There are so many reasons to start using WordPress for yoga teachers, mindfulness instructors, and spiritual entrepreneur. In this guide we will look at setting up WordPress for yoga sites, domain names, WordPress themes, and more.
WordPress is a free content management system that uses PHP databases to organise content. In other words, you write your content and WordPress take care of most of the rest for you. There are many different WordPress Themes and plugins that you can use to customise your yoga WordPress website, and it is by far the most versatile and futureproof way to set up your yoga studio online.
I always recommend WordPress for yoga teachers, meditation studios, and spiritual entrepreneurs, and I have helped many such people to set up their WordPress sites.
Not only will is help you to grow your yoga business, you can even use WordPress to book yoga classes online (as well as meditation classes and other spiritual events). This makes it much easier to run your business online.
Ultimately, you want to use WordPress to attract new members to your yoga studio via your online marketing plan.
The key to doing that is through SEO (search engine optmisation).
WordPress is simply the best way to get your yoga studio online and to get your yoga website’s SEO up and running.
Here’s How To Use WordPress for Yoga Teachers / Meditation Teachers
One of the most important parts of your yoga SEO plan is setting up WordPress the yoga-teacher way (yes, there is a special way).
And to do that you need to install the best yoga themes and the best yoga plugins, as well as nailing the basics.
I’ve been using WordPress for yoga sites and meditation sites for years—not least for my own site, THE DAILY MEDITATION.
And I know what works and what—well—fails. I’ve learned the hard way how too use WordPress for yoga studios and meditation studios.’ And when it comes to those specific WordPress yoga themes and WordPress yoga plugins—well, you might be surprised.
Now listen:
Obviously, I can’t share everything in one blog post, there’s just so much I’ve learned over the years. That’s why I’m going to give my top tips here, and I am very happy to work with meditation teachers and yoga teachers on WordPress. Contact me today (or right now) and let’s discuss your project in-depth in a consultation.
Now on with my guide to WordPress for yoga teacher and meditation teachers.
1. Purchase a domain name for your yoga website / meditation website
First thing is to buy a domain name for your yoga website. A domain name is the address of your yoga website. For instance, the domain name of this website is PMHarrison.com. Choosing a good yoga domain name is important for two reasons. Firstly, it is the address people need to entre to visit your site. And secondly, it also represents your business.
When it comes to choosing your domain name you need to be aware of both the Top Level Domain (TLD) and the Domain Name. Moz describes the TLD as “the formal term for the suffix that appears at the end of a domain name” For instance, “.com”, “.gov”, and “.org”. The Domain Name, according to MOZ, is the “the second level of a domain’s hierarchy”.
You do have the option of using a free WordPress-hosted domain. But this imposes limits on your site and is simply not ideal for anyone looking to seriously succeed online. At some point in time you are going to wish you created a yoga website / meditation website. with your own domain name registered. Why not do it now?
You can purchase domain names for your yoga website on domain registrars such as GoDaddy and Google Domain Registrar.
Domain names massively vary in price, so be sure to checkout a few different options so you get a good domain name within your budget.
Here are some tips on choosing a good domain name for a yoga website:
- Choose a name that represents your yoga business’ brand persona.
- Include your keyword in the name (so, “yoga” or “meditation”)—this helps with SEO, which we’ll get into later.
- If you are going to be giving lessons in one fixed location, you can include that location in the domain (e.g “Toronto”, “Hamilton”)
- Create a domain name that has a pleasant ring to it.
- Ignore all the fancy .com alternatives, these are just a gimmick designed to hep registrars make money. Stick to .com or .ca / .uk, and other classic options like .biz.
As important as you think those WordPress yoga themes / WordPress yoga plugins are, your domain name is ten times more important.
2: Choose a web host for your Meditation / Yoga WordPress Site
The web host is the hosting service provider where your website will actually be hosted. This is the physical location where your files are stores. Choosing a web host is a big deal and there are many in-depth articles on how to choose the right one for you.
In the beginning you will only require a basic host with a relatively cheap package. I personally use the GoGeek plan on SiteGround for my sites, which is suitable for up to 100,000 pageviews per month. I really enjoy their customer support and (touch wood) they’ve been easy to work with so far.
3: Get your meditation / yoga teacher website on WordPress
WordPress is by far the most popular CMS (content management system) in the world. And because it is so popular, there are far more guides and tutorials on WordPress than on any other CMS. This makes it a lot easier for beginners to get started.
Here’s a great guide to getting started on WordPress.
Your web host will help you to install WordPress on your server so you can start using it.
4. Choose a WordPress yoga theme
Once you’ve got your yoga blog / spiritual blog on WordPress, install a high-quality free WordPress yoga theme or a general theme (choose a theme that has very positive reviews. I generally only choose themes with 4+ stars from 100+ reviews). These themes are freely available via the WordPress theme directory.
Now, I want to explain one thing here. There are lots of different WordPress themes for yoga teachers that are specifically designed for yoga. However, in my experience, themes that are specifically designed for one niche industry are not as good as the bigger themes. I personally prefer to choose a very well respected general theme. For instance, my site TheDailyMeditation.com uses the Hello Elementor theme, which is very highly respected. This theme loads insanely quickly (and quick page load speeds are vital for SEO according to Neil Patel and Backlinko). I then customised my theme using the Elementor Page Builder plugin.
This is where many people make a mistake. You are much better off installing a generic theme with a low page load speed and then designing around it, than you are using a specific WordPress yoga theme that might look great but loads slowly.
That said, I will share my opinion on the best yoga WordPress themes if you do still want a yoga-specific theme.
Some of the best WordPress themes for yoga teachers are:
- Asana
- Yogi
- Yoga Fit
- Fitness Life
- Anahata
- Wellspring
- YogaStudio
- Dream Spa
4: Create your ABOUT page and other important pages and items
There are a few important pages and items every spiritual or yoga WordPress website should have. [here’s a list of the most important ones].
To create these pages visit login to your WordPress yoga site, and then go to Pages > Add New
Now get typing away and create your About Page and other pages. If you would like help with this, I am happy to help with your content writing and production.
The most important pages you will need are:
- About page
- Contact page
- Page to book yoga lessons / meditation lessons
- Privacy policy
As well as those pages in the link above, you will also need to give your website a navigation menu that highlights your most important pages. This is important for both your UX (User Experience) and for your yoga blog’s SEO.
To create a menu in WordPress visit Appearance > Menu
For both the ease-of-use and SEO of your WordPress yoga website, I recommend creating a very simple menu with a few clear options. This will make it easier for people to use your site, which will increase your conversion rate (the number of people who come to your site who actually sign-up for a yoga lesson / meditation lesson).
5: Implementing a yoga class booking system in WordPress
When people visit your yoga site / meditation site, you ultimately want them to book yoga classes on WordPress. That’s the whole purpose. And that’s why you should create your entire WordPress yoga website around the idea of having people contact you to book yoga classes on the WordPress blog.
To get people to book yoga classes on WordPress, plugins are the way to go.
There are a number of Worpdress plugins for yoga class bookings (and class bookings in general). These WordPress plugins let you create sign-up forms and Contact Us forms so it is easier for your visitors to book yoga classes online.
Below I’ve shared some WordPress yoga plugins for booking yoga classes online and keeping your class schedule organised.
If you’re not looking to book yoga classes on WordPress directly, simply install one of the best contact forms so people can email you. Read my guide to email marketing for more on this.
I personally use a simple contact form, the WPForms plugin—which is easy to use and setup (the plugin includes a guide to show you how to create the form).
The key to creating WordPress forms for your yoga website is that they be easy to use and foolproof.
A Contact Us form is the easiest and most foolproof way how to let people book yoga lessons on your WordPress site.
If you want to use a plugin, I can personally recommend WP Simple Booking Calendar which is what I personally use to schedule my own online meditation lessons. It’s a simple plugin that lets you maintain and show a list of events to your visitors. This is how to book yoga classes on WordPress.
Birch Scheduler is another option..
Birch Scheduler is an appointment booking manager. Its got a free option and a paid option.
With this WordPress plugin, yoga and meditation teachers can let people book lessons and also maintain the scheduler so you don’t forget who your teaching when.
For yoga studios / meditation studios, this plugin can even manage staff schedules, helping you to manage the studio as a whole. This is another way how to book yoga classes on WordPress.
6: Create the first few blog posts for your meditation / yoga WordPress site
When beginning your WordPress yoga website / meditation website, I highly recommend creating just a handful of blog posts, and making each of them very high quality. This will boost the SEO [search engine optimisation] of your yoga site and will help you to learn how to create good blog posts that convert.
It is imperative (especially in the beginning) that you create only high-quality posts that are very specifically targeted to your meditation website / yoga website.
For instance, if you’re creating a website for a yoga teacher specialising in Vinyasa, create three or four very high-quality posts on the subject.
Ideas for blogs posts for yoga website:
- How to start [your type of yoga]
- What to expect at your first yoga lesson
- The benefits of doing yoga at a studio
Ideas for mindfulness meditation blog posts
- How to start [your type of meditation]
- What to expect at your first meditation lesson
- The benefits of doing meditation at a studio
The purpose with these blog posts is to create super-helpful articles that make people a) like your blog, b) want to know more about you, and c) make people sign up to online yoga classes.
To start writing your blog post, log-in to your site, and choose the Posts > Add New option.
7. Installing Google Analytics And Webmaster Tools on your WordPress yoga theme (plugin or code)
Next, you will want your meditation / yoga WordPress blog to have access to both Google Webmaster Toold and Google Analytics.
Google Analytics allows you to see how people are using your site and how they are interacting with it. This is incredibly important for finding any issues with your site in terms of usability, and for optimising your site in terms of content optimization and conversion rate optimization.
Webmaster Tools is an essential tool for discovering potential errors, particularly with your SEO, and for seeing the keywords people are using to discover your yoga website.
Here are the best guides for these two tools:
8. WordPress Plugins for Yoga Sites & Meditation Sites
There are lots of good Yoga WordPress plugins, free and paid. These are extensions for WordPress that give you additional functionality.
There are thousands of WordPress plugins. They range from amazing, to bad, to harmful—even though WordPress tries to remove harmful plugins, some still remain. Most experts recommend that you keep your plugin usage minimal in order to minimise resources (the number of script your site has to load) and to reduce webpage load speed.
So, which WordPress yoga plugins should you use for a yoga or meditation website?
Yoast (this is the best SEO plugin, period)
WPForms (as discussed above, this is the best form-plugin for letting people contact you)
A caching plugin: A caching plugin generates static pages that are served to your visitors. This means your WordPress yoga site doesn’t need to load scripts on the fly, which massively reduces page load speeds. Some of the best Worpdress caching plugins are WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, and WP Super Cache.
MailMunch (if you intend to use email marketing—and you should—Mailmunch will help you manage your sign-up forms)
And that’s how to use WordPress for yoga studios and meditation teachers
There are so many ways to use WordPress for yoga teachers and meditation teachers. In this guide I have hoped to show you the basics of setting yourself up as a yoga / meditation teacher on WordPress.
Now time to move on to Online Marketing For Yoga Teachers And Meditation Teachers.
And remember, I’m always happy to help you with this.
Contact me today and let’s get working on your project so you can be a successful meditation or yoga teacher online and offline.
