I get this question all the time: “How do I know if my website is working?”
I love this question because the answer surprises most people. There are very relevant metrics you can monitor to understand how well your website is performing. But there are also what I like to call “vanity metrics” which don’t serve you, your website or your business.
But first, a metric that does not dictate the success or failure of your personal trainer website:
Don’t Track Conversions
You’ll regularly see fitness marketing gurus talk about how they no longer recommend websites because they don’t “convert” but here’s the truth…
Websites are not designed to convert. Conversions are used to measure the success of paid ads, and outbound marketing strategy. Your website is an inbound marketing strategy.
Websites are not designed to convert. Conversions are used to measure the success of paid ads, and outbound marketing strategy. Your website is an inbound marketing strategy.
A website is designed to educate.
More specifically show competence (reviews), convenience (processes), cost (pricing) and character (about and branding).
Read more about the four website success factors here.
Websites aren’t designed for impulsive, low value purchases. They’re for products and services that cost enough time and money to include logic in the decision making process.
If you design a website with conversion as a success metric, then it’s no wonder your websites fail.
In this post, I’ll be outlining the most important metrics you should be tracking to evaluate the performance of your personal trainer website.
1. Traffic
Traffic is the most important metric. Traffic is oxygen to a personal trainer website. If your website isn’t getting traffic, you may as well have a business card.
It’s also the most important metric because you need it to obtain useful data on all of the other metrics we’ll talk about. Here's the traffic of our sister site, The Institute of Personal Trainers. It gets around 70,000 visits per month:
It’s also the most important metric because you need it to obtain useful data on all of the other metrics we’ll talk about. Here's the traffic of our sister site, The Institute of Personal Trainers. It gets around 70,000 visits per month:
How much traffic should you have? That depends on the purpose of your website. If it’s a local website, serving local clients, a small amount of highly targeted traffic will be extremely valuable.
If you provide services to a niche, more traffic, especially traffic to your blog, will be needed to make your site a success.
2. Rankings
Google your business name and see where you come up. If you’re at the top, great! Now Google your keyword and location. For example, “personal trainer London”.
Do you still come up on page one? If not, the amount of targeted traffic you’re getting is likely pretty low and something needs to be done about it.
These are the Google positions of one of our client sites that we ranked on page one for all of their major keywords:
Do you still come up on page one? If not, the amount of targeted traffic you’re getting is likely pretty low and something needs to be done about it.
These are the Google positions of one of our client sites that we ranked on page one for all of their major keywords:
Usually, your site will need to be optimised for your service and location and there may be some extra off site work to be done to improve your rankings.
Check out our SEO service to learn more.
Check out our SEO service to learn more.
3. Bounce Rate
If your site is ranking on Google and it’s getting traffic, the next metric to look at is how long people are staying on your personal trainer website.
If someone lands on your page and sticks around, this is a sure sign that not only is your content relevant to them, but it’s also good.
If someone lands on your page and sticks around, this is a sure sign that not only is your content relevant to them, but it’s also good.
If people land on your site and immediately leave, this could mean that your site is well optimised but the content or design needs work.
4. Page Views
How many pages do people view after they land on your site. This is a great metric to use to measure the user experience quality of your fitness website.
User experience takes into account the design and layout of your site and how will it encourage people to move from page to page.
A simple way to improve this metric is to make sure you have a well designed website and to link from one page to another where relevant. These links are called internal links and can be naked links or even buttons.
Here's how we did that for one of our clients. As soon as the website visitor land on the page, they can easily see how to find what they're looking for and where to click to get there.
User experience takes into account the design and layout of your site and how will it encourage people to move from page to page.
A simple way to improve this metric is to make sure you have a well designed website and to link from one page to another where relevant. These links are called internal links and can be naked links or even buttons.
Here's how we did that for one of our clients. As soon as the website visitor land on the page, they can easily see how to find what they're looking for and where to click to get there.
5. Returning Visitors
This metric is especially important if you’re running a blog. If people are reading your blog post and then coming back for more, you’re doing something right.
Now, there’s no ideal numbers you should be aiming for here because all websites are different. However, it’s worth keeping an eye on how many returning visitors you get and whether that goes up and down in line with the quality of your content.
Now, there’s no ideal numbers you should be aiming for here because all websites are different. However, it’s worth keeping an eye on how many returning visitors you get and whether that goes up and down in line with the quality of your content.
How To Track These Metrics
Most marketers would have you signing up to all kinds of apps and gadgets to get all of this information but for most personal trainer websites, the metrics that your designer platform (Wordpress, Squarespace, Wix, Weebly) give you will be more than enough.
Even if you can’t track them all, just check in every now and then to see how your numbers are doing. If you’re not sure what you’re looking for or need help improving the metrics of your own personal trainer website, get in touch and I’d be happy to help.
