Having a website is critical, not just for online businesses but also for brick-and-mortars. Fitness centres and gyms can gain a lot by establishing an online presence for themselves.
Creating a website isn’t enough though; you also need to optimise the website to maximise conversions. Here are six steps to get you started.
Getting to know your audience is important to optimise your website and maximise conversions. Don’t jump in and design a site before figuring out what your online audiences want.
Consider creating personas to know more about your audience. These avatars should identify the ideal target audience. Consider the demographic information, pain points, goals, and needs when creating personas.
Once you have determined the wants and goals of your target audience, you should optimise your website content. This content should be created to help your target audience make the right decisions. List the amenities available onsite, as well as your group fitness class schedule.
Consider creating a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page to inform your target audience about membership details, terms and conditions, fees, and signing up to become a member. You need to let your target audience know that you have the solutions necessary to overcome any obstacle they have to attaining their fitness goals.
Most people don’t have time to fill out application forms to become a member of your fitness centre. Therefore, you need to make it easier for your target audience to sign up via your site and take fitness classes or book in for a training session. These days, your potential clients will expect to be able to submit a membership application and pay their fees online.
Your website should have a clear call-to-action (CTA), and you should be creating your CTAs based on the specific needs of your target market. CTAs should be compelling enough for your online visitors to take action.
To maximise conversions on your website, you need to attract the attention of your online users and successfully influence them to become long-lasting members of your fitness centre.
Make sure your CTA buttons are visible and prominent. This can be achieved by using adequate white space and reducing the clutter around your CTA buttons. The size and color of your buttons are also important. The average size of a CTA button is around 47.9 pixels tall. Additionally, red and orange buttons tend to get more clicks, compared to blue and green-coloured CTA buttons.
Social share buttons with counters will help improve your online influence. Social proofing helps assure online viewers about the authenticity and popularity of a website, so adding social sharing buttons can increase cross-channel promotion and maximise conversions.
A high number of shares indicates that people trust a business, so consider adding social media share and counter buttons for your Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages. LinkedIn is not typically appropriate for fitness and gym centres, because posting on the site does not fit with how the platform is used.
You should optimise your website for mobile use. Mobile optimisation is important since a large percentage of online users now access websites via their mobile devices. The number of people using mobile devices to access the internet is increasing with mobile shoppers converting more, compared to desktop users.
Consider A/B testing before making final changes. The A/B testing involves checking two versions to find out which one generates the best response. ®
Monica Garrett is the Founder and CEO of Margaux Agency in Long Beach, California (USA). Margaux Agency are experts in digital marketing for health and fitness clubs. They deliver hand-curated, industry-tested, CEO-approved, managed marketing services. From design to development, from writing to implementing, Margaux Agency have what you need to grow your health and fitness business. To learn more visit margauxagency.com
Raising The Bar is published by FITREC and HealthyPeople. Before trying any new exercise, nutrition or health regimes, you should seek clearance from an appropriate health, medical or fitness professional. The information in this publication is not a substitute for advice or consultation with any health, medical or fitness professional. The health and fitness industries often provide conflicting – sometimes even contradictory – information; as the reader it is your responsibility to safely determine what does or does not work for you. Any prices stated are the recommended retail prices in Australian currency and may be subject to change. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, all parties associated with the production and publishing of this magazine accept no responsibility for the correctness of any facts and the copyright responsibility of all articles lies with individual contributors. Opinions expressed by the authors in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of other authors, the publisher or any of its production or publishing team. Copyright ©2024. All rights reserved. No material in this magazine may be reproduced without written consent from the publisher.