How to Create a Gym Website

As a fitness business, learning how to create a gym website that is optimized and perfectly designed to generate leads is not an easy task, but it can be a major win for your business.

Your gym website is a crucial marketing tool and a key part of your success. But having a gym website is one thing. Having an effective site that makes you stand out from competitors and drives potential members to take action is another. In this article, we’ll show you all the components you need to create a stellar gym website, along with some examples. Skip ahead to:

• Why You Need an Incredible Gym Website
• What Do You Need to Create an Effective Gym Website?
• 17 Examples of Great Gym Websites

Why You Need an Incredible Gym Website 

If you’re a gym owner, you need a great website. First and foremost, it helps people to find you. Considering that all your competitors already have a website, you’re behind the curve if you don’t have one. It’s not enough to just have a website; it needs to be a great website to establish your business as an authority, help manage your members, and so much more. Here are five reasons you need a great gym website. 

1. Strong Online Presence 

Think of your own life: imagine someone mentioning a great gym to you – what’s the first thing you do? You Google it, of course.

You need a strong online presence so that potential members can find you. 81% of people search online for a product or service. Part of a strong online presence is a fully mobile-optimized website. Make it as easy as possible for customers to find you.  

2. Increase Revenue and Credibility 

A good website makes you look credible and trustworthy. It shows that you are qualified, professional, and ready to engage with your membership base. Your expertise is evident, and this helps to build your authority. 

At the same time, a website can be a significant driver in increasing revenue. A great website is more likely to convert visitors into paying members. For example, a quick Google search for a home fitness streaming platform may land potential customers on your website. If it’s straightforward and easy to navigate, they can sign up quickly and immediately start using your services. 

Don’t have a website that allows your members to immediately sign up to your business?

3. Customers Expect a Website 

Nowadays, customers expect you to have a website. Your website affects how people perceive the quality and credibility of your business. It takes about 50 milliseconds for users to form an opinion of your website. That’s how long it takes for them to decide whether they stick around or go elsewhere. 

If you have a poorly designed website on mobile, 57% of users wouldn’t recommend your business. The customer expectation is to not only have a website but to have a responsive and compelling website with a crisp layout and design. 

4. Win in Search Results 

Your website can help you attract new customers through search results. An SEO-optimized website can help you rank for several terms on Google and attract a steady flow of potential customers. 

While there are plenty of factors involved with ranking in search engine results, simply having a website opens you up to more opportunities. When you incorporate search engine optimization into your website, you can attract more traffic, rank higher, and ultimately convert more leads than your competition. 

5. Great Member Experience 

The member experience involves every aspect of your business. It includes your interactions with staff members, the quality of your facilities, your digital fitness platform, and more. Going forward, many businesses are operating a hybrid business model. The lines between digital and in-person services are blurring. This means that the digital experience is just as important as the experience your members have in-person. 

A great website promotes a great member experience. Maybe your website is home to your class schedule and member portal. Something as simple as easy booking and automated class reminders adds to the overall experience and leaves members feeling good about your brand. 

Not sure how to keep your members engaged and inspired?

Download our free eBook on Member Engagement.

What Do You Need to Create an Effective Gym Website?

Transforming your website into a member-acquiring machine that converts customers is a process. A strong online presence is a must-have for any fitness business. The best gym websites serve the business in multiple ways. Your website attracts new members, helps you manage class bookings, and nurtures a sense of fitness community. Here are the 12 key components you need for your fitness business website.

1. Location and Contact Information  

Your website needs to include all of your business information. Whether you’re an online-only digital fitness platform or have multiple gym locations throughout the country, you need to include all your information. Often, when visitors are looking for your website, they are seeking important information. Make it as easy as possible to find your location and contact you. Essential business information includes:

• Location. 
• Contact information: phone number and email address. 
• Hours of operation. 
• Business description. 
• FAQ’s.

2. Reviews and Testimonials 

Statistics show that 91% of 18-34-year-olds trust reviews as much as a personal recommendation. On top of this, 93% of consumers say that an online review influences their purchase decision. Those numbers are staggeringly high. When a potential member is thinking of signing up for your gym or online services, they want to know if it will be the right fit. Maybe they want to find out what your gym community is like or how effective your body workout classes are. Make sure you include reviews and testimonials on your website as they provide social proof to potential customers. 

3. Mobile-Friendly and Intuitive User Experience

Poor web experience will deter visitors. After one bad experience, they are unlikely to come back again. A good website has an intuitive UX. This means that the user should understand how to use the website design without consciously thinking about it. A responsive design is part of the user experience. This means that your website should be mobile-friendly and automatically adjust to the user’s device. Features to consider include:

• Social media integration. 
• Easy-to-use navigation. 
• Search bar. 
• One-button payments. 

4. Member Management Portal 

Flexibility, efficiency, and convenience are key to member satisfaction in the digital age. A member management portal adds another level of functionality to your gym website. A member portal allows your members to manage their own membership, update payment details, view their bookings, and make their lives easier. This helps to streamline your administration processes and gives your members complete control over their membership. A member portal also helps to reduce no-shows as members can cancel bookings online and are sent automated class reminders to stay on track. 

5. Fitness Class Schedule and Bookings 

Your gym website is where members will view your fitness class schedule, make a booking, and find out what services you offer. A great fitness website example is F45 Training. It has a clean and minimalist design with compelling messaging. When you land on the site, you can click ‘New to F45?’, ‘Workouts,’ and ‘Why F45 Works’. At first glance, the site sorts users into existing members and new visitors and gauges fitness levels and abilities. You can then easily find an F45 studio near you and make a booking. The training class descriptions tell visitors exactly what to expect, and the site navigation is easy to use. We’ll take a look at F45’s website more closely later in this article.

6. Live Streaming and On-Demand Classes 

A clever site design will incorporate your digital fitness platform and live streaming schedule. You can lead visitors with a ‘Start trial’ button and immediately showcase your digital platform. If your in-person gym is currently closed, you will likely direct most traffic straight to your digital platform. For example, when you land on the Les Mills website, you see a video banner linking to the brand’s On-Demand fitness platform. You can start a free trial from the website and start streaming more than 1000 workouts almost immediately. 

7. High-Quality Visuals and Fresh Content 

Your website content is as important as the design and feel of your site. You need high-quality visuals and fresh content to stay relevant. Good visuals that are genuine and relevant will help you rank higher. Content will always be king. A fitness business blog is a good way to generate fresh content for your website and showcase your brand voice and personality. Other types of content to consider include:

• Video. 
• Podcast. 
• Professional-quality images. 
• Graphics. 
• Animations. 

8. E-commerce 

If you sell branded merchandise and products, it’s a good idea to include an e-commerce platform on your website. Make it as easy as possible for visitors to find and pay for products. For example, if you are a yoga studio, you may stock yoga mats, branded water bottles, and yoga leggings. Visitors should be able to navigate easily and pay for any products. Selling branded merchandise helps to create an additional stream of income for your business. 

9. SEO-Optimized Pages  

All the pages on your website should be fully search-engine optimized. SEO not only helps you to rank higher on search engines, but it also helps to improve the overall user experience. Adding genuine and relevant content improves your SEO, as does optimizing for mobile and increasing your website’s speed. One of the most significant benefits of SEO is that it helps you to target quality traffic. When your website shows to someone who is actively searching for the service your health club offers or a piece of content on your blog, it builds trust and brings you a high-quality lead. This person is already interested in the type of content and services you offer. 

10. Eye-Catching and Professional Web Design 

An eye-catching and professional web design can have a massive impact on the quality of your website. A beautiful site design shows visitors who you are, makes them stick around, and ultimately converts them into paying members. Never underestimate the power of a great website. When you’re making a first impression, your website’s feel can attract or deter potential customers. Staying up to date on website design trends and tools is crucial to a great-looking website. Some of the leading website design trends in 2021 include:

• Dark mode. 
• Contrasting color combinations. 
• 3D elements. 
• Asymmetric design. 
• Ultra-fast loading time. 
• Bold colors and fonts. 

11. Good Security, Hosting, and Privacy Features 

To convert visitors into paying customers, your website needs to ensure the safety of your users. Privacy and security are hot topics, and you need to make sure you look after your customer data. If you have a booking function and member portal on the site, you will likely be storing payment details and other sensitive data. In the world of online payments, e-commerce fraud is becoming increasingly common. You will need to have a secure website that protects all customer data and payment details. 

12. Clear Calls to Action 

Now that you’ve covered some of your fitness center website’s most important elements don’t forget to include clear calls to action. This includes small call to action buttons located throughout your website. You want to present potential members with clear instructions to guide them through your sales funnel. Maybe that starts with a free trial of your fitness platform and training programs before encouraging them to contact your gym for a personal trainer session. Both the website design and copy play a role in creating compelling calls to action that enable users to take action on each page. 

17 Examples of Great Gym Websites

A perfect gym website should have all the features discussed in part one of this article. Here are some great examples to inspire you.

1. Soul Cycle

Website Link: https://www.soul-cycle.com

Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler started Soul Cycle, and it is categorized as one of the most luxurious boutique gyms in America today. Soul Cycle boasts an inspiring workout plan and talented rockstar instructors.  Soul Cycle’s website has a simple layout, which is quick and easy for its users to navigate. Its CTA ‘find/buy classes’ is well displayed and highlighted in yellow on the topmost right corner of its home page.

2. The Stronghold Climbing Gym

Website Link: https://www.strongholdclimb.com

This gym offers one of the best indoor climbing services in America. Moreover, it has the best strength training and cardio equipment, which help improve the climbing abilities of its clientele. Its website has a clean, chic design, with social media links prominently displayed on its home page. Moreover, they show full contact information on the home page; and this builds credibility and enables new clients to inquire more about the gym services effectively.

3. Swerve Fitness

Website Link: https://www.swervefitness.com

Swerve Fitness focuses on placing its attendees in different classes, and after a class, you receive an email to find out how you performed. Swerve Fitness has excellent facilities such as a smoothie bar, superlative lockers, and a lounge. They have an attractive home page, with their CTAs clearly displayed on it. Its home page also shows how it has been featured in Business Insider, Bloomberg, and Fox Business. The studio also displays its blog, an FAQ page, and social media links.

4. F45 Training

Website Link: https://f45training.com

F45 Training started in Australia in the year 2012, and it has grown its clientele base to the extent of opening new branches in other countries, including the United States. This gym has specialized and enthusiastic instructors who will take you through an intense, results-oriented workout session for just 45 minutes, and this is how its name ‘F45′ came into being.

Its website is creatively designed with unique templates that can quickly catch the attention of all its users. Its CTAs and social media sharing buttons are displayed on all its web pages, and it also has an optimized video that showcases its facilities.

5. Orange Theory Fitness

Website Link: https://www.orangetheoryfitness.com

This gym brings in new ideas in the fitness business; its members can exercise and, at the same time, view their heart rate levels. This way, its members can know how fit they are and work hard on achieving their fitness goals.  This gym has a unique website design that has a distinct brand image and identity. Its website also has an informative blog and a clear CTA well displayed on the top of the homepage.

6. Tone House

Website Link: https://www.tonehouse.com

Alonzo Wilson, who was a famous NFL player, established Tone House. They offer services that include bodyweight classes, plyometrics, and HIIT sessions. Its website is stocked up with exciting videos that showcase its facilities and training sessions. Its CTA comes in the form of a pop-up notification, which entices internet users to sign up for its classes. It also has an extensive FAQ and Contact Us pages.

7. Unbreakable Performance

Website Link: https://www.unbreakableperformance.com

Unbreakable Performance is an exclusive gym that you will have to apply to before becoming one of its members. Former athletes; Jay Glazer and Brian Urlacher founded this Los Angeles-based Studio. Its website has a chic black-and-white design, with its CTAs prominently displayed in blue. Its web pages load quickly, and its straightforward layout makes it relatively easy for its users to navigate its different sections.

8. SoHo Strength Lab

Website Link: https://sohostrengthlab.com

This gym enables its clients to exercise with sandbags, power sleds, and battle ropes. It also offers individual and personalized workout plans to its members. Its website has a simple black-and-white layout with a user-friendly design. Though its homepage has some downsides, such as no clear CTAs, it has excellent, informative content that helps visitors learn more about the studio.

9. Solid Core

Website Link: https://solidcore.co

Solid Core is present in multiple cities across America. It mainly focuses on pilates, and its gym membership is growing each passing day.  Solid Core has a non-cluttered website design, which has detailed pictures of its facilities and workout sessions. They display the CTA clearly on the top part of its homepage. Its website also has different sections, such as a contact us page, faqs, and social media links.

10. Tough Mudder Boot Camp

Website Link: https://tmbootcamp.com

Tough Mudder was established in 2010, and it offers 45-minute workout classes to its members. Tough Mudder Boot Camp boasts values such as courage, fun, personal accomplishment, and teamwork. This gym has branches in multiple cities across the United States. TMB took the step of creatively designing the site with a beautiful orange theme, and they also displayed the CTA clearly on the homepage. It also has an interesting blog and social media links.

11. Komo Studio

Website link: https://komohawaii.com/

Komo Studio is a fitness studio based in Hawaii that offers full-body workouts and an engaged, inspiring personal trainer in the form of Joy Bitonio.

Komo Studio’s website is designed with lead generation in mind – providing visitors with clear CTAs for joining their studio or booking a singular class. The site also does a great job of putting Joy and her classes front and center, showing you exactly what’s in store for you when you sign up.

12. 1Rebel   

Website link: https://www.1rebel.co.uk/

1Rebel uses video for their website’s background, which is a great way to give visitors an insight into what to expect from your classes. The top panel of navigation is a clever CTA dedicated to prompting visitors to book and buy classes, while on the main page of the site, users can find more information on each class. As a studio, 1Rebel prides itself on giving members a one-of-a-kind workout experience set to playlists specially curated by their trainers. With this, it’s a nice touch that visitors can get a taste of the action and engage with the brand by accessing a 1Rebel playlist through Spotify at the bottom right of the page. 

13. Prevail Boxing

Website link: http://www.prevailboxing.com/

LA’s premier boxing studio has a sleek and straightforward website. The homepage is a clickable still image that is actually an embedded YouTube video. The video depicts real in-class footage, so straight away, potential members can see what to expect. This is a great technique to get visitors to dive in and engage with your site. 

More information on each class is available through the links at the top of the place and links to pricing, class bookings, trainers, and an online store. This website is a perfect example of simplicity and sleek design well-done. 

14. PlateFit

Website link: https://platefit.co/

PlateFit’s subtle background image sums up what to expect in this studio. (Well, that and the name). What this website does nicely is jumping straight in with eye-catching CTA’s encouraging visitors to book and an incentivizing offer right off the bat. But the most interesting thing about this website happens before you even land on the homepage:

The site has an embedded lead capture form that pops up as soon as the landing page loads. This is an excellent idea for capturing leads before they’ve looked around your site and left.

15. Bells Gym

Website: https://www.bellsgym.co.uk/

Based in Altrincham, Manchester, Bells Gym is a boxing and fitness studio run by Steve Bell. Steve is a former professional featherweight boxer who started Bells Gym to bring boxing and fitness to the local area in a more family-friendly atmosphere. 

Bells Gym website automatically plays a video once you enter. Sweeping shots and close-ups of the members working out brings you firmly into the world of Bells. Below the video, there are Steve and his coaches’ profiles, so you get to know the staff before you even enter.

16. Hot House Yoga

Website: https://hothouseyogi.com/

On a recent episode of our podcast, we were joined by Christopher and John Yax from Hot House Yoga, based in Virginia, USA. The guys are experts in marketing and selling high-value yoga offers and are also pretty good at showcasing what they have to offer on their website. What we like about this site is that they have their latest offering on display when you enter. It immediately entices you to sign up, and below this, there is an offer to sign up for a beginner course.

17. The Studio Method

Website link: https://www.thestudiomethod.co.uk

The Studio Method is a personal training and group training fitness studio based in Cardiff. Similarly to Bells Gym, you are welcomed by a video that takes you through the world of The Studio Method. Video is such an engaging form of communication, and it works great on the main page of a website. The navigation takes you down the page to a tour of the facility, the timetable, class descriptions, and most importantly, a section where you can book into a class or sign up for a longer-term membership.

The True Secret Behind a Modern Successful Gym Website

Want to know something interesting?

Almost all of those fitness businesses are partnered with ABC Glofox.

Using our platform as a lead-generating machine, these businesses are able to create automated emails to all their potential leads through the ABC Glofox platform. Then, once they’ve signed up through the ABC Glofox platform, they are then given an automated e-agreement, a simple way to enter their payment details, and an automated onboarding experience that can teach them everything they need to know about their business. Then, they are free to use the custom-branded app provided by ABC Glofox to book a class or session of their choosing.

ABC Glofox allows these businesses to professionalize their member experience, while also saving them hours of time and a considerable amount of money.

Want to learn how ABC Glofox can help your business?