Methodology
The Web Empire team began the process by fully understanding the client's needs, and by researching the local competition. There were many difficulties that clubfitnessny.com users were facing with the old site. These included incorrect design and a lack of information for the public. During the analysis process we created a specifications document with the whole website planning phase, a timetable, and made the project management viewable by the client. We essentially created a complete web-business plan for the new clubfitnessny.com.
Our design team created the layout on paper, illustrating the vision of their plan. Major targets were to show potential customers what Club Fitness NY could offer them, as well as the different products and sessions available. For that reason we had to create many different web pages for each class, and to show the resources available within the 40,000 sq.foot space of Club Fitness NY.
Our development team also used a content management system to fulfill the project's goals. The entirely customized open-source back-end allows the Club Fitness NY team hundreds of operations, including content editing, image editing, announcements, events management and much more. Among these options are:
- Complete database with registered users
- Complete Newsletter system with different categories
- Event management system
- Schedule of classes
- Database for trainers with their bios
- Banner system with special offers
- Testimonials system
- Social Marketing
- Reputation Management and Marketing
- Many different Slideshows and image Galleries
- Youtube channel
After the redesign, our team started the search engine optimization and online reputation management campaign. We found during our research that clubfitnessny.com wasn't receiving any amount of traffic from the search engines, with the exception of the name "club fitness ny". Of course most of the people searching where already clients, which in combination with the very few (22) results on Google, the resulting incoming traffic and world ranking of the website was very low. We created high quality content, combined with video and information from open-source websites, to increase the ranking of the website over time.
Results
Immediately after re-launching the website, dramatic improvements were visible.
- Bounce rates on the homepage decreased by 75%
- Organic, non-branded search engine traffic increased by 1100%
- Clubfitnessny.com now appears in 2,050 google results instead of the 22 before
- Clubfitnessny.com ranks on page 1 of Google for over 12 keyword combinations (October 1st 2011)
- According to the website owner, the amount of incoming clients from the internet tripled immediately
*Update August 2015: So far, clubfitnessny.com is ranked #1 on all search results in their area regarding fitness, gym and similar activities. Traffic is above 100K in a yearly basis and generates hundreds new members directly from the web.
