So you got a shiny new website. It looks great but honestly, you have no idea whether it will get you new clients or not. All of the right things seem to be in the right places. There’s a Home, About, Services, Contact and Blog page.
Everything the client needs to know to make a more informed decision about whether they want to hire you or not. But you’re not getting leads…
Why?
1. You Turned Your Website In To a Squeeze Page
Squeeze pages work, right? Of course they do. All of the top fitness gurus are using them. They're everywhere. A single page full of beautifully written and persuasive copy. All written with a single purpose in mind: To Get New Leads!
So if the pros are doing it then so should you, right?
Hold on a sec… Did you design a fitness website or a squeeze page? You have a website. The shiny one we just spoke about. It’s tempting to think that persuasive copy on a website will double it’s effectiveness at getting new leads but actually, squeeze page copy appeals to a certain type of visitor. The type of visitor that is ready, credit card in hand and eager to buy.
So if the pros are doing it then so should you, right?
Hold on a sec… Did you design a fitness website or a squeeze page? You have a website. The shiny one we just spoke about. It’s tempting to think that persuasive copy on a website will double it’s effectiveness at getting new leads but actually, squeeze page copy appeals to a certain type of visitor. The type of visitor that is ready, credit card in hand and eager to buy.
| Squeeze pages often have a single purpose. To persuade the visitor to do ONE thing. This could be to buy a product, download an eBook or even schedule a call. But wait, this is all the things you want your website visitors to do, right? Right. But your website visitors aren’t visiting your website to see "BUY MY STUFF NOW”. They’re browsing. they’re looking around and shortlisting various fitness companies to help them better decide which one to invest in. |  Don't be this guy |
Remember, personal training is still seen as a luxury in the eyes of your clients. It’s quite a big investment and could be costing, on average, 20% of their entire monthly income.
It’s a big decision and they WON”T be pushed in to it by your persuasive copy!
What to do about it:
Let’s have a little think about the client journey from Awareness to Action.
Awareness is your client from looking in the mirror one morning (or probably hundreds of mornings) and thinking “I’m fat, I should hire a personal trainer”
It’s a big decision and they WON”T be pushed in to it by your persuasive copy!
What to do about it:
Let’s have a little think about the client journey from Awareness to Action.
Awareness is your client from looking in the mirror one morning (or probably hundreds of mornings) and thinking “I’m fat, I should hire a personal trainer”
So, she’s aware she’s overweight and thinks a personal trainer will help. Now she does what any other person does in the information age. She looks online for a personal trainer in her location and shortlists the fitness companies based on price.
Remember, personal training to most of your clients is seen as a luxury at this point so price is a factor here. If you don’t display your prices, you risk not being shortlisted as your client browses through the websites in search results. Read 5 Reasons You Should List Your Personal Trainer Prices.
The next thing your website visitor is going to do is see whether she thinks that you can solve her problem. If she lands on a site that is clearly for young aspiring bodybuilders she’s going to be clicking that back button and looking elsewhere.
Now she probably has a list of three or four potential businesses she thinks she can work with so it’s quite likely she will look on your website to find out more about you, whether you’re good at your job, who you have helped in the past and whether you’ve had success with clients that have similar problems to her.
All this can be portrayed effectively on a brochure website and if done right can transition your website visitors from the Awareness phase of the buying process to the Action phase.
Don’t get me wrong here. Your website should still have well written and persuasive copy that speaks to your ideal client. It just doesn’t need to be a squeeze page. Save that copy for... well... your squeeze page.
2. You Invested Too Little (Or Too Much)
I see this a LOT. Through no fault of their own, a lot of fitness professionals think that by simply having a website that they should get new leads from it.
| If you had a gym subscription but never went to the gym would you get any fitter? Probably not. Your website, like the rest of your business needs attention. Blogging, changing the content, sharing useful content on social media and coming up with creative ways to get more visitors. Read How TO Attract More Visitors To Your Trainer Website. |  |
On the flip side, try not to redesign your website over and over again. How do you know what works and what doesn't work? Are you measuring it? Do you get enough website visitors to see the design is affecting your bounce rate? Do you know what bounce rate is?!
All of these things need to be taken in to account when designing your site. Although looks certainly are important, a well established brand is more importanter (<-- I'm aware that's not a word).
What to do about it:
Start writing content for your fitness website, share that content on your social networks and Facebook Business page, email that content to your subscribers and offer to write content for other industry related websites. Simple.
Crap at writing? Don’t worry about it. The way YOU explain health and fitness topics might be exactly what your reader needs to read in order to understand the subject. Have a go!
Really crap at writing? Hire us to do it for you.
And for your website design? Pick a brand and a colour scheme and stick with it for at least 6 months. That's right! SIX months! You plan on being in business for years, right? So 6 months is nothing.
If you're getting website visitors, install some plugins so you can find out where visitors are landing and leaving your site so that you can use REAL data to optimise your site.
All of these things need to be taken in to account when designing your site. Although looks certainly are important, a well established brand is more importanter (<-- I'm aware that's not a word).
What to do about it:
Start writing content for your fitness website, share that content on your social networks and Facebook Business page, email that content to your subscribers and offer to write content for other industry related websites. Simple.
Crap at writing? Don’t worry about it. The way YOU explain health and fitness topics might be exactly what your reader needs to read in order to understand the subject. Have a go!
Really crap at writing? Hire us to do it for you.
And for your website design? Pick a brand and a colour scheme and stick with it for at least 6 months. That's right! SIX months! You plan on being in business for years, right? So 6 months is nothing.
If you're getting website visitors, install some plugins so you can find out where visitors are landing and leaving your site so that you can use REAL data to optimise your site.
3. You Didn't SEO It
This kind of falls in to the previous section but search engine optimisation (SEO) is such a complex and important topic it deserves it’s own header.
SEO is to your website what nutrition is to your body. That hidden factor that dictates the success or failure of your website. The difference between an SEO’d site and a non SEO’d site is an SEO’d site gets targeted traffic.
SEO is to your website what nutrition is to your body. That hidden factor that dictates the success or failure of your website. The difference between an SEO’d site and a non SEO’d site is an SEO’d site gets targeted traffic.
| A website that has been SEO’d tells Google and other search engines exactly what your site is about so that that Google is happy display your website at the top of search. Why is this important? Because 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine like Google and 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results (source: https://www.imforza.com/blog/8-seo-stats-that-are-hard-to-ignore/). |  |
What does this mean? If your website doesn’t show up on page 1 of search results you may as well not have a website (provided you don’t rely solely on paid advertising of course).
What to do about it:
SEO is a complex subject and outside of hiring an SEO like myself to do it all for you there are certain things you can do to make sure your website is search engine ready.
Pro Tip: I've been SEO'ing for multi million pound companies for some time now, not to mention thousands (literally) of personal trainer websites. Your keywords are almost definitely going to be:
Where *Your Location* is replaced with your actual location.
What to do about it:
SEO is a complex subject and outside of hiring an SEO like myself to do it all for you there are certain things you can do to make sure your website is search engine ready.
- Find out what Keywords are
- Find out how to edit the meta data of your website
- Make sure your keywords are in your Page Title
- Make sure your keywords are in your Page Description
- Make sure your keywords are in your website MAIN header or H1
- Make sure your keywords are written in your first paragraph
- Make sure your keywords are used in a second header or H2
- Make sure your keywords are written in the last paragraph of your website
- Make sure to link from other pages of your site with your keywords
- Sit tight and work on more website content for 3-6 months until Google sees all of these keywords on your website and decide whether or not to put you on page 1.
Pro Tip: I've been SEO'ing for multi million pound companies for some time now, not to mention thousands (literally) of personal trainer websites. Your keywords are almost definitely going to be:
- Personal Trainer *Your Location*
- *Your Location* Personal Trainer
- PT *Your Location*
- Personal Trainer in *Your Location*
- Best Personal Trainer *Your Location*
Where *Your Location* is replaced with your actual location.
Summing Up
Your website is your 24 hour, 7 days a week receptionist. With all of the right things in the right place you can and will get clients from your fitness website.
Of course, I’m on hand to help and you might even find it’s not that expensive compared to how much money you COULD make in the long term from a well designed website.
Drop me some questions about health club marketing, fitness marketing, personal trainer website design or anything else in the comments below. It makes you look proactive and me look popular! ;)
Of course, I’m on hand to help and you might even find it’s not that expensive compared to how much money you COULD make in the long term from a well designed website.
Drop me some questions about health club marketing, fitness marketing, personal trainer website design or anything else in the comments below. It makes you look proactive and me look popular! ;)
