Flo by BMABA

This guide will walk you through everything you need to know to create, customise, and publish your club's online presence.

Flo is BMABA's built-in website builder. It lets you create a professional online presence for your martial arts club without needing any technical skills, design experience, or expensive software.

Every site you create with Flo comes with a free yourclub.bmaba.app address, and Gold members can connect their own custom domain (like www.yourclub.com) at no extra cost.

Flo is included with your BMABA membership — there's nothing extra to pay.

We noticed that many of our member clubs were struggling with their online presence. Some were paying hundreds of pounds a year for website builders that were complicated to use. Others had outdated sites they couldn't update themselves. And quite a few had no website at all.

We built Flo to solve this. It's designed specifically for martial arts clubs, so everything from the templates to the features makes sense for what you actually need. You won't find blogging platforms or e-commerce features you'll never use — just the tools that help people find your club and get in touch.

Because Flo is part of your membership, it also means one less subscription to manage and one less bill to worry about.

Flo offers two different types of site, and you can have both if you want. The right choice depends on what you need.

This is a simple, single-page site that works brilliantly as a digital business card. It shows your club name, logo, a short bio, and a list of links to things like your timetable, Facebook page, booking system, or contact form.

Link in Bio sites are perfect if you:

Think of it like the page you'd link to from your Instagram or TikTok bio — hence the name.

This is a proper multi-page website with all the bells and whistles. You get a homepage, about page, timetable, contact form, and more. You can add your own custom pages, upload photos to a gallery, and really tell your club's story.

Full Websites are perfect if you:

Both types can have a custom domain connected, and both are fully mobile-responsive.

To access Flo, log into your MyBMABA account and look for "Flo" in your dashboard, or head to the Flo page directly. Here's the direct link.

When you first arrive, you'll be asked what type of site you want to create. Pick whichever suits your needs — you can always create the other type later if you change your mind.

You'll then go through a short setup wizard where you'll:

Once that's done, you'll land in the editor where you can start customising.

The Link in Bio editor is straightforward. Along the top you'll see tabs for different sections, and on the right you'll see a live preview of how your site looks on a phone.

Templates

Start here if you want a quick way to change your site's entire look. Each template sets up a combination of colours, fonts, and button styles that work well together. You can always tweak things afterwards.

Available templates include Classic Dark, Fight Night (red and fiery), Ocean Wave (cool blues), Clean White (minimal), Midnight (dark and sleek), Dojo Red (traditional), Champion Gold (bold and warm), and Natural (earthy greens).

Profile

This is where you set up the basics:

Keep your bio punchy. Something like "Traditional Karate in Manchester since 1987" or "Building confidence through martial arts" works well.

Links

This is the heart of your Link in Bio site. Add buttons that link to anywhere you want — your timetable, booking system, Facebook page, YouTube channel, online shop, or anything else.

For each link you add:

You can drag links to reorder them. Put your most important links at the top.

Tip: Don't go overboard. Five to eight well-chosen links work better than twenty options that overwhelm visitors.

Design

Fine-tune how your site looks:

The live preview updates as you make changes, so you can experiment freely.

Socials

Add icons that link to your social media profiles. Just paste in your profile URLs and Flo will display the right icons automatically.

Supported platforms include Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, WhatsApp, plus generic options for email, phone, and website.

Settings

A few extra options live here, like your SEO title and description (what shows up in Google search results).

Domain

Gold members can connect a custom domain here. More on that in the Custom Domains section below.

The Full Website editor has more to it, but the same principle applies — you'll find everything organised into panels on the left, with a live preview on the right.

Pages

This is your site's structure. You'll see cards for each page, and you can:

Default pages include Home, About, Classes/Timetable, Instructors, Pricing, Gallery, News, Contact, and FAQ. You don't have to use all of them.

Tip: Click on a page card to open the page editor, where you can add and arrange content blocks.

Design

This is where you control your site's overall look and feel.

Colour Palette: Pick from dozens of pre-built colour schemes. Each palette sets your header, footer, buttons, and accent colours to work together harmoniously. Palettes have names like BMABA Blue, Volcanic, Arctic, Copper, and Cedar.

Font: Choose a font family for your site. Options range from clean and modern (Inter, Outfit, Plus Jakarta Sans) to more traditional (Merriweather, Vollkorn) to bold and sporty (Bebas Neue, Oswald). The preview updates instantly so you can see how your text will look.

Style: This affects the overall vibe of your site's layout. Options include Classic (clean and professional), Modern (contemporary feel), Bold (high contrast, impactful), Slate (subtle and sophisticated), Vivid (colourful and energetic), and Dojo (traditional martial arts aesthetic).

Tip: If you're not sure where to start, pick a palette that matches your club's brand colours, then try a few different fonts until something feels right.

Header

Customise what appears at the top of every page:

Footer

Set up the bottom of your site:

Announcement Bar

Gold members can add a banner that appears at the very top of the site — perfect for promoting offers, announcing events, or sharing important news. You can set the text, colours, and optionally link it somewhere.

Gallery

Gold members get access to the built-in photo gallery. Upload images of your club, classes, competitions, and gradings. Visitors can browse them in a clean, modern gallery layout.

Domain

Connect your custom domain here (Gold members only).

When you click on a page in the Full Website editor, you'll open the page editor. Here you can build your page using content blocks.

Each page is made up of rows, and each row can contain different types of content:

The editor uses a simple drag-and-drop approach. Add a row, choose what type of content you want, and fill in the details.

Tip: Keep pages focused. Your homepage should give visitors a clear sense of who you are and what to do next. Your about page can go into more depth. Don't try to put everything on every page.

Different features are available depending on your BMABA membership level.

Bronze Members

Silver Members

Gold Members

In the editor, features that require a higher tier are shown with a small badge — silver (S) or gold (G). If you see one and want access, upgrading your membership unlocks it instantly.

Making changes in the editor doesn't automatically update your live site. This is deliberate — it means you can experiment and make mistakes without anyone seeing.

When you're happy with your changes, click the Publish button (or Republish if you've published before). Flo will generate your site and push it live. This usually takes just a few seconds.

Your site will then be available at yourclub.bmaba.app (or your custom domain if you've set one up).

Tip: Get into the habit of publishing after each editing session. That way your live site always matches what you've been working on.

If you're a Gold member, you can connect your own domain name to your Flo site. This means visitors can go to www.yourclub.com instead of yourclub.bmaba.app.

What You'll Need

How to Connect Your Domain

You'll need to create an A record pointing to our server IP address. The exact steps depend on your registrar, but Flo shows you exactly what to set.

That's it. Your custom domain will now load your Flo site.

Tip: If you're not sure how to change DNS settings, your domain registrar's support team can usually help. Just tell them you need to point your domain to an IP address.

Can I have both a Link in Bio site and a Full Website?

Yes! They're separate sites with separate addresses. Some clubs use a Link in Bio for social media and a Full Website for everything else.

What happens to my site if I downgrade my membership?

Your sites won't be deleted, but features that require a higher tier will stop working. For example, if you had a custom domain connected and you downgrade from Gold, the custom domain will stop working (but your site will still be available at the .bmaba.app address).

Can I move my site to a different address?

Your site address (the slug before .bmaba.app) is set when you create the site. If you need to change it, you'll need to create a new site with the new address. We're looking at adding a rename feature in the future.

How do I delete a site?

Contact the BMABA office and we'll sort that out for you.

My changes aren't showing on my live site

Make sure you've clicked Publish after making your changes. The editor and the live site are separate until you publish.

Can other people edit my site?

Only Lead Instructors and Instructors can access Flo. If you need someone else (like a club secretary) to manage your site, get in touch with the BMABA office and we can set up an access override.

Keep it simple. Visitors want to know three things: what you teach, where you're located, and how to get started. Make those easy to find.

Use real photos. Stock images of generic martial artists don't build trust. Photos of your actual club, instructors, and students do.

Update regularly. A site that looks abandoned (last news post from 2019, outdated timetable) makes people wonder if the club is still running. Even small updates show you're active.

Make contact easy. Put your phone number, email, and location on every page if you can. Don't make people hunt for how to reach you.

Think mobile first. Most people will find you on their phone. Flo sites are mobile-responsive, but keep this in mind when writing content — big blocks of text are harder to read on small screens.

Ask for feedback. Get a friend or family member who doesn't train at your club to look at your site. Can they figure out what you teach and how to join? Fresh eyes catch things you'll miss.

Flo by BMABA is designed to be a faster, easier way to build stunning websites, with all the core functionality in-built. It's our next generation site builder.

It does not replace or make redundant WordpressbyBMABA - far from it. WordpressbyBMABA is always going to be a flagship provision. WordPress by BMABA delivers enterprise-ready websites with member areas, payments, club shops, custom designs, and free one-to-one developer time. Hundreds of pounds of extras included — completely free for BMABA members.

Flo is perfect for getting online quickly with a beautiful, simple site. But if you need the full power of a professional web platform, WordPress by BMABA unlocks everything.

WordPress is hugely customisable and incredibly powerful, but there is a learning curve. Whilst we help get you set up and assist with ongoing changes, it's not as beginner-friendly and does require a bit of practice to get the hang of.

Website choices aren't exclusive either — you can have one or more of each if you wish!

If you already have a current Wordpress site, unfortunately we can't help you move it to Flo by BMABA - purely because the essence of the tech means we need members to 'self service'. You can absolutely setup a Flo site alongside the Wordpress site, or instead of it - and move across piece by piece, and then activate a full domain when you're ready.

Talk to our team if you're not sure, but rest assured if you're happy with your Wordpress site; that's absolutely fine - it's not going anywhere!

If you get stuck or have questions about Flo, we're here to help:

For technical issues (something's broken, not loading, etc.), let us know and we'll investigate.

We're also always interested in feedback. If there's a feature you'd love to see, or something that could work better, tell us. Flo is built for you, and your input shapes what we build next. We would love to invite you to share your ideas in the Roadmap.