If you're an aspiring personal trainer or fitness instructor, you need a professional website to build your brand. Social media will only get you so far as many online experiences start with search engines - 93%, to be precise.
Realistically, you need an optimized, regularly updated, and maintained website to ensure you appear in relevant searches.
Most personal trainers know this, which is why many of you already have sites up and running. However, your work doesn't stop here! Having a professional personal trainer website is good, but are you conducting regular fitness website maintenance? Maintaining your site is arguably more important than setting one up, and we'll explain why throughout this guide. You'll see the different types of personal trainer website maintenance you need to carry out, along with some excellent solutions.
Moreover, you will see why opting for a Managed Website service might be better than trying to do all this maintenance yourself.
Why Does A Website Need Maintenance?
Firstly, what do we mean by website maintenance?
In simple terms, it refers to a set of tasks you need to perform regularly to keep your website running smoothly. These tasks include security updates, content updates, optimizing website content and articles for SOE, and updating inbound and outbound links to ensure they aren't broken. If you're using 3rd party apps, you'll need to keep an eye on them to ensure they work correctly.
Why is this important?
It keeps your fitness website nice and fresh, which prevents instances where you have outdated information or broken links/menu buttons, etc. In turn, this means you continue to provide a good user experience to your website visitors. A poorly-maintained site may be full of bugs and issues that make it impossible for users to navigate without getting annoyed. As a result, you could lose out on many clients because your site needs to be up to scratch.
From a more technical perspective, fitness website maintenance is crucial for SEO. You need your site to perform well in searches continuously, but all of your hard work may be undone if you don't maintain your site.
In simple terms, it refers to a set of tasks you need to perform regularly to keep your website running smoothly. These tasks include security updates, content updates, optimizing website content and articles for SOE, and updating inbound and outbound links to ensure they aren't broken. If you're using 3rd party apps, you'll need to keep an eye on them to ensure they work correctly.
Why is this important?
It keeps your fitness website nice and fresh, which prevents instances where you have outdated information or broken links/menu buttons, etc. In turn, this means you continue to provide a good user experience to your website visitors. A poorly-maintained site may be full of bugs and issues that make it impossible for users to navigate without getting annoyed. As a result, you could lose out on many clients because your site needs to be up to scratch.
From a more technical perspective, fitness website maintenance is crucial for SEO. You need your site to perform well in searches continuously, but all of your hard work may be undone if you don't maintain your site.
How? If you click here, you'll see all of the latest Google Search ranking updates. Now and then, Google changes things that impact search engine rankings. It might mean you have to make alterations to your site to avoid getting ranking penalties or falling behind the competition. Therefore, constant maintenance helps you adhere to the latest SEO guidelines, keeping everything optimized.
What Type Of Maintenance Does A Website Need?
We very briefly touched upon a couple of ideas above, but what exactly will you need to do to maintain a fitness website? Your tasks can be split into the following categories:
You have things you need to do without any arguing, things that are good to have but not technically essential, and then some optional extras. Most of these come with fees, so it's worth understanding what you will have to pay for and what costs you can save if you'd like to build a fitness website on a budget.
- Necessary website maintenance costs
- Good to have maintenance costs
- Optional website maintenance costs
You have things you need to do without any arguing, things that are good to have but not technically essential, and then some optional extras. Most of these come with fees, so it's worth understanding what you will have to pay for and what costs you can save if you'd like to build a fitness website on a budget.
Necessary Website Maintenance Costs
We'll start with the maintenance costs you must calculate into your marketing budget to ensure your website meets user experience and best practices standards and stays online.
Domain
Your domain name is the name of your site and will require annual maintenance. You need to pay to keep your domain registration active - if you lose it, it completely messes up your brand image and leads to confusion. On average, a standard domain name costs around $10 - $20 per year. However, if you'd like a special domain extension or try registering a name in high demand, the registrar might charge you extra.
Web Hosting
Web hosting is the concept of getting your website online. You are paying for virtual space to house your website; the costs can vary here. We're talking about fluctuations between $2 to $74 per month. It depends on the type of hosting you're after, how much space you need, and what other features you might require - such as unlimited bandwidth.
SSL Certificate
An SSL certificate is one of the most critical parts of your website to keep it secure. It shows your site is secure, so people won't be wary of clicking on it.
Domain
Your domain name is the name of your site and will require annual maintenance. You need to pay to keep your domain registration active - if you lose it, it completely messes up your brand image and leads to confusion. On average, a standard domain name costs around $10 - $20 per year. However, if you'd like a special domain extension or try registering a name in high demand, the registrar might charge you extra.
Web Hosting
Web hosting is the concept of getting your website online. You are paying for virtual space to house your website; the costs can vary here. We're talking about fluctuations between $2 to $74 per month. It depends on the type of hosting you're after, how much space you need, and what other features you might require - such as unlimited bandwidth.
SSL Certificate
An SSL certificate is one of the most critical parts of your website to keep it secure. It shows your site is secure, so people won't be wary of clicking on it.
Some web design platforms or domain registrars will offer SSL as part of their service, either included in the price or at an extra charge. Most web designers will also ensure your website is SSL-protected. However, if you need to source one yourself, prices vary massively here, with some available for just $5 while others start at over $200 per year.
Design Platform
Typically, web design platforms are subscription-based and charge monthly or annual fees. The platform's purpose is to provide you with a playground to design your website and maintain all the different design elements. Most of these platforms will cost around $200 per year.
In many cases, service providers will offer all these elements as part of a package, so you don't need to set up 3-4 different subscriptions. All you need to do is choose the company that offers the best value for your money and proper support should things go wrong.
Good To Have Website Maintenance Costs
These will be the website design costs you may want to avoid taking on if you're still working on increasing your income, but they will become critical as your fitness brand grows. You want to demonstrate a professional image of your personal training service.
Business Email
Paying for a dedicated email address makes your personal trainer business seem more authentic and professional. It also keeps your business and personal emails separate, so they never mix. More importantly, if you want to employ an email marketing strategy, spam filters will favor proper business email addresses with your domain over a free email account.
Map & Form Plugins
A map plugin is used to show potential clients where you're located. It provides an easy and convenient way of letting them know how to get to your gym or fitness center. Likewise, a form plugin is used to help people submit their details for a consultation. It's a critical part of capturing leads - without forms, you may lose out on clients.
You can find website design platforms where these widgets are included for free, but others may charge an extra one-off or regular fee for such plugins. When working with a web design company, you get the same deal. They're either included in the price or not, depending on what platform the designer is using. Our Managed Website clients get access to standard plugins like maps, forms, or pricing tables at no extra costs.
Business Email
Paying for a dedicated email address makes your personal trainer business seem more authentic and professional. It also keeps your business and personal emails separate, so they never mix. More importantly, if you want to employ an email marketing strategy, spam filters will favor proper business email addresses with your domain over a free email account.
Map & Form Plugins
A map plugin is used to show potential clients where you're located. It provides an easy and convenient way of letting them know how to get to your gym or fitness center. Likewise, a form plugin is used to help people submit their details for a consultation. It's a critical part of capturing leads - without forms, you may lose out on clients.
You can find website design platforms where these widgets are included for free, but others may charge an extra one-off or regular fee for such plugins. When working with a web design company, you get the same deal. They're either included in the price or not, depending on what platform the designer is using. Our Managed Website clients get access to standard plugins like maps, forms, or pricing tables at no extra costs.
Tech Support
What happens when something goes wrong with your website? It can crash, meaning nobody can access it. Naturally, this means you lose out on many potential leads or clients until the site is up and running again. If you're not conducting regular maintenance, it could be days or weeks before you notice a problem.
To compound the issue, one study found that 9% of users never return to a site if they find it down. Tech support prevents problems like this from happening, helping you get your site up again ASAP while stopping future downtime. Choosing a platform, web host, and web designer that prioritizes tech support for their clients and doesn't leave you to your own devices once the website is up and running is a good idea.
Website Revisions
Supposedly you're planning to stay in the fitness industry long-term. Can you imagine that your message, packages, and target audience will be the same 3-5 years from now on? Things will change, your skills will develop, you will gain more experience, and you'll want to amend the content on your website to reflect those improvements and pivots.
Being able to update your website copy, details, and packages swiftly and efficiently will make your life easy and ensure your ideal clients find your personal trainer website. You will need to invest your time or money to sort these updates.
Optional Website Maintenance Costs
You'll only want to add these costs once you have a significant budget to throw at your marketing efforts and want to ensure your website ranks high on search engines so people will find it when searching for your services.
Content and SEO
Updating your content and ensuring your site is optimized for search engines are two optional maintenance tasks. You can pay for software or systems to do this for you, and some website owners even enlist the help of agencies. The costs can be staggering, so many personal trainers avoid this.
Web Analytics
Web analytics will show you everything you need to know about your website. You will see how much traffic you have, where it comes from, and what people do when they're on your site. This information can be used to maintain and improve your site and your strategies for generating traffic and leads. Google Analytics is just one way to get insight. It's a free tool, but you'll need to learn how to interpret the numbers and make changes to improve them.
Content and SEO
Updating your content and ensuring your site is optimized for search engines are two optional maintenance tasks. You can pay for software or systems to do this for you, and some website owners even enlist the help of agencies. The costs can be staggering, so many personal trainers avoid this.
Web Analytics
Web analytics will show you everything you need to know about your website. You will see how much traffic you have, where it comes from, and what people do when they're on your site. This information can be used to maintain and improve your site and your strategies for generating traffic and leads. Google Analytics is just one way to get insight. It's a free tool, but you'll need to learn how to interpret the numbers and make changes to improve them.
There's a lot for you to do regarding website maintenance. It would help if you did the necessary tasks at the bare minimum, but the more maintenance you conduct, the better chances your website will make you more money than it costs you.
Should I Hire A Professional to Maintain My Website?
What are you good at? Where does your expertise lie? For most of you reading this, your talents lie in the fitness world. You're great at training clients and getting them to reach their goals.
My Personal Trainer Website has been designing fitness websites for over 10 years because personal trainers prefer focusing on the tasks they enjoy and outsourcing having a website created and continuous maintenance tasks.
Looking at the tasks above, you might start worrying about how you'll do them all. It can all be overwhelming if you have limited experience running websites. If that's you, hiring a professional to maintain your site is likely the best solution for you.
At My PT Website, we offer a Managed Website service for personal trainers so you can be sure that the 'necessary' and the 'good to have' website maintenance tasks are taken care of as part of your subscription once the website is published.
Your website will always be perfectly maintained so it continues to perform at the highest level possible. Our sites are designed to generate leads, meaning you will receive more inquiries than ever so long you have a solid traffic generation strategy. You never have to worry about downtime, broken links, or renewing SSL licenses. Working with a professional means, it's all covered for you.
As a result, you're free to focus on what you do best: training clients and helping them feel better about themselves. If you try to conduct fitness website maintenance independently, you will spend significant hours weekly or monthly to complete those tasks. You might find all that too stressful, which is why working with a professional can make your life easier.
My Personal Trainer Website has been designing fitness websites for over 10 years because personal trainers prefer focusing on the tasks they enjoy and outsourcing having a website created and continuous maintenance tasks.
Looking at the tasks above, you might start worrying about how you'll do them all. It can all be overwhelming if you have limited experience running websites. If that's you, hiring a professional to maintain your site is likely the best solution for you.
At My PT Website, we offer a Managed Website service for personal trainers so you can be sure that the 'necessary' and the 'good to have' website maintenance tasks are taken care of as part of your subscription once the website is published.
Your website will always be perfectly maintained so it continues to perform at the highest level possible. Our sites are designed to generate leads, meaning you will receive more inquiries than ever so long you have a solid traffic generation strategy. You never have to worry about downtime, broken links, or renewing SSL licenses. Working with a professional means, it's all covered for you.
As a result, you're free to focus on what you do best: training clients and helping them feel better about themselves. If you try to conduct fitness website maintenance independently, you will spend significant hours weekly or monthly to complete those tasks. You might find all that too stressful, which is why working with a professional can make your life easier.
Conclusion
To summarize this article, fitness website maintenance is essential to keep your site running smoothly and to optimize it for search engines. You must undertake numerous tasks to maintain your site, but many of these can be costly or time-consuming when handled on your own.
The best approach is to hire a professional to maintain your site so that you can focus on running your personal training business. Feel free to contact us to learn more about our service and how we can help your personal trainer business.
The best approach is to hire a professional to maintain your site so that you can focus on running your personal training business. Feel free to contact us to learn more about our service and how we can help your personal trainer business.
