Case study
Bringing an executive coach back online, on her own domain.
Dr. Donna Schmid’s clients find her by referral. For five years there was nothing for a referral to find. We recovered her domain, built a brand around her practice and had the site live in under four weeks.
Who we helped
Dr. Donna Schmid, PhD, LCSW, CPC. A clinician who coaches executives, leads a women’s leadership series and writes for other therapists.
The goal
Bring her practice back online under her own name, with a brand that matches her credentials.
What we did
Recovered the domain, designed the brand and built a site that serves all three of her audiences.
01 · The situation
Nothing for a referral to find
When someone recommends a coach, the next thing that person does is look her up. For Donna, that search turned up nothing useful. Her site had been offline since 2021, the domain she had used for years had lapsed, and the first page of results belonged to someone else with the same name.
The first job was recovering her original domain. After that, every page we built paired her name with her credentials and her city, which is how a search engine and a curious prospect can tell which Donna Schmid this is.
02 · The work
Finding the brand by reacting to it
A voice worksheet went nowhere. Donna is a clinician, and asking her to describe her own brand in adjectives was a bit like asking her to diagnose herself. What worked was putting real options in front of her. We designed five complete directions and she chose one in a single email.
Once she could see the compass on the page, she knew what to change. She wanted terracotta instead of gold, “Dr. Donna” throughout with PhD listed first, and a mark that felt more like a person than a map. That became the mark she has now: an open crescent with a single line that loops into a figure and reaches past the curve.
Primary lockup
Type
One practice, three audiences
Donna coaches executives, runs LeadHer for women leaders and writes for other therapists. Early drafts tried to speak to all three at once. We gave each one its own section of the site, with its own color and lockup inside the same system, so a visitor always knows where they are and it still reads as one practice.
03 · The outcome
Findable again
The site went live on her original domain in under four weeks, covering coaching, work with organizations, LeadHer, workshops, reviews and her essays. Along the way we caught a phone number from 2015 and two bios that disagreed with each other before either went public.
Donna reviews every page in its own Google Doc, and approved edits go live within the week. She owns the domain, the hosting and every brand file.