How to make a website as a personal trainer

If you're a personal trainer looking to move online, the thought of setting up a website can be overwhelming.

We’re going to take you through exactly what you need to know, including:

• steps to take
   
• tools you can use
   
• how it fits in with the bigger picture

But before you tackle your website, make sure you get the basics of your business sorted.

Because creating one won’t suddenly mean you’re inundated with clients overnight.

What should a website do?

Your website should help:

• get more leads
   
• close more sales
   
• coach more clients

It should serve as a digital business card that conveys one message: that you are a person that can solve a client's problem.

So, how do you do that?

Your website should link to your:

• socials
   
• videos
   
• blog feed

And it should entice people to share their email address with you and be added to your mailing list.

The 14-day sales sequence

Our own fitness website has a pretty simple design, collecting opt-ins through our online ‘calorie calculator.’

And we’ve found that the average amount of time it takes to complete a sale is 14.7 days.

This is why standardising the experience everyone has with you will help maximise sales.

To help with this, we recommend our 14-day automated sales sequence, which you can find out about in our free training video.

Make it easy for yourself

So, where do you start when you’re creating your online personal training website?

One key principle is to make it easy for yourself.

Most business decisions come down to choosing between time or money.

Choosing tools that are very technical usually means that they’re:

• customisable
   
• cheap
   
• flexible

But it will often take some time to figure out how to get them working.

If you choose something that’s fresh out of the box, it won’t be very customisable and it’s likely to be more expensive.

But it will save you time.

Where to start

Generally, there are three options when you’re creating a website. You can go for:

1. All-in-one services
This allows you to pay a monthly fee to access templates and everything else you need, all ready to go.

2. DIY options
With DIY options, you need a web host and you do all of the design and plugins yourself, but this gives you maximum customisability. With this comes the caveat of possibly running into technical problems on your own.

3. ‘Concierge Services’
This is where you get the real VIP treatment. You can outsource the entire thing to those that can provide professional service and support.

As with everything, you get what you pay for. But start cheap and work your way up.

Remember: Dropping £5K on building a website in itself won’t get you clients; there’s a lot more to it!

And if you’re not sure, don’t make it harder for yourself than it has to be - just go for the all-in-one service.

But while you shouldn’t start with a blank canvas and attempt all of the design yourself, beware of shirking all technical responsibility.

If you want to set up an online business, you should be willing to engage with technology in some capacity.

What We Recommend (all-in-one options)

Now that we’ve gone through the framework for choosing a service that suits you, let’s take a look at some of the tools we’d recommend.

We're also leaving some links to our affiliates at the bottom of this post, so that you can try them out for yourself (we only ever recommend the tools that we’ve personally used for years).

Clickfunnels

ClickFunnels is great for handling your payment processing, landing pages and members’ area. It comes with conversion-tested templates and will even handle email automation if you want it to. You pay a monthly fee and can choose to assign your own custom domain to it. Its drag and drop editor is easy to use and it has some great, marketing-focused training.

Podia

We’d also recommend Podia. This is a cheaper option and looks really clean, but one downside is that it’s a bit less flexible than Clickfunnels. It’s designed around a members’ site, which is the real focus. So, it depends on what you want the purpose of your website to be.

As well as Clickfunnels and Podia, there are lots of other options out there. Squarespace and Wix seem to be improving each year, although we don’t have any experience of using these ourselves.

Something to bear in mind: Some tools throw in everything from email automation to CRM. But the ones that claim to be a jack-of-all-trades often end up being a master of none.

ActiveCampaign

Email marketing is such a profitable part of your business that it makes sense to have something completely dedicated to this. We’ve been using ActiveCampaign for years, which is great for sophisticated automations, tagging and reliable email delivery.

You can find out more about other email services in the video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KW3uhlO8hU

DIY options

As well as Clickfunnels, Podia and ActiveCampaign, there are a few DIY options you can use.

Wordpress

We use Wordpress for propanefitness.com and would recommend this for your website if you’re looking for something:

• highly adopted
   
• well-supported
   
• highly extensible
   
• simple to use and set up

And with Wordpress, there’s no coding knowledge needed, but it is web developer-friendly.

Wordpress is free, but you will need:

• hosting
   
• a web domain

Carrd

Carrd.co is a single-page website, which is totally free with ‘pro’ options that include a bit more (including lead-capture forms and Google analytics) for only $19 a year.

This could end up being a great option if you’re just looking for the bare minimum.

Ghost

Ghost is another one we love, because it’s:

• super fast
   
• really clean
   
• much more modern than Wordpress

This is a great one for people whose primary medium is blogging and writing.

But…

It needs decent technical knowledge to get set up.

This one’s also relatively cheap, but like Wordpress you’ll need hosting and a domain.

A word about hosting

For hosting (somewhere to store all the files) we recommend SiteGround or DreamHost. Both offer great support and are very easy to set up.

If you’d rather not have the hassle of dealing with hosting, you can also try Pineapple Builder. We don’t have tons of experience with this one, but it seems pretty straightforward to use.

And for a monthly fee, it handles all the stuff like hosting for you. It just won’t be quite as flexible as something like ClickFunnels.

Generating a website using AI

Finally, you can go to durable.co for help generating a website entirely using AI.

This is great if you

• don’t want to deal with any of the complex stuff
   
• are looking for a quick, easy way for people to find you and get in touch

You tell it a bit about your business and what you want the website to tell people, and it will do the rest.

It won’t have as many bells and whistles as some of the other tools, but it’s only $12 a month and cuts out loads of the hassle of creating something on your own. And you can edit and customise it all yourself.

It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, but it might help you get started and save you quite a lot of time.

What about the pages of your website?

So, by now you’ve hopefully decided:

• what you need out of your website
   
• which option to go for
   
• whether to pay for this with money 💰 or time⌚️

Now what about the pages of your website? 📝

Your website should have:

• Some sort of opt-in box: how are people going to share their email with you, so that you can keep in touch and sell your coaching?
   
• An ‘About’ page: This doesn’t have to be a novel. Just tell them a bit about who you are, your background, and how you’ve helped people solve a specific problem.
   
• A content feed: This is optional, but is a great way to link to your other content so that people can read more about you on multiple channels. If you do want to include this, remember to factor this decision into your choice of tool.
   
• A contact page: How will people get in touch with you directly? Make this obvious so there’s an easy way for people to sign up for coaching with you.

What to do next

All of the tools we’ve mentioned are designed to be as user-friendly as possible. All that’s left is for you to pick a tool that suits your needs and makes it as easy as possible for you.

Our Affiliates

You can access a free trial for Clickfunnels using this link.

Visit this link to sign up for Podia

Try Ghost here

Visit this link to try out ActiveCampaign

We’ve mentioned a few other things to consider, including a 14-day sales sequence and email marketing. To find out more about these things and take a look behind the scenes of our online business, you can get access to this free training video.

You can also take a look at this video to see how it all fits together:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVFi8TP3nBA

Speak to us about how we can help

If you’d like to speak to us in more detail about how we can help you grow your online fitness business, you can book in some time for a call.