FOR LIFE COACHES
What should a life coach say in a welcome video?
A simple structure for a homepage welcome film that feels like the first minutes of a discovery call, with UK notes on captions, embeds and claims.
Where stock images are fine on a UK coaching website, where they quietly cost you trust, and the licence and advertising rules worth knowing.
You can use stock photos for coaching website pages in supporting roles: blog headers, textures behind quotes, or a placeholder while you plan a shoot. Avoid them anywhere that stands in for you or your clients, such as the home page hero, your about page, your booking page or beside testimonials. People book a coach because of who they sense you are, and a stranger on a mountain top can’t show them that. Your own photos almost always do the job better.
Picture a visitor arriving on your home page from a friend’s recommendation. Instead of a sunrise over a mountain, they meet your eyes. You are sitting by a window with a notebook, half smiling, as if they have just walked in. They scroll down and see you at the front of a small room, then again on a walk. By the time they reach your calendar, you are no longer a stranger. That is a feeling no stock library can sell you.
Stock images still have their place, and it would be unrealistic to pretend otherwise. Here is an honest look at where they help, where they quietly cost you trust and what the licences and UK advertising rules say.
Coaching is personal. Someone thinking about working with you is deciding whether they could tell you things they haven’t told their friends. They are looking for clues about your warmth, your energy and whether you would understand their world.
A stock image gives them none of those clues, and many visitors can spot one instantly. Popular images turn up on many websites, so the same smiling woman with a laptop may appear on several other coaches’ sites and a dentist’s too. Even when nobody consciously notices, a page full of generic images feels like a brochure rather than a person.
There are sensible uses, especially early on:
The common thread is that none of these pretend to be you, your clients or your sessions.
None of this means a single stock image will lose you a client. It is the cumulative effect that matters: a site where every important picture belongs to someone else feels like it could be anyone’s. Swap the images in these five places for your own and the rest can stay generic without much harm.
Free does not mean rule-free. Read the licence of every library you use, because they differ. Two widely used examples:
That second point matters for coaches. A stock face placed beside the words “my clients say” can imply that the person in the image endorses you. Paid libraries have their own terms on sensitive uses too, so check before you publish.
Carefully. CAP guidance on testimonials notes that the ASA has found using stock images not unreasonable provided the testimony was genuine. The same guidance says you must hold evidence that each testimonial is real, have permission to use it, and not edit it misleadingly. It also records upheld complaints where a real person’s image was used without consent.
For coaches, the simplest approach is often no photo at all: a first name or initials, with the client’s agreement, sits comfortably beside the quote. If you do use an image, make sure the licence allows it and that nobody could mistake a model for your client.
If you appear in Google Maps or local search, your profile photos matter as much as your website. Google’s guidance is that photos should be in focus, well lit and accurately show your business. For a coach, that means you and the place you work, not a stock landscape. A clear headshot and a picture of your coaching room or workshop venue will serve you far better.
They solve the same problem stock does and create the same one: the image still isn’t you. An invented face beside your programme, or an invented “client” on your testimonials page, risks misleading people at the very point you are asking for trust. If you use them at all, keep them to abstract textures and illustrations.
Work in order of impact. Start with a good headshot, even one taken by a friend with a phone next to a large window. Then replace the home page hero, then the about page, then the booking page. Each swap makes the site feel more like you.
When you are ready for a proper shoot, our guide to branding photos for life coaches lists the core images, and our life coach photoshoot ideas help you feel at ease on the day. If you would rather it was all handled for you, see our photography for life coaches, which sits within our wider marketing for life coaches.
One practical note: if you commission a photographer, UK law makes the author the first owner of the copyright, so agree in writing how you can use the images.
There is a particular ease that comes from seeing your own face welcome visitors instead of a borrowed one. The Limelight Company started as the in-house team for co-founder Jack Cartwright, and we learnt early that people connect with the person, not the picture. We shoot photography for life coaches that replaces stock with warm portraits, working shots and workshop images that are entirely yours. A clear brief, scope and fee are agreed before any creative work begins.
Often yes, but it depends on the licence. Unsplash, for example, allows free commercial use without permission, while Pexels adds conditions about how identifiable people are shown and implied endorsement. Read the licence for every image, keep a note of where each one came from, and avoid using faces in ways that suggest they are your clients.
Many will, especially the most popular images, which turn up across countless websites. Even when they don’t consciously notice, generic pictures make a site feel less personal. On a coaching website, where people are deciding whether they could trust you, that small distance is worth closing with photographs of you.
No. Launch with a decent phone headshot and a few tasteful stock textures if that gets your site live sooner. Then replace the most important images, starting with the home page and about page, once you have had a proper shoot. A live, honest site beats a perfect one that never launches.
Not without permission. Finding an image online doesn’t mean you can use it: copyright normally belongs to whoever created it, and you need their licence to use it. Use reputable stock libraries with clear licences, or commission your own photos and agree the usage in writing.
Choose quiet, unposed images without faces, crop them tightly, and apply the same warm or cool edit you use on your own photos so they sit together. Use them sparingly and in supporting roles only. The more your own face appears in the important places, the less the occasional stock image matters.
A simple structure for a homepage welcome film that feels like the first minutes of a discovery call, with UK notes on captions, embeds and claims.
Prompts, framing, sound and simple ways through camera nerves, so UK life coaches can film short videos that sound like a real conversation.
When a UK life coach needs a logo, name versus symbol, what it has to work on from profile pictures to workbooks, and what to know…
Four quick questions, and we’ll show you where we’d start. Your answers come straight to us with your message, so you won’t have to explain it twice.
A 30-minute introduction call on Microsoft Teams, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Your answers come with the booking, so we’ll be ready for you.
Prefer to talk it through? Make an appointment for a 30-minute call on Microsoft Teams, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.
A closer look at the work behind each part of your plan.
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