Here’s my thoughts on a personal training business site.  I think you’ll be able to pick up some good tips from this if you run a local business (or a training studio)

The site: Mike Hanley’s Studio that offers Personal Training in New Jersey (TheTrainingStudioNJ.com)

Initial thoughts

Ok where did he get this designer and why haven’t I hired him yet?  Seriously this is a great, clean design that has pretty much everything you could need for a local business.

I’m split on designs a lot.  Being a big blog reader and also a big fan of direct marketing, its tough to combine the two.  I do however think there can be a middle ground where a good design meets great copy and this will bring in you in some customers…

Problems I see with the site…

  • The copy sounds like it was written by an exercise scientist, not a real human being.  This is killer #1, when trying to connect with your audience.  If your audience says over and over that they want to lose body fat, then don’t try and tell them about your stability training, core activation and corrective exercises.  Your client wants to hear that you have the solution for their problem.  Don’t shove your agenda down their throat.
  • The SEO on the site could be improved a lot.  On the programs/services page each of those services needs its own seperate page.  So for example, he should have a page on Nurtrition, Powerlifting, Bodybuilding etc…  This way he’ll be bale to rank in the search engines for each of those phrases…

ex… New Jersey Nutritionist, Powerlifting in New Jersey etc….

  • The call to action needs to be better.  Just putting a link to your email is not gonna cut it.  You need to get in their face and tell them exactly what you want them to do.  John Carlton calls this “selling from your heels” and it’s a major mistake.  When it comes time you need to give a big ole phone number for them to call or a huge button to click on to send you an email.  Don’t hold back when it comes time to take action…
  • Testimonials need to be featured on the homepage.  I think I found a few testimonials on some other pages, but we need to get them right up in the front and center.  Testimonials are the lifeblood of a local business site.  You could sell a personal training package with nothing more than before and after pictures if you had to.  Before and after pics are absolutely necessary when it comes to selling a fitness product. My business partner Vic who runs Fitness Bootcamps in Columbus also has made this mistake.  He has testimonials on his personal training page, but not on his bootcamp page.
  • The title tags need keywords.  One of the biggest factors in ranking well in the search engines are the keywords in your title tags.  Mike’s site has some pretty general title tags, and has no local keywords in them.  His target should be to rank for local keywords like New Jersey Personal Trainer or New Jersey Nutritionist.  Having things like Programs/Services in the title tag is doing him no good.

There ya go, those are some of the biggest mistakes on his site.  If you are making any of these, you should probably get them switched up as soon as possible :)

- Justin

{ 0 comments }

Your Story

When I was at the Elite Retreat marketing conference, I sat down with PR & social media rockstar Chris Winfield and the first thing he said when he looked at Gym Junkies was “Whats the story here?”

I thought our blog was in great shape in regards to design, but after having it picked apart by most of the guys there, I knew I needed to make some changes.  This is quite humbling to guy like me who thinks they know everything :)

Chris recommended we feature Vic’s story on the blog as much as we could (especially since its a great story).  I jumped on this right away and created a tab at the top of the blog that said “my story”.

After doing some testing with Crazy Egg, I found that page has become one of the most popular pages to click on in our site.  Along with that, I think it really helps give new visitors an idea of what our blog is about in a quick way…

Add a My Story page to your site and let people know who you are and where you came from.  You could also use a video to tell this story as well…

Personality

The old design on Gym Junkies had what I thought was a good design.  It matched our hardcore image perfectly.

After talking to Stephan Spencer at Elite Retreat, he told me he thought our site looked “too corporate”.  I was a bit surprised at this considering we havent even tried to sell any products yet (or take advertising)

His suggestion was to move our blog to a different domain, which had a more personal feel.  I totally disagreed with him on this, as our blog is the main component of our site, and I dont think that would have helped at all.

However, I did take his advice and pump more personality into the site by adding a picture of Vic to the top header and featuring more video/audio/picture content on our site.

This is a HUGE tip for all bloggers.  Make sure your blog looks like its one guy running a hobby site.  Even if you’re making $30k per month, you dont want your readers to think this is some big corporate process with multiple people working on it everyday.

Let your personality shine through on the blog, and you’ll connect with your readers in a much deeper way…

Let me know is this helped you.  leave me a comment below!

- Justin

{ 2 comments }

Craig is one of the guys in my mastermind group that meets every 2 weeks, and he is flat out killing it online right now.

He sells the Turbulence Training workout ebook and also kills it with his membership site.

He interviewed me a month or so ago for his monthly newsletter at Online Super Profits.  I dished out some really good info on blogging and what you can do to get more traffic for free, how to improve your blog, how to get it designed and a bunch of other topics.

The thing most people don’t realize is Craig is just a normal dude like you and me… The only difference is he busts his ass day in and day out and makes products that he knows his readers want to buy.

I highly recommend you checking out Craig’s products/blog, and taking some notes.  You’ll learna  thing or two for sure!

- Justin

{ 1 comment }

My buddy Dennis, just emailed this picture to me.  It was from the day we graduated high school (about 6 years ago).  All I can says is WOW.  By the way Im pretty gangsta dont ya think?

I’m on the left

{ 3 comments }

Dennis Yu has been helping me a bunch lately with my local search marketing questions.  He’s at the forefront of local search marketing, and has really helped me a lot with some local search questions…

Also GymJunkies had a big problem last week with the blog and my buddy Shoemoney and his partner Dave were able to fix it  for me in no time flat.  When Gym Junkies blows up I will pay GOOD money to have an awesome programmer on hand like Dave.

” Don’t whine.  Don’t complain.  Don’t make excuses” - Coach Wooden

I’m going through all of the applications now, and I will get back to you on Sunday or Monday.

There were WAY more than I ever expected, so this will be tough narrowing it down to pick the final clients to work with…

- J

Vic sent me this email/text last night during the webinar. Chalk up one more Facebook ads success.

Vic’s booked 3 personal training clients off just 1 day of running Facebook ads so far. This will amount to around $9,000 in extra income for him over the next six months….

If you’re ready to stop wasting time and money with other forms of marketing, head over to my Client Rush page now and see what all the hoopla is about…

Applications are coming in quick for Client Rush. I’ve gotten a bunch of applications already and I only have 2 spots left for this service, click here to see it —> http://www.justingoff.com/client-rush

Details : Wednesday March 25th at 8 PM ET on UStream

Facebook ads are seriously a goldmine for personal trainers and bootcamp instructors. We’ve generated over 20 leads in just one day for Vic’s gym here in Columbus. I’ve been killing it for him, and I’m gonna show you some of the tips Ive learned thus far…

You’ll be able to learn from my mistakes and not have to waste hundreds of dollars like I did…

Some topics I will cover…

  • Breaking down actual successful Facebook ads I’ve made
  • I’ll show you which Facebook ads work and which ads don’t work
  • What offers are working for getting clients in the door
  • How to get a better click through rate (which means cheaper clicks)
  • Facebook ads vs. Google PPC (how they are different, and which is better)
  • Q&A -I’ll answer any of the questions you have when it comes to Facebook ads, blogging and online marketing in general…

This will be a LIVE Ustream on Wednesday night at 8 PM.

Just show up to this link and watch as we go over it… http://www.ustream.tv/channel/goffapalooza

See ya tomorrow!

- Justin

{ 7 comments }

A few weeks ago, Lyndsey and I made a 6 hour drive to Knoxville, TN to pick up my new puppy.  She’s a lazy 11 week old Blue Great Dane (yes I know she’s gonna be huge) who literally sleeps 3/4 of the day.

If she’s not sleepin she’s usually wrestling with my roomate’s Bulldog. There’s a bunch more pics of her on my Facebook page, if you want to see those, add me as a friend

BTW Dempsey will be making a guest visit on my upcoming webinar on Ustream.  I’ll be covering Facebook Ads for personal trainers and bootcamp instructors in depth…

Some of the topics I’ll cover are…

  • Breaking down actual successful Facebook ads I’ve made
  • I’ll show you what Facebook ads work and what ads don’t work
  • What offers are working for getting clients in the door
  • How to get a better click through rate (which means cheaper clicks)
  • Facebook ads vs. Google PPC (how they are different, and which is better)
  • Q&A -I’ll answer any of the questions I can when it comes to Facebook ads, blogging and online marketing in general…

Webinar will be on Wednesday, March 25th at 8 PM ET.

Here is the link to my Ustream page where the webinar will be… http://www.ustream.tv/channel/goffapalooza.  Just show up and you’ll see my pretty face.  You can type in the chat box and ask me questions…

See ya Wednesday…

- Justin

{ 4 comments }