Chase Boulay · September 30, 2026

Personal Trainer Websites: What I Learned Building My Own

Before I built websites for other people, I built one for myself. I'm a personal trainer by background, and when I needed a site for my training business, the quotes I got from agencies made no sense for a one-person operation. So I learned to build it. It loaded fast, it showed up on Google, and it brought in clients. Then other business owners started asking who built it, and here we are.

So when a trainer asks me what should go on their website, I'm not guessing. I've been the trainer trying to get a stranger to trust me with their body, and I've been the person building the page that has to make that happen.

Here's what I learned matters, and what I'd skip.

Nobody Hires a Trainer From a Website. They Hire a Person.

This is the first thing to get straight. Someone looking for a trainer is nervous. They might be out of shape, coming back from an injury, embarrassed about their weight, or just tired of not knowing what to do in a gym. They're about to be vulnerable in front of a stranger, and they want to know that stranger is someone they'll be comfortable with.

Your website's job is to make you a person before they meet you. That means your face, your voice, and a sense of what training with you is actually like. A site that's all logos and stock photos of dumbbells tells them nothing about you, and you are the product.

What to do: Put a real photo of yourself, training a real client or in your real space, at the top of the homepage. Not a flexing photo. A "this is who you'll be working with" photo.

Say Exactly Who You Train

"I help people reach their fitness goals" describes every trainer alive. It doesn't help anyone decide if you're the one for them.

Be specific. Who do you work with best? Beginners who've never lifted. People over 50 who want to stay strong. Postpartum moms. Athletes coming back from a knee injury. Busy professionals who have three hours a week. Pick the people you actually love training and say so in the first few lines of the site.

It feels like you're turning people away. You're not. The person who fits your description reads it and thinks "that's me," and that's the person who books. The person who doesn't fit wasn't going to be a great client anyway. Vague gets you nobody. Specific gets you the right ones.

Your Certifications Go on the Site, but They're Not the Pitch

List your certifications. Clients do check, and it separates you from the guy who got fit once and decided to charge for it. Put them on your about page and in a short line on the homepage. Don't overstate anything. If you're working toward a credential, say it's in progress or leave it off. People can look these things up.

But don't lead with them. Nobody picks a trainer because of the letters after their name. They pick one because they believe that person will understand them and get them results. The certifications are proof you're legit. The reason to hire you is everything else on the page.

What to do: Put your credentials in one clean line. Then spend the rest of the page on who you help and how.

Show Where You Train

A client wants to know what they're walking into. Do you train out of a commercial gym, a private studio, their home, a park, or online? Each of those is a different experience and a different kind of client.

Say which ones you do, and show it. Real photos of the actual space. If you work out of a gym in Lincoln or a studio in Providence, name it and show the room where sessions happen. If you go to people's homes, say what towns you cover. If you train online, explain how that works in two sentences, because a lot of people still don't picture it.

Location matters more than trainers think. Nobody drives forty minutes each way twice a week. Someone in Cumberland is looking for a trainer near Cumberland, and your site should tell them in the first glance whether you're close.

Give a Sense of Price

Trainers hide pricing more than almost any other business, and I get why. Packages vary, you'd rather have the conversation, and you don't want to scare anyone off. But total silence on price scares more people off than a number does.

You don't need a full rate sheet. A starting point is enough. "Sessions start at a set rate, with packages that bring the per-session cost down. Small group options available." Now the reader knows the ballpark and can decide whether to reach out without dreading the money conversation.

If you offer a free consult or a discounted first session, that's your headline. It turns "commit to a trainer" into "come talk for thirty minutes," which is an ask almost anyone can say yes to.

Be Careful With Before-and-Afters

Transformation photos work, and they can also get you in trouble. Two rules. First, only use them with the client's clear permission, in writing. Second, don't present a great result as what everyone should expect. Results vary and the people reading know it. A caption like "Maria, 14 months of consistent training" is honest. "Lose 30 pounds in 12 weeks" is a promise you can't keep for everyone.

Written testimonials in the client's own words often do more than photos anyway. "I hadn't been in a gym in ten years and he made it feel normal by the second session" speaks straight to the nervous person reading. Ask a few clients for a couple of sentences, quote them exactly, use first names.

One Way to Start

Your site should have one clear next step, and it should be small. "Book a free consult." "Text me to set up a first session." One button, at the top and at the bottom, that does that one thing.

Make it easy on a phone. A tappable number or a text button beats a long intake form. You can gather the health history and goals once they've said yes to talking. The website's only job is to get them to say yes to talking.

What to do: Look at your site and count the things it asks the visitor to do. Cut it to one.

What I'd Skip

A blog full of generic fitness tips, unless you actually enjoy writing and will keep it up. A giant list of every modality you've ever heard of. Stock photos of anyone who isn't you or your clients. A slideshow. Any paragraph that could be on any other trainer's site. If it doesn't make you more of a specific, trustworthy person, it's not earning its place on the page.

Keep it simple. Who you are, who you help, where, roughly what it costs, proof from real clients, and one way to start. Most of that fits on one good page. I wrote more about the personal side of this in what your about page should actually say.

The Bottom Line

A personal trainer's website has to do what a good first session does: make a nervous stranger feel like they're in the right hands. Your real face at the top, a clear statement of who you train, your credentials in one honest line, the place you train, a sense of price, and one small next step. That's what got me clients when I built my own, and it's what I build for other trainers now.

Everything else is decoration.