5 Ways to Revamp Your Fitness Studio Website

By Dara Rosove

Reopening your studio doors is a huge accomplishment after a year and a half (give or take) of closures and restrictions. It’s a cause for celebration, but also a crucial time to give your website a critical look and determine what should stay and what should go.

Your website is a business tool, not just a pretty face. Its purpose is to help your ideal clients find you, understand your offer and purchase your products or services. Websites that are outdated, cluttered, or unclear lead to high bounce rates (page exits) and low conversions (sign-ups or purchases)—in other words, if your site is stale, you’re missing out on potential clients and revenue!

The good news is that you can often fix this without starting from scratch. An effective website revamp requires changes that might seem small but are strategic and will have a big impact.

You can probably make these changes yourself, but before you jump into "edit" mode, we highly recommend you give your website a thorough audit. Just like if you were assessing the struggles of a client before creating their workout plan, you first need to know what your website challenges are so you can make intentional changes and track the results. You’re looking for information that will provide context about your user experience and paint a picture of your client journey (where they’re coming from, what content they’re engaging with, and why they’re leaving). The main metrics you should be analyzing are:

Traffic (number of people coming to your website)
Bounce rate (quick exits)
Conversions (sign-ups for your email/free trial and purchases of your products/services)
Page load speed (how fast or slow your content appears on the screen)
Mobile view compatibility (what your website looks like on a phone)

For example, if your traffic is high but your conversion rate for your new member offer is low, that could indicate that your offer is not compelling enough or the copy describing the value of it is unclear.

If you’re not a tech-y person, fear not! You can ask your web developer for assistance or hire a marketing agency to do a website audit for you. You can also get some basic insight by combing through your website page by page as if you were a client. Read every word, look at every image, and click through every link with the goal of finding errors and redundancy.

At this stage, collecting any other information about your clients’ interests and pain points will help you later on with your website revamp. Remember, fitness has evolved since the pandemic hit, so as you reconnect with your community you need to consider what they want now, not just what they wanted at the end of 2019. Surveying your existing clients and doing competitive research can help with this.

Now, with a better understanding of what your clients want and a clearer vision for what your website should look like, it’s time to dive into the fun part! Ready to re-enter the fitness scene and leave the pandemic in the past? Here are five ways to revamp your website so it resonates with your audience and gets better results for your business:

1. Clean up your copy

Firstly (and most obviously), ensure your communication is accurate. If there are words or calls to action that are no longer representative of your products, services, or people, that is going to lead to confusion for your clients and fewer transactions for your business.

Secondly, revise the words on your website to be customer-centric. When you write, clarify who is going to benefit most from your offers and relate to your reader by using words that describe where they are now and where they want to be.

Lastly, craft your copy to be SEO-friendly. Remember, there are people searching for what you offer. Knowing what those keywords and phrases are will help your website rank higher on Google and other search engines, which will get you more clicks and more potential clients

2. Revive your visuals

New studio layout? New instructors? New products and services? You need new visuals! Images, video, and graphics help communicate what your brand and business is all about.

Paying for a professional photo shoot will be well worth the investment—be sure to hire someone who can bring your brand vision to life and make it unique.

3. Improve your customer service

If people have questions about your fitness studio but can’t find the answers they need, odds are they’re not going to purchase from you. In addition to having clear and compelling website copy, you should have a visible FAQ section that includes contact information should your reader need to get in touch.

Take it one step further by adding a chat system to your website like Mindbody’s new Messenger^[ai] or Facebook Messenger, to help solve issues faster and provide a more seamless customer experience.

Remember, how your website visitors feel while navigating your brand online will impact their opinion about the quality of your products and services, which ultimately determines whether they will buy from you or not.

To learn more about what Messenger^[ai]can do for your fitness business, check out this guide.

4. Create a strong lead magnet (or two)

People who land on your website aren’t necessarily ready to buy, but that doesn’t mean they won’t buy from you in the future. A strategic way to move them (or funnel them) toward a purchase is with a lead magnet—a free or low-cost resource that will give them a sample of the value you have to offer.

The most common lead magnet for fitness studios is offering the first class for free or a longer free trial if your classes are online. That said, additional lead magnets could include a nutrition plan, exclusive workout video series, or a short one-on-one consultation.

In exchange for the resource, you’ll get their email address, which you can then send marketing messages to. Setting up a short automated email sequence will require work up front, but will continue to work for you once they’re set up.

5. Add tracking tools

Once your website revamp is complete, you’ll be better equipped to increase your brand awareness, generate more leads and grow your studio sales! Be sure to routinely check your website analytics so you can see the impact your revamp is having over time and expect to make more tweaks as trends continue to change.

Want a second opinion on your website revamp strategy? Book a free consultation with Creative Fit, a boutique marketing agency that exclusively helps fitness studios build their brand and improve their marketing.