When building a fitness website, your focus shouldn’t be simply on advertising products or sharing the latest workout research – you should be building a brand, telling a story. After all, fitness is a way of life and you want to help your readers fully understand how to live your message. But what does this look like in practice?
To fully embrace your health-conscious messaging and communicate it through your website, try these four simple strategies. Your readers are sure to come away with a fuller sense of how to walk (or run) the talk.
Keep It Clean
The first thing you should do when building your fitness website is to keep the design simple. You don’t need all sorts of bells and whistles on a health website because, ultimately, most fitness messaging is about simplifying your life through improved health. Pare down your layout, keep the theme simple, and move on from there.
Share Your Story
You’re “about” page is the perfect place on your website to tell your story. Share how you came to be in this place and offer contact information. By pairing your story with your contact information, you encourage readers to share their stories as well.
Don’t forget – if you receive positive stories from readers – and you will – ask if you can share those on your site as well. Your brand is more powerful when you sell the lifestyle through a common narrative, not just a singular example.
Use Reviews As Reflections
Product reviews are a valuable part of your fitness website because much of the time the products and brand loyalty form the core of how we’ve reformed our lives around fitness. Your site also likely sells select wellness products. But how do you review products without just sounding like you’re hawking any old thing?
Again, your story comes into play, but so do the facts. Talk about how you, your friends, or your clients have benefited from a product and then shift into the medical evidence. This review of lipotropic injections offers a good example – postulating a reason why readers may be struggling to lose weight and then explaining how this product counteracts this issue. Medical fact bolsters your narrative in powerful ways.
In addition to that, be discerning about the products you choose to promote on your wellness website. Make sure that these products can contribute to good fitness and that the brand behind it is committed to doing the same. Reviewing and recommending fitness products, like elastic kinesiology tapes, protein shakes, and supplements, allow you to connect people to products that will help them achieve their wellness goals.
Reinforce The Lifestyle
Another strategy that will help build your fitness site’s narrative is the concept that wellness – specifically the wellness model you’re promoting – is a religion or a lifestyle. When you go to Reebok’s website, for example, it’s clear that the company has built their entire site around encouraging fitness and specifically around encouraging fitness for “average” people. They have a sponsorship with CrossFit, sell reasonably priced, fitness wear, and even focus on fitness-specific ads. Their lifestyle messaging is exceedingly strong.
Ultimately, as Business On Market St. points out, your brand needs to be a religion; it needs to inspire loyalty. And when you think more deeply about this statement, the need for narrative becomes clear – all religions have a backstory that supports their overall message. Find the heart of your story and tell it over and over in new and compelling ways and your readers will internalize it and learn to live it too.