How to Create a Gym Website in WordPress in Some Easy Steps

A proper gym needs a proper gym website, Please, to reach its full potential in terms of client acquisition, retention, and revenue generation.

Remember the gag in the show ‘Friends’ when Ross accompanied Chandler to ensure he canceled his gym membership and Ross ended up with a membership himself and Chandler didn’t cancel? Your gym can have a similar charm in attracting and retaining members and revenue if you know how to create a world-beater of a gym website.

The second decade of the 21^st century has seen rapid change in attitudes towards health and fitness. Even a casual glance on most social media networks will show you that gyms and working out are not only popular but also trendy. A keener look into more concrete metrics confirms this assertion.

The fitness industry global market estimates its value at over $87 billion, with projections predicting a 171.75% growth by 2028, making it $434.74 billion. You can be part of that future by having a website to sell memberships, merchandise, supplements, and other relevant items. Moreover, a website lets you take advantage of rising trends, such as home-based workouts and outdoor activities; your website can give advice and post instructor videos and images for such purposes.

Here is how to create an outstanding gym website without the need for coding experience:

How to Create a Gym Website in 8 Simple Steps

Step 1: Choose a Domain Name

Choosing your domain name is one of the most crucial steps as you create your gym membership website. The name you choose will define most of what you do in the future since it will become synonymous with your business, and changing it later can lose you some clientele.

A domain name should hint at your brand identity and niche – a gym business. Make your domain name memorable and brief so that it is catchy and easy to remember and recognize.

You should also be careful with the extension that you choose. An extension is the few letters preceded by a dot that follows your domain name. For instance, if you use ‘kymsgym’ as your domain name, the extension ‘.com’ would make your website ‘kymsgym.com’. If you want your site to be for a specific country, you can choose an extension for your country, such as ‘.uk’ for the United Kingdom. We recommend ‘.com’.

To register your chosen domain name and extension, you need a domain registrar, most of whom are also hosting providers. They include NameCheap, HostGator, Bluehost, and DreamHost.

Step 2: Choose a Web Hosting provider and Choose a Hosting Plan

Choosing the right web host is crucial to the performance and success of your website. Here are the factors you should consider when choosing a hosting provider:

• Speed and performance – A host’s ample bandwidth and fast server response times will significantly boost your site’s speed.
• Reliability – Your host must guarantee you a high uptime to prevent downtime. Avoid promises of a 100% uptime rate because it is impossible to achieve. 99% or 99.99% is more than good enough.
• Scalability – The Best host is the one who can accommodate your site’s growth.
• User-friendliness – Look for a host with a user-friendly interface so you will find it easy managing your site. They must provide various site management features and compulsory ones like backups.
• Security features – If you want to keep your data safe, you will choose a host with SSL certificates and regular backups.
• Customer support – Make having round-the-clock customer support a must-have so you always have ready assistance. You can look at online user reviews to gauge its quality.
• Budget – Ensure that the host has plans within your price range. 

Your chosen host must offer diverse plans, at least one of which suits your needs. Top options include Bluehost and HostGator.

Step 3: Choose WordPress as Your Content Management System

The most popular content management system (CMS) in the world is WordPress, with a third of all websites being built on it. If, in the last step, you choose a hosting provider like HostGator, which offers prior optimization for WordPress, you will get this step off your plate swiftly!

Step 4: Acquire and Install a Gym WordPress Theme

We unequivocally vouch for Gymat as your fitness and gym WordPress theme. This theme has so much to offer, and its pages, headers, menus, and other premade elements are tailored precisely to suit your purposes.

Having chosen and purchased Gymat fitness and gym WordPress theme, you automatically have a complete website with various pages and features. However, we understand that you may need to learn how to install and customize the theme so that we will take a deep dive into that right away.

To use Gymat, you need to work with a WordPress version that’s not older than WordPress 5.9.1. We strongly recommend always working with the latest stable WordPress version since it has all identified security issues and bugs fixed. You also need the following:

• A WordPress memory of 128 MB or more available
• MySQL version 5.6 or more OR MariaDB version 10.0 or more
• PHP version 7.4 or more. However, we recommend PHP version 7.4+

Phase 1: Download Gymat

When you purchase Gymat, you can download only the theme itself or get the entire theme package, which contains 4 files with the theme, its child theme, documentation, and licensing. You can get to the next phase once it is among your local computer files.

Phase 2: Upload and Activate Gymat WordPress Theme

The first thing to do when installing a theme onto your WordPress website is to upload its files before activating the theme itself. You can upload these theme files using the Theme Uploader or FTP Clients. Here’s how to go about both:

You can Watch Gymate Theme Demo Import video:

Theme Uploader

1. Click Appearance 🡪 Themes 🡪 Add New on your WordPress admin dashboard.
2. This will take you onto a window that prompts you to choose a file from your computer files. Click on the button that reads Choose File.
3. Choose the file on your computer that reads Gymat.zip to upload and install instantly.
4. You’ll be back on your admin dashboard. Click on the Activate.
5. You can then view it among your installed themes. Click on the Begin Installing Plugins button. This will help you install all the plugins that are recommended and required to run with Gymat.
6. Check all boxes, select Install, and click the Apply button.
7. Recheck all boxes, select Activate from the dropdown, and click on the Apply button again.

FTP Clients

1. Use an FTP like FileZilla and head to your WordPress installation directory.
2. Go to your /wp-content/themes/ folder and upload the theme folder.
3. Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard and open Appearance 🡪 Themes. You will see Gymat among your themes.
4. Click on the Activate button on the theme, and you’re good to go.

Step 5: Customize Your Site’s Structure

Customizing your website’s structure is breeze with Gymat. You can use either of the gorgeous 4 homepage demos that the theme offers. You can view all of them and settle on the one you like most.

Phase 3: Import Demo Contents

There are 2 methods of importing the demo you love. The first one is easy and bears the moniker ‘Automatic‘, and we recommend it. Its failure is an anomaly, only happening less than 5% of the time, in which case you can use the second method. One of the best things about using Gymat is that the theme’s author offers a free demo importing service if you contact them with the less-than-5%-chance problem.

You should note that, the Automatic method of importing demo content erases all the existing data on your website. Therefore, it is excellent for new websites and creators who want to start afresh, doing away with old websites. It gives you a replica of the demo website before you make any customizations. Here’s how you go about it:

1. Having made sure that the Gymat Parent Theme is activated on your website, go to your admin menu and go to Tools 🡪 Demo Content Install. Alternatively, go to Plugins 🡪 RT Demo Importer 🡪 Install Demo Contents.
2. On the new page, click the Install button on your preferred demo. Give the installation some seconds to finish.
3. Update your Permalink by navigating to Settings 🡪 Permalink before clicking the Save Settings button.

You can then customize the structure of your website extensively, including setting your pages, colors, typography, logos, menus, and so much more. Luckily, all the instructions for going about this are available in the theme’s documentation.

Step 6: Enhance Your Gym Website

With Gymat, you get a website that’s already meticulously optimized for diverse functionalities, such as mobile responsiveness, client testimonials, seamless social media integration, and user-friendly navigation through well-organized menus. To further refine your site’s performance, consider the following optimizations:

• Infuse high-quality images to bolster credibility and foster user engagement.
• Leverage top-tier plugins like the integrated Yoast SEO (which Gymat is already compatible with) to enhance your site’s search engine optimization (SEO).
• Employ analytical tools such as Google Analytics to monitor user behavior, site performance, and traffic origins.
• Integrate plugins, ensuring compliance with privacy and accessibility regulations, such as GDPR plugins.

Step 7: Monetize Your Platform

To monetize your gym website, you must integrate a few strategies that take advantage of the unique aspects of the fitness industry. Here are a few ways of getting your site to generate revenue:

• Create membership subscriptions for which users pay a monthly or yearly fee to access exclusive classes, workout plans, members-only resources, and other premium content.
• Develop and sell online training programs like video tutorials, personalized workout plans, nutritional guides, or live virtual fitness sessions.
• Create a shop page to sell branded merchandise, workout accessories, and other relevant stuff.
• Display relevant ads through Google AdSense or directly contact businesses or brands.
• Work with affiliate partners to earn commissions for leads and sales.

Other avenues you could look at include sponsored content, event hosting, fitness app integration, partnerships, and collaborations.

Step 8: Promote Your Gym Website

Amplify your site’s visibility through strategic promotional efforts and marketing techniques, including:

• Frequent content updates to enhance engagement and search engine rankings.
• Conducting SEO reviews and updating SEO elements for improved rankings.
• Active engagement on social media platforms, responding to comments, and sharing updates.
• Creating compelling blog content to attract and sustain traffic.

Bottom Line: Achieving Success with Your Gym Website

By diligently following these steps, you circumvent the need for expensive web coding professionals during the site development phase. Beyond cost savings, you gain the ability to shape your vision personally. We trust you are poised to launch your customized gym WordPress site. Best of luck!