SEO for a High-Ticket Business Coach
Business coach SEO case study: turned a WordPress coaching site into a discovery engine for high-ticket coaching enquiries.
Marcus Hale Coaching
A Chicago-based business coach and keynote speaker on WordPress with a strong stage calendar but almost no inbound coaching enquiries from search. Ticket size is $18K+ per engagement.
Industry
High-Ticket Business Coach
Focus
National SEO
The Challenge
The site was structured around the coach's personal story, not around what prospects search for when they're ready to hire a coach.
Marcus Hale Coaching
Well-known on stage, invisible in search for the topics they actually coach on.
The Strategy
Reframed the site around client problems
Restructured navigation and IA so the site answered 'what do you help me with' before 'who are you'.
Built a topical hub for each coaching pillar
Shipped hub + spoke content for each of four coaching pillars with clear internal linking and a single call-to-action per page.
Added talk + case-study social proof
Turned keynote clips and past client outcomes into on-page proof modules the SEO pages could reuse.
Tightened the enquiry funnel
Replaced the generic contact form with a short qualification form so the coach only spent time on fit calls.
Old navigation
Marcus Hale Coaching
- —Home
- —About Marcus
- —Speaking
- —Blog
- —Contact
New navigation
Marcus Hale Coaching
- ✓Scaling Founders
- ✓Executive Transitions
- ✓Sales Leadership
- ✓Team Performance
- ✓Book a fit call
IA rebuild - ILLUSTRATIVE Site restructured from personal-story-first to client-problem-first.
Keyword Movement
| Keyword | Before |
|---|---|
| executive coach for founders | #38 |
| scaling from 1m to 10m coach | not ranked |
| sales leadership coach chicago | #22 |
| b2b sales coaching program | #41 |
Representative results based on comparable engagements.
Ranking pages that attracted the wrong buyer.
Early content ranked for broad 'motivation' queries that pulled traffic but zero enquiries. I cut those pages, refocused on decision-stage coaching intent, and enquiries started matching the coach's actual offer within six weeks.
The calls on my calendar are people ready to buy, not people who want a free pep talk. That's the whole game.
Client name changed for privacy.
Ready to be the next case study?
Book a consultation with me on Upwork.
I'll personally scope your project before any engagement. No account managers, no hand-offs.
First audit call is free, no commitment.
What happens next
Typical engagement: 4-6 months. First deliverable in week 1: an IA + content audit with a prioritised keyword and page-build plan.