Fitness Website Design Analysis — Albuquerque, New Mexico

As always, these business website design analyses are here so you can see examples of sites that are incorporating all of the 5 essentials of business website design. My next analysis comes from the fitness industry. The business, Open Gym, is located in Albuquerque, NM.

See the site in action: www.theopengym.com

Design
One of the most important things to do with your website design is clearly reinforce the personality and message of your business, and the Open Gym website does a great job of that. The background of the moon and stars immediately lets you know that this gym is going to be open later than most gyms (in fact 24/7), and the design elements are professional, but not so polished that the gym feels “corporate”, which perfectly matches the feel of the Open Gym.

Marketing
There are 3 specific things related to the marketing on the website that I want to mention.

1. They have two different calls to action on the left side of their homepage, one for a FREE pass and one to register with a waived sign up fee. Normally, you only want one clear call to action on a webpage, but in this case Open Gym is going to have two different kinds of people coming to their site: those that want more info and those that are ready to sign up. Better to give them both a chance to respond right away.
2. They have all of their contact information available in the footer of the website, so it is available no matter where you are on the site.
3. They have client testimonials available at the bottom of their home and about us pages, which boosts their credibility in the eyes of prospects.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO is the practice of optimizing the copy on your website so that search engines can understand what your website is about and how they should rank it for particular keywords. I can’t tell exactly what key word phrases are being targeted on the specific pages of the site, but by using the words “gym”, “fitness” and “Albuquerque” repeatedly, they let Google know who they are and what they do, so Google can direct the appropriate traffic to them.

Copywriting
There is a certain amount of hesitation present in everybody that is looking for a new gym. Is the equipment nice? Are the people who work and go there nice? Will I feel embarrassed if I’m not in shape when I start? The copy on the Open Gym website is personal and inviting. They let the visitor see pictures of their gym and pictures and bios of staff members, which helps people feel comfortable trying it out or signing up.

Programming
Quality programming is tough to see, because usually if you are noticing the programming it’s because it isn’t working properly. It is nonetheless very important, and I didn’t encounter any difficulties when navigating the site. How about you?

What do you think about this site? Let’s get the conversation going in the comments.

Best,
Shannon