Here’s how it can…

#1 Add an integrated blog

When you’re running a personal training business (or any other service business for that matter), always remember: People buy from people they know, like and trust.

Unless a prospective client comes from a referral, it is fairly unlikely that they will decide to hire you with just a cursory read of your website. A blog with useful, relevant content is a great way to share your expertise and demonstrate your credibility while that prospect gets to know, like and trust you. When they are ready to pick up the phone and actually consider hiring a personal trainer, who will be at the forefront of their minds?
Google also loves a site with regularly updated, fresh content, so with regular, on topic blog posts you’ll find yourself achieving higher placings in the search engine rankings than if you were to just rely on your static site alone. But remember, there is nothing worse than visiting a blog and seeing that it hasn’t been updated for months – only undertake a blog for your personal training business if you can commit to a regular posting schedule.

#2 Include an online workout section (for free or fee)

How many of you have clients that struggle to remember what you have shown them during your personal training sessions when they work out on their own? A great way to help those clients is to have a library of exercise diagrams/graphics on your fitness website which they can refer to as a reminder. You can provide this as an added benefit or charge a small fee as part of their package.

The exercise section could also provide you with a stream of passive income. Why not set up a membership section of your personal training website for clients/non clients to pay a nominal fee each month for access to the exercise library and custom online workouts?

#3 Use your personal training website as a sales platform/online shop for e-books, books or other products

In this time of economic uncertainty, creating multiple revenue streams for your personal training business is a great way to diversify your income and manage the risk of quiet periods.

Take some time out to unlock the knowledge & experience in your head and put it all together in an e-book or even a self-published paperback/hardback (the more specialised the better). E-books don’t have to be long, they just have to be useful and if you have a specific niche you can write about, it will be a lot easier to market the book to your chosen target market. Once you’ve created a book, it can become an ongoing passive stream of income for your business.

If writing isn’t your thing, no problem – get someone else to write it for you (known as ghost writing). Spending a little time and money to create your e-book could lead to a lifetime of passive income.  Do the work once and keep getting paid over and over.

If you aren’t able to create an e-book or passive income product, search for other personal trainers that have e-books and offer an affiliate scheme for their product. Then, simply add a link from your site to the product and earn through the affiliate scheme. This doesn’t just apply to e-books either, all sorts of companies offer affiliate schemes for their personal training equipment or supplements. Just make sure you only source products/e-books that you believe in; recommending poor quality products can harm your credibility.

#4 Turn your website into an automated marketing machine and lead generator

How much time have you spent on the phone with prospective clients explaining your services and how you can help, only to get to the nitty gritty of cost and be told you’re out of their budget? – ultimately wasting both your and their time. Use your website to automate your sales process as much as possible by doing some or all of the following:

• include prices on your site (if not specifics, then at least ball park figures)
• add a sign-up box that lets people join your mailing list, giving you permission to contact them again in the future
• use the mailing list to turn cold and warm prospects into converted clients by sharing useful information, relevant news and demonstrating your expertise and credibility on an ongoing basis

#5 Use your fitness website as an online hub for all your social media & online marketing activities

As a personal trainer, you probably already understand the importance of networking as a way to attract new clients. These days there are 2 types of networking – online and offline. Using online social media tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook etc. can be a time- and cost-effective way to network – enabling you to expand your reach and target markets.

Utilising these online tools can give prospects a wide range of channels to connect with you in the way that is most suitable and convenient to them but it is always ideal if you can bring it all together in one place – an online hub, if you like. Your website/blog can be that hub – and help ensure that your online activities are consistent and integrated.

Your website can and should do so much more for your personal training business – if you need any help with the above, why not get in touch and see how we can help?

Picnik, an online image editor, performs all of these basic functions & many more. And the best thing about it…..it’s completely FREE.

I recently created a comprehensive tutorial for using Picnik to add a business name to one of our ‘Logo To Go’ logos for Personal Trainers, along with preparing a print and web optimized file of the finished logo. Although the tutorial is for a specific purpose, it serves as a good introduction to what Picnik can do.

Download your FREE copy of the tutorial here.

Here are the top 5 things to consider when choosing a name for your personal training business – and avoid making the most common mistakes:

#1 Failing to check the domain name availability

This is the single most common mistake made by personal trainers when re-branding or naming their new personal training company. Even if you’re not planning to have a website straight away (although you really should reconsider that!), you need to check that the .com domain name is available for your chosen company name.

Why? Because from a branding perspective, there is nothing more confusing for prospects, than a company that has a different domain name than the actual company name. If people remember your company name, the chances these days are high that they’ll look for you on the internet – and the first thing they’ll try is “yourcompanyname.com”. That’s why it’s important to be able to register the .com version. They may also try “yourcompanyname.co.uk” (or with the extension used in your country) – but the chances are they’ll give up or search for you on google (again using your company name).

Our professional advice: Never choose a name for which you can’t register the .com version. As most .com’s are taken these days, you are going to have to get creative about this but not too creative…

#2 Trying to be too clever and creative

Whilst clever and creative names might seem great to you, they may not be so great for prospects trying to find you. Some of the best names for your personal training company are ones which:

• Are memorable and easy to remember
• Mean something to your target market and not just to you
• Are easy to say and to spell

Our professional advice: Choose a name which perhaps hints at or even directly addresses what you can do for your clients. This kind of name instantly positions your company as a possible solution in the mind of your prospects.

#3 Choosing an odd spelling

When we named our first Personal Training company, we chose what we thought was a clever name “activOne”. Turns out it wasn’t so clever and was a pain in the butt. Why? Because people always assumed it was spelled with an “e” in the middle and would frequently get it wrong.

Our professional advice: Unless you have an exceptional reason for doing so, avoid using odd spellings of words for your company name. Whilst it can work for big companies with huge marketing budgets, it’s likely to be a disadvantage for the successful and effective branding of your personal training business.

#4 Failing to get a matching email address

There are few things that scream “unprofessional” more than a business still using a hotmail or yahoo email address. Even if you don’t have a website, make sure you organise an email address which uses your company name.

Our professional advice: Some domain registration services offer free email accounts; sign up for one of these and then link that account to a Gmail service so you can use/manage that email address via the Gmail interface (and get tons more storage and superior features via gmail).

#5 Making it too personal

Another common mistake made by personal trainers when naming their personal fitness training business is to personalise the name and/or use their own name. This is absolutely fine if your long term business plan is to be personal training your clients, as an individual, under your own name. It can also work as a branding strategy, due to the inherently personal nature of personal training.

If however, you feel that at some point in the future, you’d like to expand the business – maybe open your own studio or have other trainers working for your company, then using your own name is not always the best solution. Equally, if your ultimate exit strategy involves selling your PT business, then branding the company with your own name, is not the most strategic decision.

Our professional advice: Consider your long term plan and exit strategy for your business before deciding on your company name.

But have you ever had that feeling when working with someone that you just don’t know whether they really “get” you, understand quite what it is you’re looking for or never seem to advise you on what will be best to promote your fitness business?

Whilst some web design firms may tell you not to worry, sit back and relax and they’ll cook you up something snazzy to help you attract more personal training clients, in our experience it doesn’t quite work like that…

Unfortunately, if you want a website that actually does something for your business (generates leads, answers prospects’ questions, helps keep leads warm) rather than just look snazzy, it will require you to provide some input into the process to ensure the website reflects what you can do for your clients – and just who it is you’re trying to reach in the first place.

Here are 4 important questions your web designer should ask you before they even start designing your business website…

#1 What’s the purpose of your website?

To design an *effective* website for your personal training business (one that does what you want it to do), this should be the first question a designer asks you. The purpose of your site (to attract interested people, the showcase your wares, to interact with prospects, to provide additional support etc.) will determine the functionality, lay out and even the look and feel of your site.

If your designer doesn’t ask you this, how can they build you a site that will do the job you want it to?

#2 Who is your target market?

Another crucial question which can determine the navigation, layout, contents and look and feel of the site; web designers who don’t ask this will usually design something they think looks great – and you may even think so too – but will your target market think the same or will it just turn them off?

#3 What messages are you looking to convey on your website?

Like the above question, the kind of messages and the way you want to convey them on your site is something your designer needs to know; if you’d like to convey a modern, high tech, ‘with the times’ approach then using video or audio to do this may be a great choice to share your message; if you’d rather convey a more traditional, old-fashioned message, then this may not be such a great choice.

It once again all comes back to your target market and the way they’ll respond most effectively to the messages you’re looking to convey.

#4 How often do you think you’ll need to be able update your website?

If you’d like your personal training website to be a living, breathing work in progress or you’re not quite clear on your message or whether you’ve honed the copy correctly – and you’re likely to want to make frequent updates to the site even once it’s built – then think about how expensive this might get when you have to pay your web guy to make the tiniest of changes for you.

They will (and should be) charging for this and therefore asking this question before they get started on anything may determine the web platform they build your site upon. There are many options which allow you to update your own website, just ask your web design company about the most suitable one for you.

Of those that do have a website to advertise their personal training business, many of them are far from effective and often end up being an expensive waste of time and money.

To ensure your fitness website is as effective as possible for your clients and your business, make sure you read the following 7 tips…

#1 Avoid Flash

How often have you gone to a website and been so frustrated with the endless dancing graphics and animated intros that you have just closed the site down and moved on? It’s tempting to use Flash to give your website an ultra modern, slick feel, but remember why the prospective client is visiting your site in the first place – for more information about you or your services.

Statistics show that the average internet user will give a site 3-5 seconds of their attention, if they have to wait for flash graphics to load before they get to the nitty gritty – they will simply move on.

#2 Get The Size Right

With the rising sales of laptop computers, the screen size on which someone will be viewing your site has become smaller. This means that if the design of your site is particularly wide, users will have to scroll across to read the information or navigate through your site and quickly become frustrated.

Ensure your web design company do browser testing and design your fitness website so that it’s compatible with most major browsers on the market.

#3 Stay Above The Fold

“Above the fold” refers to everything you can see on your personal training website without having to scroll down. Make sure that all of the important information on your home page (branding, navigation, your prime marketing messages) are all clearly visible without your user having to scroll down to find them.

#4 Adhere To The 3 Click Rule

All of the web pages and content information on your website should be easily reached in no more than 3 clicks from one set of navigation. Avoid the temptation to have layers and layers of navigation and pages, or users will get lost within your site and quickly lose interest.

If a user can’t find what they’re looking for within a few seconds, they will give up and go elsewhere.

#5 Include Pricing

Be up front about the pricing of your coaching and training services and clearly display them on your website. If all of the information is on your site to enable a potential client to make the decision to work with you prior to making contact, you avoid wasting time fielding off those drawn out sales calls only to find that the client doesn’t have the budget to pay for your personal training and fitness services.

If you feel uncomfortable about stating your specific prices, at least provide a range of prices to give prospects an indication of whether they’re in the right ballpark.

#6 Don’t Forget A Personal Photograph

Personal fitness training and health coaching are “personal” services; prospects like to know who it is they’re buying from and who they will be working with.

People buy from people they know, like and trust. Providing a photograph of yourself is vital to start building this relationship with interested prospects.

#7 Content
Is your site content all about you and how great you are, or do you focus on your prospective clients and how you can help them? Rather than telling those prospects how fabulous you are, show through the information on your site, that you understand the reason clients are looking for you in the first place and reassure them that you can help.

Whether you are working with a web designer to build a site for your fitness business or re-vamping your existing site, put yourself in the shoes of your target market and use this checklist as a starting point to assess the usability of your site and ask yourself…would you hire/buy from you based on the information you’ve provided on your website?