There are around 740,000 personal trainers in the world, but not all have a website that helps them get clients. Some don’t have websites at all, which is a terrible mistake. If you’re a personal trainer, you need a website designed specifically to get you more clients on a regular basis.
Whether you hire a web developer or you create your own site, make sure you include the following critical elements to maximize your success.
Testimonials are perhaps the single most influential element you can include on your personal training website. Testimonials show potential clients that you’re effective and know how to get results. However, before you publish testimonials, you’ll need to make sure they’re FTC-compliant. In the health and wellness industry, compliance is vital. The FTC scrutinizes health and wellness companies, and testimonials are often problematic.
Reading the book Don’t Say That! By Anik Singal is the easiest way to get up to speed with what constitutes a compliant testimonial. Despite having almost no complaints and happy customers, Singal was sued by the FTC and learned the hard way that even his compliance attorneys didn’t know he was violating the law. He learned some big lessons the hard way and made his wisdom available in a book he co-wrote with his attorney. One of the things he learned is that testimonials need to represent typical results, and it’s actually not compliant to share atypical results even with a disclaimer. You also need to establish typical results based on all of your clients – not just the ones who do the work.
Another requirement for testimonials is that you need to have a signed release form from each person, and you need to personally verify their claims. If you get sued, you’ll need to provide proof that you’ve personally substantiated the claims in each testimonial. This makes it a little harder to just toss up testimonials as your clients send them to you, but it’s worth the effort to avoid getting sued by the FTC.
As a personal trainer, communicating a clear value proposition will help you get clients. Everyone knows what a personal trainer does on a general level, but it’s important to articulate the specifics to your potential clients. When you explain to your visitors exactly who you help and how, they’ll relate to your statement and automatically think “this service is for me.” This is basic marketing, and will increase your leads.
The first thing you need to do is identify your target audience. This can be as simple as men and women between the ages of 20-50 who want to lose between 10 and 100 pounds. Or, maybe you want to target people who want to lose a minimum of 100 pounds. It’s up to you, but define your target market because that’s who you’ll want to speak to with your website copy, videos, and ads.
What makes you different, unique, or better than other trainers? Think about what your unique selling point is – what’s special about you or your training? Do you use special methods? Do you give your clients more time and attention? Do you offer online support? Nutritional coaching? Recipes? Highlight and promote whatever is unique about your offering to get more people to inquire about your services.
Most people will want to see you in action, so be sure to include video content on your website. The easiest method is to get a free YouTube account and upload your videos to your channel, and then embed those videos on your website.
For the best content, get a professional videographer to film you training with real clients (and be sure to get a signed release form from everyone who appears in the video). You can have a friend film you with their smartphone, but it’s not the same. Although, there is an exception. Sometimes amateur video content is more effective, but it depends on where you’re posting that content. For example, non-professionally produced content does better on TikTok, but on your website, professional content is best.
Showcasing your certifications is important. Not only are they a requirement for your profession, but they will show your potential clients that you are a professional who knows what they’re doing. The more certifications you have, the better, even if you don’t use them all with every client. For instance, it helps to have some kind of certification in nutrition even if you don’t advise clients on nutrition. It tells them you’re knowledgeable in important areas related to fitness, and it will cover you in case you decide to start providing nutritional advice in the future.
Make it easy for your clients to schedule appointments with you online through your website with pre-set time slots. Even if you use a hosted scheduling application, you can still link it on your site in your main menu. On the back end, connect your scheduling system to your Google Calendar (or other software).
Personal trainers benefit greatly from email marketing, so be sure to put an email signup form on your website. When you collect email addresses, you’ll have a captive audience you can market your services to on a regular basis. Some of them might be existing clients, but if you offer valuable information, like fitness advice, they’ll love getting your newsletter.
Use a lead magnet to get people to sign up for your list. This might be a free PDF guide for working out or losing weight, or anything else you know your market will want. You can even offer a free first session or consultation in exchange for sign-ups.
Potential leads will want to know what packages you offer. Make a separate page that lists your services and any packages you offer, and make it easy for people to purchase them right on your website. You’ll need to connect a payment account, like PayPal or Stripe, so get a business account if you don’t already have one. You can let people pay you in cash or with a check if you want, but you’ll get far more signups from people who find you and want to commit in the moment.
Your contact information should be clearly present on all pages, preferably in the header. At the very least, put your name, email address, and phone number at the top of every page and/or in your footer. And if you’re legally required to include your business address on your website, that can go in your footer.
In addition to displaying your phone number, address, and email address, it’s convenient to add a contact form visitors can fill out on your website.
Even though people use GPS most of the time, it’s still helpful to provide specific directions for people coming from main areas. Some people need to picture your location in their mind even when using GPS.
Directions will help people find your exact location, especially if you’re in a shopping center. For example, if there’s something unusual about how to find you or what driveway to enter, explain that on your location page, along with what businesses are next door.
Your business hours should be clearly stated on your contact page as well as your location page as well as any other page related to your services. Let people know what hours you train, at what gym, and the hours people can call you and reach you live.
One of the best ways to get your website found in the search engines is to have a blog that you fill up with authoritative content, like resources and information. Having a blog with fresh, useful content is the foundation of search engine optimization (SEO). When you can get your blog articles to show up in search results, you’ll start generating more traffic. However, getting your website to rank high in the search engines requires publishing good content that search engines see as relevant and useful.
Having good blog content will also help you with link building and content marketing. If you pursue this marketing strategy, you’ll need solid content so your links don’t get removed by publishers.
Having an application form on your site is a good way to make sure you only take on the right kind of clients. You’ll want to use your form to disqualify people you don’t feel are a good fit for your services. For example, people with specific medical conditions might be too much of a risk even with a doctor’s note for clearance. You also might have specific requirements based on how you train. For example, maybe you only want to train people for fat loss rather than gaining muscle. In that case, you’d make it known on your application that you only accept clients that have one goal or the other.
Just make sure that your application form serves a genuine purpose. For example, you can’t ask everyone to submit an application to see if they qualify if you accept everyone in the end. Doing this can get you in big trouble with the FTC. If you say you’re going to qualify applicants, you need to follow through on the other end by actually rejecting those who don’t qualify.
A great call-to-action will generate immediate clicks. A mediocre CTA will get some clicks, but it won’t create a sense of urgency and less people will take action. You want to craft a CTA that makes people click to take action, whether it’s signing up for your email list, getting a lead magnet, scheduling a consultation, or paying for a package.
A great CTA can be as simple as “get instant access” or “download now,” or they can be a little longer, like “sign up for weekly goodies,” “book my free consultation,” “yes! I want to get in shape,” and other similar phrases.
Once you get your website to rank in the search engines, it has the potential to become a lead-generating machine. With the help of content marketing, local SEO, and paid ads, a professionally-designed website for your personal trainer business will get you all the leads you need to be successful.
You can design your own website on a drag-and-drop platform if you want, but it’s better to hire a professional web developer so you can get access to design and marketing expertise that will get you results.
If you don’t have a website yet, reach out to us and tell us what you need – we’d love to build your website so you can generate a steady flow of clients.
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