Coaching photoshoot: the photos a coach actually needs

For a coaching photoshoot you need fewer photos than you think. You want one clear photo of your face for the top of your homepage, a few of you working with someone like your client, and a handful of plain shots for your about page, social profiles and blog. Brief the photographer on who your client is before you talk about outfits or locations.

I say that because the photo at the top of your homepage is part of the first five seconds, and the first five seconds is where coaching websites lose people. If the picture doesn't help a stranger work out what you do and who it's for, it's taking up the best space on the page for nothing.

Why do coaching photos make such a difference?

Because a stranger decides very quickly whether you're for them, and a big photo is one of the first things they see. We scored 10,954 coaching websites out of 10 on the things a stranger needs, and 86% failed the five-second test. That means someone arrives, looks for a few seconds, and still can't say what the coach does or who they do it for.

Now a photo on its own won't fix that. The headline does the heavy lifting. But I see the same thing over and over. A lovely wide shot of a woman on a beach, arms out, hair blowing about, with "Live your best life" written across it. Who's it for? What happens if you hire her? You can't tell, so you leave.

The other thing worth knowing is that the build of these sites is fine. Technical health averages 9 out of 10 across the whole lot, so plenty of the 10,954 are sites that someone spent good money on, that work perfectly and still say very little. Photos are usually part of where that money went. If you want the full picture of where the marks are lost, the average coaching website scores 3.7 out of 10 breaks it down.

What should a coaching photo show?

It should show you, clearly, and it should look like the world your client lives in. Your client is asking two things when they look at your page: is this for me, and is this person going to help me? A photo can help with both.

So think about the client before you think about yourself. A coach who helps nurses go for promotion wants a photo that feels like a hospital corridor or a staff room, not a yoga retreat. A coach who works with business owners wants an office, a laptop, a meeting. A parenting coach might want a kitchen table. The reader should glance at it and think "that's my world".

I spent years selling double glazing, and one thing I learnt is that people buy windows for different reasons. Some want less maintenance, some want a warmer house, some want it more secure and some want the house to look nice. My job was finding out which one was the big one for that particular person. Your photos are the same. Pick the one thing your client cares about most and show that, rather than trying to show everything.

The coaching photoshoot shot list

Here's what I'd ask for. Every shot has a job, and if you can't say where it'll go on your site, you probably don't need it.

1. The homepage photo. Head and shoulders or waist up, looking at the camera, smiling like a normal person. Plain background, with room on one side for your headline to sit next to it. Take it both wide and tall, because it gets cropped differently on a phone.
2. You working with a client. Sitting across a table, on a video call, walking and talking. Use a friend or a real client who's happy to be in it, and make them look like your actual client in age and setting. This is the one photo that shows what coaching with you looks like.
3. You listening. Not talking, listening. Leaning in, notebook out. Coaching is mostly listening and a photo of you mid-speech looks like a lecture.
4. Your about page photo. A bit more relaxed, a bit more personal. This is where the story goes, so it can show more of you.
5. A square headshot. For LinkedIn, Facebook, podcast guest pages and anything else that wants a little circle with your face in it. Tight crop, plain background.
6. Three or four plain "doing" shots. Writing, on the phone, at your desk, reading. These go on blog posts and social posts so you're not using the same photo for everything.
7. One or two with space for text. You on one side, empty wall or sky on the other. Handy for social media graphics and event pages.

That's roughly 10 to 15 photos you'll actually use. A photographer may well give you 200, and that's fine, but you only need the ones that fit the list.

How do you brief a photographer?

Talk about your client first. A good photographer will ask what the photos are for, so tell them who you help and what changes for those people. Then hand over the shot list and say where each photo will go. The clothes and location come last, because they follow from the client.

Here's a made-up example. Priya is a coach who helps nurses go for their first ward manager job. She's made up, so are the details, but this is the sort of brief I'd want her to send.

Who I help: nurses in their thirties going for their first ward manager or team leader job. They're good at the job and nervous about interviews and managing people they used to work alongside.

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Feel: calm, practical, a bit of hospital about it. Not glossy, not a spa.

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Shots I need:

1. Homepage: me waist up, looking at camera, plain light wall, space on the left for text. Wide and tall versions.

2. Me and a nurse (my friend Jo, in scrubs) at a small table, going through notes. Me listening.

3. Me on a video call on a laptop, from the side.

4. About page: me with a coffee, relaxed, in a staff-room style kitchen.

5. Square headshot for LinkedIn.

6. Four plain shots: writing, phone, reading, walking down a corridor.

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Clothes: what I'd wear to meet a client. Smart, not a suit. One change of top.

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Location: a meeting room we've booked plus the corridor outside. One hour.

You can see how it all hangs off the first line. Once the photographer knows it's nurses, they'll suggest things you hadn't thought of.

Where do the photos go on your website?

The homepage photo goes at the top, next to a headline that says who you help and what changes for them. If your headline is vague, the best photo in the world won't save it, so get the words right first. What to put on a coaching homepage goes through the order.

The client-and-coach photo goes near where you explain how you work. The about page gets the relaxed one. The rest go on blog posts and social media. Try not to stack five photos of yourself down the homepage. One good one at the top and one working shot further down is plenty, and the words do the rest.

And then sort out the boring bit. Google says file names give it light clues about what an image shows, so call your file "nurse-career-coach-priya.jpg", not "IMG_4471.jpg". The same Google page says alt text is the most important bit of information you can add to an image, so write a plain sentence describing what's in the photo, the way you'd describe it to someone on the phone. Don't stuff it with keywords.

Do you even need a professional coaching photoshoot?

Not always. A coach doesn't need a website to get clients, and you don't need a professional shoot to have decent photos. A good phone, a window for light and a friend who'll take 50 shots will get you something perfectly usable to start with. What you can't get away with is no face at all, or a stock photo of a stranger pretending to be you.

Where a proper photoshoot pays off is when you've already got the words sorted. If you know who you help, what you fix and what it costs, good photos make the whole page feel more trustworthy. If you don't know those things yet, the shoot will just give you nice pictures of someone nobody can place. I'd say the same about logos and colours, which is why branding is the last thing to fix.

If you're not sure whether it's your photos or your words that are losing people, put your homepage through the free website check and see how it scores against the 10,954.

Common coaching photo mistakes

• Stock photos of happy strangers. People can tell, and it makes them wonder what else isn't real.
• No face at the top. A sunset or a mountain says nothing about you.
• Photos from the wrong world. A beach shot for a coach who works with accountants.
• Too many photos of you. Ten versions of the same smile and the reader starts scrolling past.
• A photo with the headline written over your face. Hard to read and it looks rushed. Put the text next to the photo.
• Old photos. If you've changed a lot, people get a surprise on the first video call.

Questions coaches ask about this

The figures here come from our own corpus of 10,954 scored coaching websites and 918 mapped coaching markets. How we built and scored it.

Read next

• The five second test 86% of coaching websites fail
• The average coaching website scores 3.7 out of 10
• What to put on a coaching homepage, in the right order