Building a Calm, Credible Online Presence for a Nutrition Coach

Rebuilding a Website with Stronger Branding & Message

When Sarah from Eat Plants for Health approached Black Cat Website Design Studio, she needed more than just a beautiful website—she needed a strategic online presence that reflected her warm, evidence-based approach to plant-based nutrition coaching. Sarah had continued working on her qualifications since she first dabbled with Nutrition Coaching and spoke with me about upgrading her current website as she felt it wasn’t giving the right impression.

Meet the Client

• Client: Sarah Radford
• Business: Eat Plants for Health
• Website: https://eatplantsforhealth.com.au/
• Goal: Improve her brand reflection, professionalism and attract the right type of customer she was seeking, plus communicate clearly how she could help people with their gut issues.

The Challenge

Sarah’s previous online presence didn’t fully communicate the depth of her expertise or the calm, supportive experience clients receive when working with her. The old website was outdated in both it’s functionality and the branding she wanted to reflect online – she wanted a more professional, polished website that would attract the right type of clients and more importantly, it communicated how she could really help them improve their health & manage their gut health.

Additional problems included weak SEO (so people searching would actually find her), lack of clear messaging, messy website, outdated functionality and poor user flow (and experience).

Our Strategy/ The Process

This was Sarah’s old website. I felt that whilst the main image was okay, it was lacking in focus and looked a bit like a happy snap of her in the market. Whilst that is okay, the main message we want to emulate here is the attraction of food and take the focus off of the person providing the help – instead it’s better to focus on how we can help people (more on that later).

A few other things we saw that needed improvement were the colours, fonts and user experience. Like all businesses and people that grow, things change and we get more lazer focussed on who we want to help and why. Sarah’s website was a great starting point for her as it allowed her to have something to show she was serious and after a couple of years dabbling she realised it was more than a hobby and she wanted to step up and make a solid business of it.
< Website Before Image

1. Rebranding

Sarah’s original logo was a little hard to read and was quite busy. I suggested that I play around with it to make it more simple. Once I began to really think about the strategy of her website and the approach we were going to take (and over a few conversations with Sarah) I proposed that we move away from the branding “Eat Plants for Health” – whilst this was the basis for her business we thought about it from a customer perspective – most people know they should incorporate more good food in their diets but hate being told to do so (a bit like mum telling you, you should eat your broccolli or brussel sprouts!), and instead we should promote her as a Coach (that’s what she was, right?!) and sell the benefits of having someone like Sarah guiding you as a viewer to a better, healthier life, without having to cut all of the bad stuff out overnight! No one wants to be told they have to cut out chocolate, meat, take away etc!!!

From here I redesigned her logo to incorporate her name as a gut health coach and simplify the design. Along with a new logo, I designed some buttons for the recipe pages to ensure they would be viewed easily, along with her E-Book design and recipe promo blocks – so there was consistency when she posted a new recipe.

2. Brand Photoshoot

As part of her website rebuild I included a photoshoot (I have over 20 years of experience as a photographer – you can check my website out here) that would allow us to capture a range of images of Sarah for us to use on her website as well as for her social media.

Originally we were going to head to the local market but then decided it would be much better to capture her at home and be surrounded by beautiful food from the market, this way she could blend a smoothie and capture shots of her putting it together, along with a host of other shots of her cutting fruit, holding veggies etc.

We had a lot of fun and even Charlie the cat couldn’t help himself but get in on the photoshoot (and we have even used a few images of him on her website as it personalises it to another level!)!!

Charlie the cat making himself comfortable on our table of veggies!

3. Sitemap Clarification

The sitemap is a layout based on the pages and content for your webiste. This helps when working out where we want to put the content and create a clear path for viewers. Sarah’s website sitemap – it was important to establish what we would do with the old content and where to add new content and to make sure the user experience was a smooth one. Here is the sitemap I created to show Sarah the rough layout as I thought suitable. This is something done at the beginning and it will often change a little – for example you can see the Resources page is now called the Wellness Hub (as we later added the recipes etc).

4. Website Design & Build

Now that we had established Sarah’s new brand, styling and had a beautiful collection of images I could start pulling the design together to capture her new approach. Through this process of establishing Sarah’s services it became evident that her passion was around Gut Health – she had suffered terrible gut issues herself, and from this she was able to fully understand what it takes to heal the gut. She knew exactly what it was like to feel unwell and what it would take to turn someones health around from this stand point.

So in refining her offerings it was clear that she needed to put herself out there as a Gut Health Coach. Originally we were going to promote her as a Nutrition Coach but Sarah resonated with a Gut Health Coach much more and was much more passionate about this. This really gave us better direction as she niched into this area. I was able to ensure that her SEO was focussed more on Gut Health and similar keywords people searched with.

We wanted to focus on the user experience and make the site easily navigated:

• We started with a clear menu
• A welcoming intro
• Showcased the main issues or problems people have and how Sarah can help with these (so people can instantly relate)
• Promoted the recipe section (one of Sarah’s passion)
• Recipe design – it was clear that Sarah wanted to focus on her recipes and provide a good user experience here so we added a plugin called Tasty Recipe which looked to be like the best recipe plugin around (there is an annual cost) but it allows people to print out recipes, they are presented in a consistent format and you can even tick the ingredients off if you are using a tablet!
• Completed Sarah’s E-Book Design and added a pop up as the Freebie access to drive email sign ups
• We created a Wellness Hub section so people could dip their toes in the water with Sarah’s knowledge wth freebies
• Used fresh, bright food photos that were (in my mind) inspiring
• Used pops of colour that were colourful but not in your face bold, to keep the site engaging

5. User Experience

I focussed on creating a seamless experience for potential customers – helping them navigate Sarah’s website easily. Some of the things I did to ensure this happened were:

• Have her services at the top of the page for easy access and reference
• Ensure her Freebie pop up was delayed on the page for at least 5 seconds so it didn’t annoy people (nothing worse than a pop up showing as soon as you hit a page!)
• Encouraged a freebie area to help break down barriers – this works for a couple of reasons – people are already hesitant to take action towards their health and this gave some credibility in Sarah’s knowledge and experience, it also gives people a chance to download something for nothing and try Sarah’s coaching for free.
• Promoted Social proof (see below image) of past happy clients with testimonials dotted throughout the website. Sarah had a lot of written ones but the goal is that she will get people to write ones directly on her Google Business Profile page and we will add these to her website where people can verify their legitimacy. (With the goal of me also working on her profile to grow this resource!)

6. The Outcome

Sarah’s website was meant to only be a simple renovation but the more we delved into what she wanted out of the website it became clear it was a larger project than initially thought. However, these are the benefits and end result…

• Better credibility (she has a more professional website, it shows her skills, knowledge and expertise, plus her credentials)
• Stronger Messaging – it’s now very clear how she can help people and through what options
• Easier Navigation – a cleaner, clearer website
• More Enquiries
• Improved SEO foundation
• Accessible– Sarah can access and make small changes to the content, upload more recipes, blog posts and other content should she wish.

Sarah now has a website that confidently communicates her expertise and supports her long-term business growth.

7. Project Snapshot

• Industry: Nutrition Coaching
• Platform: WordPress
• Builder: Elementor
• Location: Australia
• Services Provided: Website Design, SEO Setup, Copy Guidance, Mobile Optimisation

8. Sarah’s Feedback

Overall Sarah loves her new website and was very happy with the result! Here’s what she has to say about it:

“I really enjoyed the process of redesigning my website with Carly. She explained the technical details in a way I could understand. Her marketing background and personal interest in the health and wellness space allowed her to generate ideas which have enabled my website to reflect my personality and feel professional and genuine. It is now something I am really proud of. Thanks Carly!”
– Sarah Radford, Eat Plants for Health

---