If you're running a Crossfit Affiliate, having a strong online presence is extremely important to drive new member leads and growth. But when you have tons of other things to worry about, it can be overwhelming. In this guide, we'll break down how to improve your Affiliate's online presence and optimize it for lead generation.
In this blog post, we'll cover:
- Why is your online presence important for your Crossfit Affiliate?
- How do I build a website for my Crossfit Affiliate?
- Crossfit Affiliate website design examples
- Common mistakes when building a website for my Crossfit Affiliate
Why is your online presence important for your Crossfit Affiliate?
Your website, social media, and reviews are going to be your first impression for potential members. So making an investment in your online presence can go a long way.
Put yourself in a potential members shoes. They come across your website and it is outdated, difficult to navigate, and doesn't work well on a mobile device. Are you going to want to get out of your comfort zone and visit that gym? Probably not. As they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression.
So take some time and make your online presence as strong as your workouts! Take the opportunity and show off your brand, expertise, and amazing community and give a potential member confidence to come in and try things out!
How do I build a website for my Crossfit Affiliate?
Building a new website or doing a website redesign for your Crossfit Affiliate can feel like a daunting and overwhelming task. But it doesn't have to be!
The best way to go about creating a new website is to break it down into some simple steps:
- Outline your goals for your new website
- Set a time and money budget
- Choose a website builder
- Find a template
- Take some photos of the box
- Optimize for SEO
- Launch
Now let's break these steps down...
Outline your goals for your new website
Why are you building a new Crossfit Affiliate website? Is it simply to update your branding? Is it to generate more leads? Is it because you're just opening?
Without a clear goal in mind, just like with your workouts, it's much harder to stay focused and motivated. So set a goal that's measurable. For example:
My goal for my new website is to improve my branding and generate 5 new member leads per month
Set a time and money budget
When designing a new website, it can be easy to go overboard and want everything to be perfect. But don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Remember, once your website is launched, you can always make changes. We've worked with dozens of Crossfit Affiliates, and much of the time, they delay their new website launch until everything is absolutely perfect. Google still needs to reindex your new site, so the longer you wait, the longer it will take to see the benefits to your search rankings.
So set a budget in money and time and work toward that deadline.
Choose a website builder
Now it's time to decide where you want to build and host your new Crossfit Affiliate website. Below are some options:
- Zipper - We'll build you a new Crossfit Affiliate website in less than 24 hrs. Automated SEO, social media and blog automation, lead generating and mobile-friendly designs. We also have integrated booking, payments, and member management tools. Click here to get a free website draft
- Wordpress - Wordpress is a flexible solution for building a new Crossfit Affiliate website. There are thousands of templates to choose from and plug-ins to add to help with SEO, blogging, forms, email and more. This is recommended for a more technical user who wants a lot of customization
- Wix - Wix is a website builder to help get a new website up and running quickly. Make sure to check that the template you are using is mobile optimized and be aware that Wix is a generic website builder, not specifically designed for wellness and fitness businesses, so you may need to integrate other tooling.
Find a template
Now that you have a website builder chosen, find a nice template that reflects your box's brand. Some things to consider:
- Mobile-friendly - Make sure the template works on mobile and tablets automatically. The majority of traffic to your site will be on mobile, so make sure it's easy for them to navigate.
- Optimized for lead generation - Make sure the template has best practices in place for leads. For example, have a clear call-to-action on the home page for the user, without them needing to scroll
- SEO-optimized - Make sure the template is optimized technically for SEO, and then make sure to optimize each page for SEO as welll.
Pages you should have on your website:
- Home page
- About
- Team
- Prices / Services
- Offer landing page - ie. Get Your First Class Free
- Blog
- Contact Us
Take Photos of the Box
The next thing to do is to get some updated content to add to your new website. Snap some photos during the next class, get a group photo of the team, get new team headshots, and get some photos of the facility.
Many Crossfit Box owners want to wait until they can hire a professional photographer. Again, this can be a step 2. For now, your phone will be more than enough. You can always improve small things over time.
Optimize for SEO
Now that you've created a first draft of your new Crossfit Affiliate website, and added new text and photos, it's time to optimize for SEO.
SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization" and simply means optimizing your site to show up on Google for certain search terms, or "keywords".
Take a few minutes and brainstorm terms you want to show up for when a potential lead is looking for your services. Here are some examples:
- Crossfit classes near me
- HIIT classes in Sommerville
- Group fitness in Boston
We'd recommend listing all of the surrounding towns/cities that you serve in this process as well and aim to get these phrases on your website. Here are the areas to make sure to include SEO:
- H1 Headers
- Meta Description
- Image-alt text
- Title Tags
- Sitemap
Want some help here? Get in touch for a free SEO analysis.
Time to launch!
Now that you have a new Crossfit Affiliate website designed and you've optimized for SEO, it's time to launch!
Crossfit Affiliate Website Design Examples
Crossfit 557
Crossfit Sanitas
Common Mistakes When Building a Website for my Crossfit Affiliate
Spending too much on an agency or consultant
Don't spend thousands on an agency or consultant. You can improve your website on your own, or use a platform like Zipper which will get a new website launched for you in less than 24 hours using AI.
Not optimizing for mobile
Over 50% of traffic will be on mobile. Make sure your website is optimized for it so you don't lose a potential member from a bad mobile experience.
Not creating redirect links
When you create a new website and have new pages that have different URLs from your old website, make sure to create redirect links to the new page URLs. Otherwise, these links will be dead.
Waiting too long to launch
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Remember to launch something quickly to allow Google to begin to reindex the new website, then you can slowly improve it over time with more pages, new images, and blogs.
We built Zipper to help Crossfit Affiliate owners spend less time worry about marketing and more time helping their members hit new PRs. Looking for marketing help or want a free, custom website draft built by our team? Reach out!
