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www.yourwebsite.co.nz
Time for
my 6 weekly hair cut. Clippers, short back and sides, trim on top … just
what is required to keep up appearances in business! Now, although this
has very little to do with this month's ClubMarketer eNews
(which
incidentally is dedicated to the importance of your website),
on my visit to the local hairdresser I came across a novel marketing idea
which I thought I would share first.
On entry to the hairdressers, I was greeted and duly seated. A black
cover was wrapped around me to protect my clothes as per usual. I noticed
some writing and a logo on the cover, although it was strangely back to
front. However, on looking directly into the mirror in front of me it all
became clear … for the next 20 minutes during my haircut I was going to be
staring straight at the Vodafone logo and
their
latest promotional offer in the mirror! A relatively inexpensive and
effective way to build your profile.
Perhaps an opportunity for increasing the profile of your gym? It
may only cost you the value of a set of black covers for the local barber!
Now on to
more important things… This week’s article is about the importance of
your club's
website.
Many, perhaps most of you already have a web presence.
But
why
does your club require a website?
Surely people know where your gym is and will walk in off the street if
they are interested in joining.
If you are in a small town, this may be the case. However, we need
to face the fact that in this day and age there are a number of huge
benefits to being part of the world wide web. Consider the following
for example.
Attract
new members to your gym
A huge percentage of the population now have internet access at home or at
work. Many people will use the internet as the first point of
contact when searching for products or services, contact details and the
like. If, for example, a businessman is looking for a new gym then
they will more than likely search for a website to get an idea of the
facility first. This is where your web presence can attract new
members to your club .... or on the other hand ... if you have a
poor quality website, no website, or even one that is particularly
difficult to find, you may be losing potential members.
Generate
new leads for follow up
Your
website can be a great source of new leads for your club. This gives
your membership consultants the opportunity to contact them and encourage
them to join your gym. Perhaps operating online competitions,
offering a free trial of your facility, the ability to subscribe to a
health & fitness newsletter, or even details of your latest promotions may
be ideas for attracting new leads via the web. Anything that
generates interest and gathers contact details for future follow up.
Make it easy and rewarding for the public to contact you via your website
and you will reap the rewards.
Increase
the profile of your gym
If
individuals searching for health information, a gym, personal trainer or
any other fitness information in your area are constantly yielding your
website in the search results, this will obviously increase the profile of
your gym.
Communicate
with
members
One of the best
uses for your website is to communicate with your members. This may
be through supplying the latest gym information such as changes to class
timetables, details of new staff, perhaps changes to opening hours during
bank holidays. Alternatively, it could include a members only area
with all the latest in fitness articles, training programmes and health
information for their perusal. What an easy, and fantastic way to
increase the perceived value of your service!
Sell
fitness products
Some gym owners will also use their website as
an opportunity for the sale of further products to gym members.
Perhaps this could include supplements, training clothing or other fitness
related products.
OK, we know the benefits of a website. Now how
do we raise the awareness of our website?
Here are a couple of important tips when optimising your website for
visitors.
1. Firstly, make your website worth visiting and revisiting.
Ensure it is constantly updated with useful information for the general
public and your members. There is nothing worse than a site that is
constantly out of date.
2.
Ensure
all correspondence
and promotional material you send out has your
website address
listed.
3.
List your website in the popular search engines such as Google,
Yahoo
etc. Up
to 85% of web traffic comes from search engines so you need to optimise
your site for it.
4.
List your website in popular web directories.
This will
assist you in increasing the visitors to your website.
For
information on upgrading your listing in the Gyms.co.nz web directory to a
profiled listing
click here
5.
Increase
the
number of
quality sites linking to your website.
This will improve your
search engine rating.
For
information on having a link from Gyms.co.nz to your website
click here
6.
Improve the
quality and specificity of
keywords
in your website. Keywords are specific words that you attach to your
website to optimise the search engine listing when these terms are entered
in Google etc. Improving the quality of your keywords, as well as
how specific they are will also improve the search engine rating of
your website.
Optimising your website on the internet is not as simple as black and
white. It is an ongoing process of changing keywords, re submitting
to search engines, attracting new links and more. However,
unfortunately with such importance placed on a good search engine listing
these days .... everyone is striving for the same goal!
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