The fitness industry is buzzing with new marketing techniques. Big shot marketing experts are popping up, joint ventures are being formed and buzz words such as "passive income" are all the rave. Many personal trainers want nothing more than a simple and efficient lead generating machine that involves little time and little cost. These trainers are turning to the Internet for help.

I have been part of the fitness industry for over 5 years. One thing that I have noticed over these years is the lack of business skills personal trainers have. Let me drill down and be more specific. Personal trainers lack successful business skills. They may know how to work the biceps, but most do not know how to leverage their business online.

This particular article focuses on successful websites for personal trainers. This is an absolute must have. It builds credibility, draws leads, provides information to prospective clients, and earns passive income. A successful website should do all of these things. It should not take up time, cause frustrate, cost more money that it's worth or simply be an online brochure.

Here are the 5 biggest money-losing website mistakes fitness professionals make, and ways to avoid them!

1) Personal trainers choose a hosting company that does nothing for them. Hosting companies are well-known to lure fitness professionals into their business with the promise of cheap, easy and low-maintenance. Most personal trainers love the idea of low cost and low hassle. However, working with these low cost hosting companies can be a nightmare. Each additional tool, such as lead generation box, newsletter or traffic statistics, will cost additional money. Most websites will cost too much in hosting fees to be successful.

2) Fitness professionals use a fitness website template that they can customize. These templates sound great on the outside. Trainers can add photos and text. The problem is that these websites are never found on the search engines. They look clean and provide some information, but no one will ever find these websites unless they already know about it. This means that the website is not bringing in new, fresh, hot targeted leads. No traffic also means no passive income.

3) Personal trainers want to earn passive income, but they join up with affiliates that pay low commissions. I have personally made this mistake. I built a tremendous website with thousands of visitors each and every month. I was sending my visitors to a few companies that sold equipment or a nutrition program. If these customers bought from the website I referred them to I would earn a commission. They rarely bought, and when they did I earned less than $5. The lesson here is to have an excellent website coupled with an excellent affiliate program. Personal trainers need to find affiliate programs that pay larger commissions and have excellent ROI