Website for a gym in Bali, what we fixed at Bali Fit Corner

A website for a gym in Bali has one job. Someone finds the gym, checks the classes and the price, and messages you from their phone. We built the page for Bali Fit Corner, an open-air gym in Bingin, Uluwatu, and it did the first two well and the third badly, because of a mistake we made. This is what we found, what we changed and what the numbers show so far.

The gym and the page

Bali Fit Corner teaches Muay Thai, boxing, MMA and kids classes, and has an open gym. It sells a tourist pass for short stays as well as monthly passes, so the page has to work for someone on a phone, away from home.

We built one page for them in English, Spanish and Russian. It has the classes, the weekly schedule, the passes with their prices, the trainers, photos of the real gym and the map.

Search was already working. In the 90 days to 3 November the page had 592 clicks from Google on 3,584 impressions, a 16.5% click rate. Most of that is people who already know the gym, though. The search "bali fit corner" alone brought 398 of those clicks.

So the number says that people who look for this gym find it. It says little about people looking for any gym in Uluwatu.

What was wrong

When we started measuring contact taps across our sites at the end of October, this page showed the mistake straight away.

The phone number was on the page as text, with no link. A visitor on a phone had nothing to tap. They could fill in the contact form, or copy the number, open WhatsApp and write a message. For most of October, a month with 433 visitors, that was the only way in.

The price cards had the same problem. All ten of them, the tourist pass and nine others, had a button that looked ready to book and led nowhere. Someone who had read the schedule, picked a pass and pressed the button got nothing back.

A visitor who gets stuck just leaves, and tells nobody. You only see this by tapping through your own page on a phone, or by counting taps. We shipped it that way, and it stayed live for months.

What we changed

Four changes, between 31 October and 3 November.

Contact buttons. "Book a class" now opens WhatsApp, and there is a "Call us" button next to it. On phones, a bar with WhatsApp and Call stays fixed at the bottom of the screen.

Price buttons. Each of the ten now opens WhatsApp with the pass and its price already written, in the language the visitor is reading. The gym gets a message saying which pass the person wants, and nobody has to explain it.

Words Google can read. The title and description now say "Gym in Bingin, Uluwatu". Searches like "bingin gym" were around position 35, and the old title said "Uluwatu fitness studio", with no mention of Bingin. We also put the content straight into the page's HTML, so Google can read it without running any code.

Speed. We converted the photos to WebP, loaded the first hero photo early and left the other two for after the page load. On the live page, three runs of Google's Lighthouse test on mobile give a median of 1.9 seconds for the main content to appear, and Google calls 2.5 seconds or less good. We also fixed the form labels and the contrast of the prices, so people with poor eyesight or a screen reader can use them.

What moved, and what did not

In the six days from 31 October to 5 November, with 92 visitors, the page recorded 22 taps on WhatsApp links. They came unevenly, 8 on the best day and none on the last. Before the change there was no link to tap, so there is no fair "before" to compare with.

A tap is not a booking. It means someone opened WhatsApp, and we can't see what happens after that. The gym can, and its estimate is that 70 to 80% of the people who start a chat end up paying for a class. That is its own estimate, not something we measured, and not everyone who taps sends a message. So it shows that the chats are worth getting, and we would not multiply the two numbers.

The buttons people use are not always the ones you expect. Of 18 taps on booking buttons in those days, 13 came from the button at the top of the page and 5 from the price cards, which had only been live for a few days. It is too early to judge the price buttons.

Google has not moved yet. In the 28 days to 3 November, "bingin gym" was at position 37 with 24 impressions, which is no better than before. Those days are mostly from before the new title, and Search Console data arrives three days late, so this needs several more weeks. A title alone may not be enough for a search like that one. Pages also climb with links from other sites.

Searches where the page already ranks well are small. "gym uluwatu" sits at position 1.6, with only 7 impressions in 90 days.

What to check on your own gym website

Take out your phone and go through this as a visitor would. It takes five minutes.

1. Search your gym's name. Does your site come up, and does the title say what you are and where?
2. Tap the phone number. If nothing opens, fix that first.
3. Tap every button on the page. Each one should do something.
4. Find the schedule and a price in under ten seconds. A traveler staying a week won't wait for an answer on Instagram.
5. Look for a message that is already written when WhatsApp opens. "Hi, I'd like the 5 class pass" is easier to send than a blank chat.
6. Check the photos are your real gym. People want to recognise the place when they walk in.

For a gym like this you don't need a booking system on day one, an app or ten pages. One page that opens fast and gets a person into a WhatsApp chat is enough to start. If you run a villa, the same logic is in our post on villa websites.

In short

• A gym website has to take someone from finding you to messaging you, on a phone.
• Most gym traffic from Google is people who already know your name, so read your click rate with that in mind.
• A number written as text and a button that goes nowhere both lose people, and nobody tells you.
• Measure taps from the first day, or you won't have a "before" to compare with.
• A tap is a chat, not a sale. Ask the gym what happened next.

If you run a gym or a studio in Bali and want us to look at your page, or build one, send us a message. We reply with what we would change and a price.