Martial Arts School Website, Built to Book Trial Classes

To build a martial arts website that fills your mats, show each program by age and style, publish a clear class timetable, introduce your instructors and let a visitor book a trial class in under a minute. Everything else on the site supports that one booking. Parents and adults arrive nervous, so answer their worries before they ask.

• The sample school in this guide lists 4 bookable services, each with its length, and the owner accepts or moves each request in the Booking Manager. See the sample's booking page
• US federal rules aim to make cancelling a recurring membership as easy as signing up for it. FTC click-to-cancel announcement
• The FTC bans fake or misleading consumer reviews and testimonials, in force from 21 October 2024. FTC fake reviews rule
• Google uses the mobile version of your content for indexing and ranking. Google mobile-first indexing

What must a martial arts website do for the people who visit it?

It must help a parent or an adult pick the right class, trust the teacher and book a trial. Those are three jobs: choose, trust, book.

Think about who is on the other end. A parent is often on a phone in the evening, comparing two or three schools within a short drive. They want to know if there is a class for a six year old, who will teach it, and what happens on the first day. An adult beginner has a different fear: that they are too old, too unfit or too late to start. A good martial arts website answers both without making them phone first.

The sample for this guide is Iron Crane Martial Arts, a fictional school made to show what AI Web Maker builds. Its people, reviews, prices and contact details are invented. Its homepage opens with the line "Train patient. Grow strong." and then moves straight into programs for every age and level, a class schedule, the teachers and a way to ask about trying a class. You can open the live sample and see how those sections follow the order a worried parent thinks in.

Write down the three or four questions your own students asked before they signed up. Those are your homepage sections. If the same question comes up every week at the front desk, it belongs on the site in plain words. A website that answers it saves you a phone call and keeps the visitor from leaving.

Which pages does a martial arts school website need?

It needs a homepage, a classes page, a booking page, an about page for instructors and a contact page. Add more only when you have something real to say on them.

Start small. A school with five strong pages beats one with fifteen thin ones. Each page should have one job, so a visitor never wonders where to click. The table below shows the pages on the sample and what each one has to do.

Page	What it must do	Where to see it on the sample
Home	Say what you teach, to whom, and how to try a class	Home
Classes	Explain each program, who it suits and the weekly timetable	Classes
Book a class	Let a visitor pick a service, a day and a time	Book a class
About	Introduce instructors, ranks and the atmosphere	About
Contact	Give the address, directions and an enquiry form	Contact

The sample also has a page that lets visitors browse by category, which helps when a school offers several programs. If you teach only one style to one age group, you can skip that step. Keep your menu short, with the booking page easy to reach from every other page.

Name your pages in the words a parent would type into a search box. "Classes" and "Contact" are clear. Clever names for pages confuse people who are in a hurry.

What should the classes page say?

It should list every program, say who each one suits, and show the timetable. A visitor should find their child's class in under ten seconds.

On the sample, the classes page has these sections: What We Teach, Who Each Class Suits, What to Expect in a Typical Class, Weekly Timetable, and How a Trial Class Works. That order works because it moves from the general to the practical. First the visitor learns what the school teaches. Then they find their own group. Then they see when it happens.

Be specific about age bands and levels. "Kids" is vague. A parent wants to know whether a five year old and an eight year old train together, and whether there is a separate group for teenagers or for adults who have never trained. If your school teaches more than one style, give each one its own short block with the same layout, so a reader can compare them side by side. Look at how the sample lays out its classes and copy the structure, not the words.

Describe a typical session in plain terms: how it starts, how long the warm up lasts, what the students practise, how it ends. This is the part that calms nervous beginners. People fear the unknown more than the effort. If you tell them they will stand at the back, follow along and nobody will expect them to know anything, you remove the biggest reason people never walk in.

Keep the timetable as real text, not a picture of a spreadsheet. Text can be read on a phone, searched by Google and read aloud by assistive tools. Put the day, the start time, the program and the level on each line. Update it whenever a class changes, because a wrong timetable is the fastest way to lose a parent's trust.

How should a trial class be booked?

Make it one short path: choose a class, pick a day and time, send a request. Do not ask for more than you need.

A trial class is the real goal of your site. Every other page exists to get a visitor to this step. On the sample, the booking page lists the bookable services, and a visitor picks one, then a day and a time, and sends a request. The sample has 4 bookable services, each with its length shown. The owner then accepts the request or moves it to another time in the Booking Manager. You can see the visitor side on the sample booking page.

Think about what you really need to know before a first class. The visitor's name, a way to reach them, the class they want and, for a child, the child's age. That is enough. A long form scares people off. You can ask about injuries, health conditions and emergency contacts when they arrive, on paper, where you can talk it through.

Explain what happens after the request is sent. Say whether you will confirm by email or by phone, and how soon. Say what to wear and what to bring. A short "How a Trial Class Works" block on the classes page does this well, and a link to it beside the booking button helps visitors who hesitate. If a request is for a time you cannot offer, moving it rather than refusing it keeps the lead alive.

Add a second route for people who are not ready to book. An enquiry form lets them ask a question first. The sample's contact page has one, titled "Ask us about classes or getting started". Someone who asks a question today often books next week.

How do you show instructors and ranks so parents trust them?

Show real people, state their rank and experience honestly, and explain how they teach, especially with children.

Trust in a martial arts school is personal. A parent is handing over a child to a stranger who teaches physical skills. They look for the teacher's face, name, rank and background. On the sample, the About page opens with the head instructor and teaching team, then describes the community and atmosphere a visitor can expect. See how it is set out on the sample About page.

For each instructor, give a real photo, a name, the rank they hold and the style it belongs to, how long they have trained, and how long they have taught. Add a sentence on how they teach, such as patience with beginners or how they handle a nervous child. Keep claims you can stand behind. Do not invent ranks, titles or tournament results, and do not borrow another school's credentials. If a governing body or association issues your rank, say so, and check its rules on how you may describe it.

Children need a special note. Say how your classes are supervised, how many instructors are on the mat for younger groups, and what your rule is about parents watching. If your instructors have background checks or first aid training, say so, but only if it is true. Rules on checks differ by place, so look at what your own region or association requires and describe your practice accurately.

What do you say about photos of children?

Get permission, say how you use photos, and never publish a child's picture without a parent's clear agreement.

The sources for this guide give no specific rule on photographing children, and the rules differ by country and region. So treat this as a point to check with your own regulator, association or a legal adviser rather than something to guess. The sensible habit is simple. Ask a parent for written permission before any photo of their child goes on your site or social media. Keep a record of who agreed. Remove a photo promptly if a parent asks.

A good site can still look alive without identifying children. Use photos of the mat, the equipment, the instructors and adult classes. Use pictures taken from behind, or of hands and feet, or of a group where every parent has agreed. A short line on your site, such as "We only publish photos of students with a parent's written permission", tells families you take it seriously and costs you nothing.

Do not use stock photos of children and present them as your students. A parent who visits and sees different faces will notice, and it hurts the trust you are trying to build. Real, permitted photos of your own mat are always better than polished pictures of strangers.

How should you state membership terms and cancellation?

State prices, contract length, fees and how to cancel in plain words, and make cancelling as easy as joining.

Membership is where many schools lose trust. A visitor who feels trapped will never book a trial. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission announced a final "click-to-cancel" rule that will require sellers to make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up. You can read the FTC's announcement and the agency's page on its Negative Option Rule. Rules differ by place and change over time, so check what applies where you teach, with your own regulator or association.

The FTC's consumer advice on trials, auto-renewals and negative option subscriptions is a useful reminder of what customers dislike: charges they did not expect and cancellations that are hard to complete. Apply that to your own site. If a trial class leads to a paid membership, say so before the visitor books. If a membership renews automatically, say that too, and say how to stop it.

Write your terms in short, plain sentences on the classes page or a page of their own. Cover the price per month, any joining or grading fee, the minimum length, how many days of notice you need to cancel, and whether you offer a pause for injury or travel. Avoid hidden costs. A school that is open about terms wins the families that read them, and those are the families who stay.

How does a martial arts website earn trust through reviews?

Show real reviews from real students, label examples clearly, and never fake or buy them.

Reviews help a nervous parent more than almost anything else on the page. They also come with legal risk if you get them wrong. The US Federal Trade Commission announced a final rule on 14 August 2024, in force from 21 October 2024, that bans fake or misleading consumer reviews and testimonials, such as reviews by people who do not exist or who had no real experience with the business. Read the FTC announcement. In the UK, since April 2025 the law bans posting or commissioning fake reviews, and the CMA can fine a company up to 10% of its global turnover, as set out in the government announcement.

The sample school's reviews are labelled "What families say (example reviews)" because the school itself is fictional and its reviews are invented. That label is the right habit. On your own site, only publish words from real students or parents who have given you permission. Do not write them yourself and do not pay for them or ask staff to post them. Ask happy families in person or by email, and use their wording as they gave it.

If you also keep a Google Business Profile, look at what Google says it expects. Its Business Profile policies say content added to a profile must accurately represent the location. Keep your name, address and hours the same on your site and on your profile.

How does the site work for every visitor?

It must load fast on a phone, read clearly and be usable by people with disabilities. Most parents will see it on a small screen first.

Google uses the mobile version of your site's content for indexing and ranking, as it says in its mobile-first indexing guide. So the phone view is the view that counts. Check that your timetable is readable without pinching, that buttons are big enough to tap and that the booking path works with one thumb. Use a few well sized photos rather than many heavy ones, so pages open quickly on a mobile connection.

Accessibility matters too. The US Department of Justice's guidance says Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities by businesses open to the public, and lists common barriers: poor colour contrast, colour alone used to give information, images without alt text, videos without captions, inaccessible online forms and mouse-only navigation. See the DOJ web guidance. The current standard it points to is WCAG 2.2, a W3C Recommendation, published at the W3C, with a practical checklist in its quick reference.

For a martial arts site, that means a few concrete habits. Give every photo a short alt text, such as "Children practising a front kick in a beginner class". Make sure the text stands out clearly from the background. Make forms usable with a keyboard. Add captions to any video of a class. These steps help a parent with poor eyesight, a student with a motor difficulty and anyone reading in bright sunlight at the park.

How do local students find your school online?

They search for your style near them, so your site and your Google listing must clearly show who you are, where you are and what you teach.

Most students live within a short drive. They search for something like a style plus the town, or "kids classes near me". Google's ranking systems are designed to prioritise helpful, reliable information created to benefit people, not content made mainly to rank, as it says in its guidance on helpful content. So write for the parent, not for a search engine. Name your style, your town and your age groups in plain sentences on the homepage and the classes page.

Claim and keep up a Google Business Profile if your school qualifies. Google's guidelines ask a business to represent itself as it is consistently represented and recognised in the real world, with its real name, address, phone number and hours. Keep those details identical on your website, your profile and your social pages. Google also supports LocalBusiness structured data, described in its documentation, which can tell it your hours and other details.

Put your address, directions and a map link on the contact page, as the sample does under "Find Us and Get Directions". If you want to check the pages of your site for problems that keep it out of search results, AI Website SEO Tools lists each problem and how to fix it.

How do you build a martial arts website with AI Web Maker?

Give the builder your school's name and a short description, review the pages it creates, and change the words, photos and times until they are true to your school.

The sample was built the same way. Here is the path, step by step.

1. Open the AI Web Maker builder and enter your school's name, an email, a phone number and a short description of what you teach and to whom.
2. Watch the website being built. AI Web Maker plans the pages, writes the words, chooses the photos and sets up online booking where you need it.
3. Open the editor. Every page can be changed before going live: the words, the photos, the sections, the services, the prices and the hours.
4. Set up your bookable services in the Booking Manager. List each class or trial with its length, as the sample booking page does.
5. Replace any placeholder photos with real ones of your mat and instructors, with permission, and add alt text.
6. Rewrite the timetable, instructors and membership terms so they match your school exactly.
7. Preview everything on a phone, then go live.

Building and previewing cost nothing. Going live costs $119 a year of hosting, and the domain name is paid separately. Optional AI work, such as extra blog posts, is paid with credits of about $0.65 each. You can also look at a martial arts school website example before you start, to see the finished result for a school like yours.

Remember that the first draft is a draft. The builder gives you a strong start, but only you know your teachers, your rules and your mat. Spend your time on the parts that only you can write: your story, your instructors' backgrounds and your membership terms.

Frequently asked questions

How many pages does a martial arts school website need?

Five is enough to begin: home, classes, booking, about and contact. Each should have one clear job. You can add a page for a special program, such as a kids' camp, when you have real content for it. Extra pages with little to say make the site harder to use.

Should I show prices on my website?

Yes, if you can state them honestly, including any joining or grading fees and the minimum length of a membership. Visitors trust a school that is open about cost. Rules on membership and cancellation differ by place, so check yours. If prices vary a lot, give a clear range and say what changes them.

Can I put photos of my students on the site?

Only with permission, and for children only with a parent's clear agreement. The sources used here set no specific rule, and the law differs by country, so check with your regulator, association or adviser. Many schools use photos of the mat, instructors and adult classes instead.

Can I write reviews for my own school?

No. Fake or misleading reviews are banned by the US Federal Trade Commission and, since April 2025, by UK law. Use only real words from real students or parents, with their permission. If you show example reviews while you wait for real ones, label them clearly as examples.

Do I need a Google Business Profile?

It helps local students find you, if your school qualifies. Google asks for your real name, address, phone number and hours, kept consistent with your website. Read its policies first, because not every business is eligible. Your website works without one, but the two support each other.

Your plan for this week

You can finish the groundwork in a few days. Start with the facts, then build.

• Monday: Write down every program, its age group, level, day and time. This becomes your classes page and timetable.
• Tuesday: Write a short note for each instructor: rank, years of training, years of teaching and how they teach. Ask for permission before using any photo.
• Wednesday: Write your membership terms in plain sentences: price, fees, minimum length and how to cancel. Check the rules where you teach.
• Thursday: Ask three real students or parents for a review, in their own words, and keep their permission.
• Friday: Open the builder, enter your details, and let it create the first version. Compare it with the live sample.
• Weekend: Edit the pages, preview on your phone, test the trial class booking yourself and go live.

A school website is never finished, but it can start working this week. Get the first version up, watch which questions parents still ask you in person, and add the answers to the site.