nearly Every Application
Whether you want to build an ecommerce site, a business directory, a membership site, a sales page, or a simple “brochure” style website, WordPress is designed to handle it. Thousands of plugins and specialty themes exist that extend its basic blogging functionality to encompass nearly anything you can dream of.
WordPress is by far the most commonly used content management system online today. That alone should reassure you that these myths are just that…myths. But don’t take my word for it. Try it out for yourself and I think you’ll agree.
We understand that not everyone wants to create their own WordPress website from scratch – that is why we offer a comprehensive brand and website design package. We’ll take care of everything, and you get a gorgeous site that gets clients! Click here to find out more.
