10 common critical personal trainer website mistakes

10 Common Critical Personal Trainer Website Mistakes

From the moment you first qualify as a Personal Trainer everyone wants to tell you the best way to grow your business. I know I got advice from all sides, often from people who had never run a business or worked for themselves. People who had zero background in marketing or even making sales.

So the advice I usually got was to run adverts in local papers or get yourself a website.

So that is exactly what I did. I spent loads of money on magazine and newspaper ads. I even got myself a website. All I needed to do was sit back and wait for the phone to ring.

Unfortunately, the phone never rang, except for sales reps for yellow pages, magazines and business card sponsors, who saw that I was obviously looking to spend money on advertising.

These days having a web presence is crucial for your personal training business. Your website gives you the chance to have a conversation with a potential client, it allows them to find out more about you, it gives you an opportunity to answer the questions they may have. Most importantly it allows you to make them an offer which may move them closer to working with you.

﻿Turn Your Fitness Business Website into a Client Generating Machine


Working with hundreds of Personal Trainers I see the same mistakes made time and time again on their websites.

Here are the 10 most critical personal trainer mistakes I see

1. Not having a phone number

If someone is looking to work with you, or looking at your services they may have a question. They may just want to speak to a real person. In fact, many people do. If someone is willing to pick up the phone to you there s a good chance they are a potential client. For this reason, you should make it easy for them to get in touch with you.

2. Not showing where you are based.

When a potential client is looking for you or your services they may want to know where you are based. There is nothing worse than thinking you have a great lead and then discover they are so far away that there is just no way to make it work.

3. Making your personal trainer website all about you

Many personal trainers focus heavily on themselves, building their bodies and studying hard to learn more about nutrition and training to create the best possible physique for themselves. This doesn’t mean they should cover their website with photos of them in their underwear. In fact, I see many websites where Personal Trainers only talk about themselves, and what they do. Clients don’t really care about what you do. They are interested in what you can do for them. Can you deliver what they want?

4. Trying to be everything to everyone

You have probably been told to have a niche in your personal training business. To focus on helping one target market achieve their goals. I’m afraid I’m going to say they same thing. This is really important as It allows you to actually speak to a specific group of people. If you try to be a personal trainer who can help anyone you won’t stand out or they won’t see you as an expert.

5. Getting your images and branding all wrong

If you are trying to attract guys who want to build lots of muscle, having a picture of a woman on your website curling pink dumbbells is probably not going to make the guys think you can help them. If you are trying to attract 40-year-old women who want to lose a little weight having images of guys sweating with their shirts off and doing pull ups may actually stop them from picking up the phone or booking a consultation with you.

6. Trying to move too fast

When someone visits your website they are looking for more information and to have their questions answered. They are very very very unlikely to want to buy on their first visit, or without speaking to you first. So don’t try and sell your services. Focus on trying to sell they consultation, starter session, trial or the first step towards working with you. It’s much easier and will be much more effective.

7. Talking about the features

If I went out into the street and asked the public what a TRX, kettle bell, HIIT is, or any of the other trendy fitness terms that are fashionable, some people may know the answers but for potential clients, they may make no sense. You need to use the language and terms that your ideal clients would use. Speak in their level of understanding and language.

8. Not trying to capture an email address

When someone comes to your website they may not be looking to start personal training that moment. They may just not be ready. They may be comparing you to other trainers. One of the best things your website can do is capture email addresses for you. You have probably signed up to receive something free from a website in exchange for your email address in the past. If you haven’t you can by registering to get a free gift on the right-hand side of this post.

When you capture someone's email address it gives you the chance to build a like know and trust relationship with them. You can tell stories and keep top of mind awareness so that when they are ready to start personal training you will be the first person they will think about.

9. Trying to get people to sign up to your newsletter (or for Ebooks)

Capturing people's email addresses is vital. Offering them a free newsletter is not. People don’t want more email. They don’t want more information. They want to be entertained, with good information. Most people will skip signing up for a free newsletter. Visitors to your website are not interested in free PDFs or mp3’s. They don’t want more things to clog up their computer. If you have some great information in a PDF that is great just don’t call it a PDF.

10. Having too many options, services, and pages

Finally, when people are confused by your personal trainer website they will chose to leave and look elsewhere.

I have lost track of the number of websites I see that have so many different pages that are available on the navigation menu. Or different services that are offered. What happens is the visitor is just confused and not sure what to do or where to turn. You should keep to your message to solve their problem and try and encourage them to take the next step towards working with you.

My advice is to work your way through the mistakes above and make sure you aren’t making any of them.

If you want to get a website that guarantees leads and we clients for your personal training business then get in touch with us. That's what we do.

About the Author Internet FitPro

Over 20 years of experience in the fitness industry between them. Understand how to help you get more clients for your fitness business because they have been there in the trenches