How to get a website for less than £100 and promote it!

Every business needs a website. That’s a fact these days. No one can find you online if you aren’t online, seems obvious doesn’t it? Getting a website doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. In fact, you can actually get a fully functional website for under £100! And that includes advertising! Sound good? Read on…

There are certain things you can’t get for free. But the majority is out there for you to find if you put in the effort. Not everyone needs to hire a website designer. Maybe in the future, when you have expanded your business to a nationwide service. But when you first want to put yourself out there, you aren’t going to need to fork out thousands. Here is all you need:

·         Domain name – For those of you who aren’t up to date with the tech lingo; this is your website address (for example www.ArunGrayPT.com). Obviously some of these website names are taken (such as Facebook.com and Google.com) but chances are, if you are going to be using your name, it is probably available. It doesn’t have to be your name however. If you have a business name, use that! Have a play around with ideas and see what you can come up with. This will cost you around £6.99 per year for a .co.uk domain, or £9.99 for a .com domain; depending on what you would like to go for. I would stick to these two rather than .org or .net… but that’s just my preference as I think they don’t look as professional to customers.

·         Website host – This is the service that will put your website on the Internet. Basically, they are the middle man between your website and your customers. There are hundreds out there to choose from and I will recommend a few below.

 

Buying a domain

As I touched on above; your domain name can be anything… within reason. If you decided (for some reason) to add expletives to your domain, it will probably get blacklisted by Google and customers won’t find it. But that would be stupid so I’m sure you thought of that! I would choose something that clearly shows what you do. So, instead of www.ArunGray.co.uk you could go for www.ArunGrayPT.co.uk which shows you’re a PT. This way, customers know what they’re getting. If they see “Joe Bloggs” on Google and then see “Arun Gray Personal Training” below it, even though it’s lower on the list, they are more likely to click on it as they can see it’s the website of a personal trainer.

GoDaddy are one of the biggest domain selling sites in the world and their website it pretty easy to navigate. As I mentioned earlier, you can pick up a domain for under £10.

 

 

Website hosting

Hosting can again be simple, as long as you do a few YouTube searches and have a look at some how-to guides. I like Yola. It starts just £27 a year to host your website under their Bronze package. This is all I use and I attract a good amount of traffic. They use a simple drag and drop style design so you don’t need to learn any html programming which is what puts most people off creating a website. You simply drag a text box or image box from their easy-to-navigate tool bar and place it where you want on your page. There are also little widgets you can add such as Facebook “like” buttons which you can link to your Facebook pages.

 

If you want to keep everything in one place, GoDaddy also offer a hosting service for just £29.88 per year.

 

What should you include?

The basics you need on your website are:

·         Home/Welcome page – Again, sounds obvious but this is the first thing your potential customers will see. It needs to be clear, professional and appealing. Images always stand out more and if people see loads of text, they probably won’t read it. Put on some pictures of past clients, yourself, your equipment.

·         Contact page – Once you’ve attracted anyone to your website, your next goal is to get them to contact you. This is how you clinch your sale. They will be interested if they have visited your site. The only way they can get hold of you is if you show them how too. Include everything. Phone, address, email, social media accounts, even a map. Yola automatically places a map on your contact page if you have entered your address. This is visually appealing and will attract your customers’ attention.

·         About page – Again, an obvious but vital page. You need to explain who you are, what you do, how you can help people. Include details such as, how experienced you are, what qualifications you have, what sort of things you offer and what you specialise in. Think about the things people will be searching for. People often want to hire a personal trainer either for weight loss or for muscle building. Think about this when writing your bio. It’s a way of selling yourself. It will be there for the rest of your career, make it impressive. It’s like a CV. You wouldn’t apply for a job with a thin, short CV.

 

 

Promote!

Once you’ve purchased your domain name and you are hosted online, you need to get people on your website. The more people that see your website, the more sales you will make. If 5% of the people that visit your website become customers, for every 100 people that see your site 5 will become clients. This figure is much more flattering if 10,000 people are seeing your website! This can be done in two forms: online and offline promotion.

Online promotion involved adverts, getting your name out there and giving your page the best chance of being found on search engines. Look into search engine optimisation. Hire a SEO consultant. Purchase ads on Facebook, Google, Twitter.

Offline promotion is much more simple. Flyers, posters, signs, banners, clothing, business cards, directly telling people about your website.

Everything you do should include your website. Even if people see it and don’t need/want your service… they might do in the future. When they do need your help, they will know where to find you! Get your website printed on everything. Your uniform, business cards, even your car! It can also help with current customers. If they are with your for weight loss and they see you run a boot camp at the weekend, they might want to find out more.

Get yourself out there!

Do You Have a Logo? – A PTs Guide to Logo Design

Why do you need one?

Having a business and getting customers is all about standing out. It is very rare that you are the only business of your kind in your catchment area. Think of builders, gyms, taxi companies. There are almost always more than one in your town. You need to find a way of standing out straight away. So this is where your logo comes into use. When looking out for a personal trainer, if the client finds the details of 3 PT’s in their town, one has a logo; the other two don’t. Their attention is immediately drawn to the one with a logo. Even if it is basic, it’s a step above the other two. The client then looks for more information on that personal trainer with the logo. That’s how the human mind works. A logo makes you look more established and conveys that you are reputable. A logo makes you more memorable. If they aren’t looking for a trainer now but will in a month’s time and they see your logo, it sticks in their mind. Then, in a month when they have put on a bit of weight or have an event coming up and want some help, you jump straight into their mind.  It’s basic psychology and used in every-day marketing. Can you think of any global businesses that don’t have a logo? Me neither.

How do you get one?

You have two options when looking to get yourself a logo. You can either create one yourself, or hire a logo designer. The benefits of creating the logo yourself are obviously that you save money, have more flexibility of the design and that you can make minor adjustments to get it exactly how you want it. However, to make a really professional-looking logo, you need to know what you’re doing with software such as Photoshop. Let’s face it, as a personal trainer, you probably don’t! This is where hiring a logo designer comes in handy, and believe it or not, if you know where to look; they aren’t actually that costly. Freelance designers use websites such as People Per Hour and Fiverr to advertise their services. You can get hold of a designer on these sites and get your logo created for as little as £5! Obviously if you want a better services it might be worth forking out a little extra money. They will often send you their drafts and ask what you think to make sure the logo is what you want. They even come up with ideas if you have no idea what you want. It’s certainly worth looking into.

 

How should you then use it?

Now that you have your logo, stick it EVERYWHERE. This is all about building a brand. Get the logo associated with your business. Use it on social media pages, your website, your uniform and certainly your business cards. Everyone that knows about your business needs to see it. Even people who are aware of what you do may be excited by it and have the impression that you’re successful. You might not have any clients but you will stand out above the PT with 20 clients if he doesn’t have a logo! Get yourself in online directories and add your logo to the listing. You only have to think of things like Football post-match interviews to see the logos printed on the boards behind the interviewed player. Think of Facebook’s logo. It’s just the letter “F”. But almost everyone you ask will know what it means and what business it belongs to. That is the power of marketing. You see that letter “F” and automatically think of Facebook… you’re probably doing it now! Build a brand and along will come the business.