Attracting new clients to attend your wellness retreat can be incredibly challenging. Not only is health and wellbeing a very personal matter, your wellness brand’s messaging needs to balance emotive language with as much authenticity as possible.

Trust is a key component of getting your audience to make a buying decision for your wellness retreat packages - particularly online. This is why having a good digital strategy is essential. Your online touchpoints play a vital role in validating your brand while offering creative ways to engage your audience and help them feel motivated by your value.

The good news? The foundations of most successful digital strategies center around a great website. But how can you know whether your wellness retreat has a ‘great’ website? 

To help, we’re here with 5 signs that your wellness retreat website might need a refresh that could immediately boost sales with just a few simple changes!

Here’s the signs to look out for:

1.     Your wellness retreat website has a high bounce rate

As one of your main brand touchpoints, how many potential customers are finding your website but not taking their customer journey any further? This is an important question to ask yourself when it comes to finding out if your website could do with an overhaul.

In our experience, a high bounce rate on your website is typically caused by:

• Slow loading times
• Unengaging content
• Misleading meta titles and meta descriptions
• A website that’s not mobile-friendly
• A lack of call to actions (CTAs)

Additionally, it’s always good to ensure that your website has the exact information potential customers want. This can include an outline (and photos!) of the value you’re offering at your retreat, such as:

• 
  Where guests will be staying
• What kind of food options will be available
• What type of activities will be taking place

Beyond this, your wellness branding will need to take center stage by displaying a passion for what you do, while also hitting all of the professional standards of your industry. Sounds straightforward, right? We wish it was that simple! 

With so many choices available to audiences online, keeping traffic on your website long enough to trigger a purchase can require more specialist knowledge. This can include advice about the tools your website could be utilizing or the targeting techniques you’re currently overlooking.

This is why it’s always a good idea to have an expert eye to evaluate where your website might be lacking. This can be done through discovery sessions or by speaking with a web specialist who can evaluate your website’s performance on an individual basis.

2.     Your wellness retreat website has outdated content

Your target audience will be looking for validation that your wellness retreat aligns with their values. These values will not only apply to personal health goals but also to the type of environment you’re offering as a retreat. 

People searching for wellness retreats are looking for a safe environment where their health will be prioritized — something your online presence must reflect at every level. 

Outdated content on a website often signifies to customers that you’ve lost interest in your business or are no longer investing in its upkeep. This is why it’s crucial that the content on your website reflects the brand identity you want your business to have.

As a wellness retreat, your website needs to exude the same energy you want your audience to see when they visit your retreat. It also needs to build credibility in your service through confident and informative content. To do this:

• Add a blog section to your website with articles that showcase your expertise and dedication the topic of health and wellbeing
• Ensure that all of your information is all up-to-date (incl. location, contact details)
• Add professional photos of how your retreat
• Add a ‘meet the team’ page to introduce yourself and any core employees you have working at your retreat
• Make sure any testimonials you have on your website are as recent as possible

Tip: Don’t forget to update your Google Business profile! This is where potential leads will find reviews for your business and help filter your audience down to those looking for wellness retreats in your area. 

3.     Your wellness retreat website isn’t SEO optimized

In recent years, SEO optimization has become vital for ensuring your website is found by the right people. The whole purpose of SEO is to get your website to rank as highly as possible in Google, with a first-page ranking being the optimal position for your business.

For wellness retreats, local SEO usually works best in driving traffic to your website. Potential customers for your wellness retreat will likely target specific areas, so making sure they know your location is essential.

For best results:

• 
  Determine which cities/provinces/territories are most relevant for your business
• If you have multiple retreat locations, do you want to market them equally?
• Consider hiring an SEO expert to evaluate/refresh your web pages with local SEO in mind

4.     Your wellness retreat website has accessibility issues

Wellness retreats should feel like they’re open to everyone. This is why accessibility can be an important update to make to your wellness retreat website. To promote a diverse and inclusive environment for all, your website should:

• Have text that’s large enough to read
• Use headings to structure your content
• Carefully select colors for best contrast
• Include alt text for images
• Be accessible from mobile devices

Tip: Accessibility audits that are specific to websites are becoming a popular service for business owners to avail of. However, most good web designers or agencies will be well-versed in what to look out for when it comes to making your website more accessible.

5.     You created all of the content on your website yourself

When we become ‘too close’ to our own websites (or businesses in general!), we can stop being able to identify areas of improvement. If you’ve been exclusively updating your website yourself, it’s easy to fall into the trap of missing flaws and not having a fresh perspective on what changes are needed.

Especially when the pace of the internet is getting faster by the day, your approach to your website needs to remain as objective as possible.

As well as conducting market research behind the scenes, it’s also good to publicly introduce outside perspectives to your website through:

• 
  Testimonials (video testimonials perform particularly well)
• Guest blog posts (often by industry experts or maybe even people who have taken part in your wellness retreat)
• Endorsements from industry partners
• Advertising event collaborations in your local area (e.g., introductory yoga classes in your local area)

How Metaprism Creative can help:

As a full-service web design and creative agency, we’re not just interested in making your digital channels more attractive to customers; we’re interested in taking your brand to the next level.

Even though we’re based in Lubbock, Texas, we use virtual discovery sessions and online project management to help businesses all across America (and beyond!) leverage their digital touchpoints and boost sales. 

Specializing in businesses that focus on health and well-being, we give your brand the best possible digital start it can have. No matter where you’re based, we can help elevate your branding and position your business exactly as you want. 

Whether you’re interested in web design and refreshes, or other services such as branding, discovery, online marketing, or SEO — you can contact us to find out exactly what we can offer your business.

We help you connect on a deeper level with your customers, even before they visit your wellness retreat!