Developing Great Websites

Q: I need to make some changes to my website. Where should I devote the most attention? – Submitted by Matt Weaver, 123Fit, Sacramento, Calif.

A: A website is one of the more important elements of your overall marketing plan. Before you start building, it is important to understand that a “pretty” website isn’t always an effective website. Smart health club owners know it takes more than just a nice looking club to run a successful business and it takes more than just a nice looking website to be effective. It is better to have an ugly website that brings in traffic, than to have a beautiful high-dollar website that just acts as an online brochure.

Your website must be planned and developed with lead generation as the number one goal. Of course, you want it to look nice, but your focus should be on making sure your site is capturing leads and driving traffic to your facility. Below is a list of the most important elements of an effective health club website.

Collect prospect information

The most important part of an effective website is a form to collect prospect information. The easiest way to do this is to offer a trial membership in exchange for their contact information. This form on your website should be located near the top of the page, and should have fields for name, e-mail address and phone number. When they enter this information, they will receive a printable trial membership pass, and you will have the prospect’s contact information so you can follow up with them.

You will likely want to utilize some type of e-mail broadcast/auto-responder system to create the Web form, capture leads and automatically follow up with those leads. But if you don’t want to incur the added expense of this, your Web programmer can have the leads e-mailed directly to you and your staff, or compiled in a database.

Keep it Simple

Make sure your website is easy to navigate. Don’t get overly creative and put the menus on the right, a dark background with light font, animation or any other unique formats that you think are attractive. Web visitors are accustomed to menus on the top or on the left, and the content in the middle or on the right. Simple is best.

Grab their attention

Make sure your most important message is “above the fold.” This simply means that the visitor should see your most important message, without having to scroll down the page. Your unique selling proposition needs to be clear — “The only 24 hour health club in Smithville.” You’ll want your Web form above the fold, as well as a headline and brief description of what you have to offer. You can go into details on other pages of your website, but you need enough information on your home page to entice them to explore those other pages.

Make sure you’re Google friendly

While you’re planning your website, you should make sure your website is developed with search engine optimization in mind. You will also make sure your developer sets up your title tags, meta-tags and image tags. You don’t need to understand how these work, but these are things you should tell your Web developer to implement. Also, make sure you have high quality content and blog posts including articles, videos, recipes, weight loss tips and other resources they will find valuable.

Social Proof

Be sure to include testimonials of your members and clients. Video testimonials are best, but written testimonials are better than no testimonials — the more testimonials the better.

Call to Action

Make sure you tell your Web visitor what you want them to do. If you want them to print off and bring in a trial membership, tell them. If you want them to call, tell them to call. If you want them to stop by, tell them to stop by. You have to be very clear on what you want them to do.

A website is important, but an effective website is crucial. The majority of prospects will search for you online before they call or visit. You want to make sure your website is optimized to increase the likelihood that a visitor will become a member. Follow the steps above and you’ll be well ahead of the majority of your competitors.

^{Curtis Mock is the host of www.fitnessbusinesstelevision.com, the TV show for fitness entrepreneurs and is the executive director of GymSuccess.com. Curtis can be reached via e-mail at Curtis@ClubSolutionsMagazine.com.}