The Ultimate Fitness Website Design Guide For Gyms & Personal Trainers

Effective fitness website design is about more than how a site looks. While the artistic elements are important, how the website supports your business goals is more important. After all, the web can be your strongest source of leads and revenue so it’s vital to get it right.

In this article – we share a simple guide to fitness website design which includes awesome examples, free tools, useful checklists, and pro templates for gyms, personal trainers, and bloggers. 

It’ll show you how to create a well-designed fitness website that attracts gym members and freelance clients. This guide explains how to balance stylish aesthetics with a solid strategy so that your site converts new visitors into paying customers.

We’re a specialist fitness marketing agency with 15+ years of industry experience, so we know first-hand what works (and what doesn’t!). We’ve helped gyms, fitness studios, and personal trainers to create impressive websites that generate leads, so our strategies are tried and tested.

Don’t worry if you’re daunted by web design or don’t have a background in tech. We break it down into simple bite-sized chunks that are easy to understand and action. Whether you want to create a site yourself using a fitness website template or hire a professional web designer, you’ll find plenty of tips, ideas, and practical examples.

• Fitness website ideas & inspiration
• Web design checklist
• 3x essential (+free!) website tools
• Using Wix fitness templates
• Stylish WordPress themes
• Hiring a professional web designer

You might also like ⇒ Yoga Website Design – Inspiration, Tools & Templates For Studios

Fitness Website Design Inspiration

When it comes to fitness or gym website design, looking at other sites is a great starting point. They can give you inspiration and ideas about the layout, format, and content of your own website. If you have some favourite fitness blogs or PT websites, then start with those. You can also look at websites outside of the fitness sector to get different design perspectives. 

Review at least 5 websites and note down the elements that you like about them specifically…

• Overall layout
• Specific features or functionalities
• Colours or branding
• Text or copywriting style
• Menu titles

Make a list and take screenshots of them too – this is helpful when referring back or briefing a web designer.

Here’s a selection of our fav fitness, gym, and personal trainer website designs that might be helpful for inspiration…

Pure Gym

This PureGym example features a classic gym website design with large image banner and three sub-sections. As a low-cost gym, they immediately highlight their key points of difference – pricing and minimal contracts. We like this design because it conveys a lot of info without anyone needing to scroll down which makes a highly effective first impression.

EM-FIT Personal Training

This personal trainer web design from EM-FIT is simple and well-targeted. The audience and location she serves are immediately clear from the menu options and banner text. There’s no space wasted on ‘about’ – priority is given to revenue-generating sections like PT, classes, and fitness modeling.

Nerd Fitness

At first glance, the Nerd Fitness blog isn’t your typical fitness website design, but that’s right on brand for this company. It’s clear from the image that it does things differently and doesn’t take itself too seriously either – something that will appeal to its niche audience. We like this design because it’s true to the brand instead of following the usual rules while still be engaging and persuasive.  

Virgin Active

The Virgin Active website may not win any awards for its colour palette (red and pink, really?) but it makes our list for one reason only. It’s laser-focused on its goal – to convert web visitors into members. Finding a club and joining takes centre stage which serves as a lesson in good gym web design… always ensure it serves your business goals. 

Starks Fitness

The Starks Fitness website follows a more traditional format but still has lead generation at its core. The ‘join us for a free week’ button is prominent and the perfect offer for potential new members. In addition to the usual info on classes and timetables, they also make use of a chatbot to answer FAQs and prompt inquiries. 

Fitness Web Design Checklist

Here’s a quick checklist that outlines the key elements that your fitness, gym, or personal trainer website should include…

• Simple design and intuitive layout
• Contact details and location map
• Class timetable
• Explanation of different classes or service offerings
• Pricing
• Email subscription option
• Links to social media profiles
• About page

By including all of these elements in your website design, you should tick all of the boxes in terms of information for customers and search engine optimisation. If the goal of your site is to generate leads, then also include an enticing offer such as a complimentary trial pass or downloadable ebook.

3 Free Web Tools That Every Site Needs 

Whatever type of fitness-themed website design you go for, you’ll need some core tools. These are essential in turning your site from a nice looking advert into a revenue-generation channel. Here are three free tools that we use ourselves and recommend for fitness and gym-related websites…

Note: we may receive a commission (at no extra cost to you) if you choose to upgrade from free to paid versions of some of the tools below.

• Mailchimp – allows you to collect email addresses and newsletter sign-ups (free up to 2000 subscribers).
• Podia – enables you to sell digital and physical products by adding an e-commerce shop or buy-now buttons to your site, plus handing all of the payment processing.
• Pexels – offers a huge range of royalty-free images that you can use in your gym website design or new fitness blog (100% free to download and use).

With these simple tools, you can boost leads, increase revenue, and create a professional fitness brand. 

Using a Fitness Website Builder

There are three options when it comes to fitness and gym web design – use a DIY builder, go for a WordPress template, or hire a professional. Designing the site yourself is the cheapest bootstrap option and gives you complete control over timings. If you don’t have a budget for your website, then using a builder or template is a cost-effective solution. 

If you’re up for creating your own fitness site, then Wix is the best website builder for beginners. It’s easy to use, has free plans, and a comprehensive library of fitness-themed templates. Because it’s a ‘drag and drop’ website tool, you can use it even if you know zero about coding and web design. 

Here are a few of the Wix fitness templates that you can adapt for your own site…

As you can see, they look professional so you’d never know that they’re actually DIY designs. It’s easy to customise them with your own colours, business logo, and layout. You can even build it from scratch if you don’t want to use one of their many templates. 

But Wix isn’t for everyone. If you want more freedom in terms of design and functionalities, then WordPress is a better option…

Best Fitness WordPress Themes

Some fitness website templates are free to use but may only have a limited number of features. Free themes may not give you customisation options like changing colours or switching up the layout. You’ll find that the best gym website designs use paid templates as they provide more versatility and security updates too. 

Here are a few fitness WordPress themes that are free to use for gyms and personal trainers…

You’ll notice that the second and third aren’t strictly fitness-specific but they’re super-easy to customise. Simply add your logo and some relevant images to transform them into gym and fitness trainer website templates.

You can also find lots of gym and personal trainer website templates for less than $50. Here are a few that vary between $29-$39…

Hiring a Fitness Web Design Professional

If you have the budget, then hiring a web designer will get you the most professional results (and usually ongoing support). Do your research into different designers by asking for recommendations and reading online reviews. As you compare different web design agencies or freelancers, it’s usually helpful to consider these questions…

• Do you like the other websites in their portfolio? 
• Are things like web hosting and a domain name included in the cost?
• Do they provide on-going support?
• Are their website responsive (i.e. compatible with mobile and tablet devices)?
• How many rounds of changes and feedback are included in the price?
• Is there an on-going fee for maintenance or tool subscriptions?

There are niche agencies that focus solely on fitness-related web design. They create websites for gym owners, franchises, and large multi-site chains. They tend to cost a bit more but they also come with lots of experience and best practices that’ll improve the overall operation of your site. 

Fitness & Gym Website Design – Final Tips

Whatever approach you take to designing your website, always keep your end goal in mind. What’s the ultimate purpose of your site? If you aren’t sure about what you’re aiming for, then you’re likely to waste time and money on endless revisions because nothing will be quite right. 

Take time to review different websites and create a brief or mood board based on what you like most. This will set you up for success and ensure your finished fitness website looks and functions as you’d hoped. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some of the most common questions we get about designing a fitness website…

Should I use Wix or WordPress for my fitness website?

It depends on the complexity of your site. If you just need something basic that’ll funnel visitors to get in touch, then Wix is fine. But if you want something more complicated that handles online class bookings or integrates an e-commerce store, then WordPress offers better functionality.

What’s the best color combo for a fitness website?

The best color combination for a fitness website is one that will appeal to your target audience and be easy to read. Red or blue with black or white are the most popular colors for gyms and personal training brands. Make sure that your colors contrast otherwise they’ll be difficult to read (e.g. pale yellow text on a white background isn’t ideal).

Where can I find free fitness website templates?

It’s not easy to find a quality WordPress fitness theme for free but we’ve managed to source some. Many won’t be updated on a regular basis which opens them up to security risks so do your research beforehand. However, here are some of the best free fitness WordPress themes that get updated regularly, along with generic templates that can be customised with fitness images…

• WordPress theme library
• Dessign.Net
• JustFreeThemes.Com