Today we are going to be talking about another fundamental that every independent gym owner should aspire to have locked down.
A gym’s website.
Now for some of you, this probably feels like a bit of a banal topic. Of course everyone needs to take their gym’s website seriously.
Well, we can confirm that the only thing that will shock you more than the number of disused or out of date websites we have seen from independent gyms is the number of them that don’t have websites at all.
That is right, in this day and age! In our travels we’ve literally talked to, discovered or been informed of hundreds of gyms up and down the country with either a Facebook page, an instagram page or nothing at all!
Needless to say that any gym owner doing this is leaving money on the table.
As we’ve attempted to reinforce before, independent gyms need to get with the time or be left
behind and a website is a very clear indication to potential and current members where your priorities are. (Or aren’t!)
The main bulwark of gym-goers don’t remember a time without the internet, and these are the demographics that take web usage for granted. Coming across a gym without a website, or with a website that looks like it was thrown together one afternoon during the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup won’t cut it!
So without further ado, we will be starting part one of two of our website fundamentals.
We will be assuming your gym has a website but feel free to message us if you don’t! An article about starting a gym website and where to go is in the pipeline and we are always happy to help on a 1 to 1 basis as well!.
Your Audience, Your Message, Your Objectives
As with any important project to any business, independent gym owners need to ask themselves some incisive questions about their website.
One of the key questions, and the one we’ve decided to lead with is:
‘Who are you trying to appeal to, what are you trying to appeal to them with, and to what end?’
It is a big question for a big part of your gym’s online presence.
It is all good to make something that appeals to you or your staff, but will it appeal to the demographics you are targeting and the people in the area.
Does it acknowledge the people in the area? Does it come across as community-focused, sincere, open, informative, professional?
The tone will be a big consideration for who it draws. Some aspects of it will be subjective, but others, such as quality and professionalism, will have quite broad appeal.
Further more, you have to make sure your website is fulfilling the fundamental objective of working as a lead generation system.
Does the website provide potential customers with the appropriate call to action? Are the routes they need to go down clearly marked and easy to find?
And does the website inspire confidence and legitimacy? Does it contain customer testimony? Review-site scores? Certifications, photos.
Online-browsers are savvy and they have a finely tuned sense for when something looks ‘legit’ and when it looks lame.
Making sure you can answer yes to all of these questions will mark a significant milestone in the development of your website.
Here at the Gym Owner’s Forum we have reviewed literally hundreds and hundreds of sites and it is amazing how many independent gym sites fail at seemingly easy hurdles.
By identifying your end objectives, your audience and your message, you can start to build a roadmap and framework for what the website will look like in its completed form.
If you are trying to appeal to an older community in the area, something typically ‘youth-coded’ will not endear them. Experiment with sections of the website, and make the demarcation leading to those sections appeal to the demographic you are targeting.
First Impressions Matter: 7 Seconds or Less
While the idea of the media-addled young person is a little stale and detached from reality, it is no lie that the internet has shifted how people consume media. Remember even the 35 year olds of today have spent the majority of their life with the internet and over half of it with some form of smart phone.
That sort of instant-gratification has invariably had an effect on attention spans and the amount of time someone is willing to give a website or business. Some have estimated you have as little as 7 seconds to make an impression before people start clicking away.
That isn’t much time, so it is important to make your website speak immediately and to grab their attention.
Because if you can get their attention, your prospective member has an effortless way to discover everything they need to know about your gym in the palm of their hand.
Make them think ‘this is the one’, not ‘onto the next one’. It is a tough proposition, we acknowledge.
There is no perfect formula, but there are some good rules of thumb.
As we said above, a big one will be deliberately targeted.
Are you trying to stop under 30s from jumping to the next website? Include a prominent call to action directed at them.
Are you trying to drive up new members with discounts and deals? Put those front and centre. Don’t make people search for them like a Where’s Wally comic, chances are they won’t bother.
Have a clear image of the people you are trying to attract. And don’t limit yourself to one audience. Website’s aren’t set in stone, and it can change with the seasons, events or even circumstances.
Research has suggested a tenth of a second is all it takes to start determining traits like trustworthiness. This is a good conceptualisation to keep in mind for your website as well. Is it trustworthy? Broken links and jpeg-images don’t scream trustworthy but high-quality images do.
You only get one chance to make a first impression, and people may return to your website. Your goal is to make them not leave until they’ve turned from lead to prospective member. Don’t let them be turned off by uninspiring design or even basic mistakes.
The feeling we want to invoke is ‘Ahh, this gym looks promising”.
Make your ‘Second’ Impression Count
So you’ve survived the first 7 seconds, congratulations!
Now your independent gym’s website has only a few minutes to make a meaningful impact on the visitor, so what are we going for?
Your homepage/landing page needs to be precisely layout.
- Your Location
1. What do you do? - Who do you do it for?
- Why is your service the best?
Keep it short, precise and catchy. Use colours and page-reading logic to understand where their vision is going to fall next on the page. Luckily people read things in a very set and specific way, left to right, biggest to smallest. Hence the prevalence of those pictures that take advantage of this.
Deploy these techniques on your website, remove any barriers to entry for the information your prospective member is looking for.
And TEST!
Once you come up with a website design, message and layout. Show it to people, see if it works.
Ask your friends to visit the site and give honest feedback. Like any creative endeavour, the people who created it will always be influenced by the process. Those that had no part in the creation will see something very different.
High Quality: Content, Pictures, Words
So you’ve got your prospective customer to your website and grabbed their attention, made it through the 7 second period and the next step.
The next part is ensuring that everything on the website is high quality, whether it is pictures, written words or formatting.
We have seen many websites that have had our own first impressions of them marred by the absence of something that clearly used to be there, or a banner or picture that was completely ill-fitting within the scheme of the website.
Because ultimately the content on your gym’s website is going to tell a story. And it is the story that will determine whether those prospective members stay prospective or become actual members.
And unfortunately the best story in the world will remain unread if it doesn’t look worth reading. There is a reason why we say ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, and that is because we all do it all the time!
So readability, clarity and formatting are vital.
The content on your website should complement each other, eventually forming into a complete piece. Your prospective member should flow from one part to the next, with different links, pictures and events capturing their attention further.
The power of a clearly laid out website to not only capture but hold the attention of a website-visitor cannot be overstated.
Translating visitors into leads into members
While your gym’s website should serve many functions beyond translating visitors into leads and, if all goes well, eventually members.
Studies across various industries have shown that over 80% of the people who come across a business website are not ready, at that moment, to purchase the service of that website.
While that might seem like a shocking statistics, it does not cover the numbers that eventually do.
We talk a lot about making sure members come back to the gym, but for this scenario we can turn that aphorism around to say ‘make sure they come back to the website’.
A website that makes a good first impression is already well on the way to getting repeat traffic. When this theoretical customer of ours has been on their sweep through the local area and its offerings, it’ll be the gyms that didn’t clear the first impression bar that will go first.
And on the return, how will we try and convince them? As we’ve said above, think about what your gym is willing to offer. Whether that is a free session, a day-pass, a consultation or a personal-trainer appointment.
Break down the barrier to entry. There are plenty of reasons that your prospective member will come up with to not go to the gym. Give them a reason to go.
As they submit their details for the offer, it will mark the next step in what will hopefully be a journey from visitor to paying member.
While it might sound a little buzz-wordy to some, this is sometimes known as a Call To Action, or CtA for those who want to sound pithy and with it.
While the wording might be a little saccharine, the logic is sound. As we’ve said before, getting prospective members through the front door is one of the most substantive and proven goals towards sealing a new membership.
A gym that takes special consideration of this while setting up their website will be in a prime position to convert those visitors into members.
We’re bringing together the expertise of hundreds of gyms from across the UK and Europe, to help gym owners grow their business.
Explore
Copyright © Gym Owners Forum 2024, Design By Unturned Stone Creative