So, you’ve recently opened up your Crossfit affiliate, and now it’s time make your own website!
I’ve recently been helping my local Crossfit develop their website (in2 Crossfit London). It’s been a learning experience and I thought it would be worth sharing the experience with other. Opening a box is tough enough! But opening a box, and then having to develop we website with zero online knowledge can’t be easy. So over the next couple of weeks I’ll try and retrace my steps and run you through what I’ve been doing to help out – I’ll cover things such as – Setting up a webpage; how to structure your website so it’s crossfit friendly; making yourself Search friendly (so people can find you when they search for Crossfit Gyms) ; getting social ! (Facebook, Twitter); Booking Systems, and… anything else I can think of:)
So lets begin by getting you a website!
1. Get an Address (www.AwesomeCrossfitBox.com)
I use GoDaddy for all my recommendations, but you are welcome to use who ever you want – I just find keeping hosting and domains providers the same make my life easiest! However I have found that if you shop around, there are always deals to be had – especially if you’re looking for Country Specific URLS (Ie .co.nz, or .com.au, etc).
A URL will be the address that your customers type into their browser, and also what search engines will use to help categorise your site – so make keep this handy tips in mind when selecting them:
- Keep it Short and Memorable
“Seventy percent of people type directly in the browser address field…’ As cool as ‘http://www.Crossfit-crush-kill-and-destroy.com’ sounds, it’s not going to help you get hire rankings on google, and you don’t want your customers struggling to remember how your box name should be typed into the URL bar.
- Consider including the Keywords (location of your box) in your URL
The other 30 percent go through a search engine.” Google uses keywords to categorise your website – so maybe consider including the name of your town in your URL name. This will help search engines know the location of your box. ie If your URL was http://www.loveCrossfitMelbourne.com, customers who searched Crossfit Melbourne on google, would find your website easier, as the two key words Crossfit and Melbourne are in your name!
- Make it a .COM
With over 70 million registered URLs, the “.com” extension is by far the most popular, with “.net”, “.org”, and ”.info” lagging far behind in popularity, the moral of the story! Most people will type .COM before they type anything else! - Make sure you it includes your Brand name
duh!
2. Build yourself a House
I would recommend using GoDaddy’s WordPress web hosting plan – again for the aforementioned reasons – it make your life easier (One control panel, and they are made to work together effortlessly!) and the difference in cost is probably pennies… I would start with the basic (economy plan) no point spending more than you should, but if your site becomes very popular, you’ve can still upgrade!
Check out this tutorial for setting up your WordPress blog within GoDaddy – its takes One Click (or maybe three, but its pretty easy!)
So if you’ve followed the above steps, you’ve got you’ve successfully set up your Crossfit Website – CONGRATS!
In the next post, we’ll talk about making your Website look the amazing, and talk about site structure! Till then, play with WordPress, add/delete/modify pages 
Cheongy
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