Fitness businesses are positioned to reap great rewards from implementing smart, local SEO solutions.
The key is to focus on the tactics that will give your business the most boost for the effort.
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If you’re new to SEO, otherwise known as “search engine optimization” you may want to start by reading Why local SEO is Important for Fitness Studios -- Frequently Asked Questions, and Local SEO Checklist for Fitness Studios and Businesses, which give you an overview of why local SEO is so critical to fitness studio’s and gym’s success and how to get started with a local SEO solution.Â
This post dives deeper into how to create an online presence that drives new customers through your doors.Â
We’ll show you how to perform a website audit to identify key areas of opportunity for improving your online search engine visibility and performance, SEO keyword research, blogging for SEO and Google My Business Listing power moves.Â
When creating your most effective local SEO strategy, remember, not all of the tools we include will apply to your fitness business and some may take longer than others. You ultimately know what’s best for your business and where to prioritize.Â
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It’s always a good idea to get clear – or update – your fitness studio’s core offerings, especially in light of recent changes in the fitness industry.
We’re working towards identifying keywords to include in your local SEO strategy so that your business will have the best chance of appearing when potential new customers search online.
A good rule of thumb is to put yourself in the place of your customer.
What query would they be most likely to type into Google when looking for fitness classes, a personal trainer or gym in your area?Â
For example, if you teach yoga, is your class called “Go with the Flow” or “Vinyasa Flow Yoga”? The latter is much more likely to return a result in a Google search to someone looking for what you offer.Â
If you offer 1:1 private lessons or training sessions, are you explaining that in detail on your website or Google My Business Listing and using keywords that describe the workouts? For example: “kickboxing private training sessions” or “HIIT workout private or group training.”
Be sure to clearly list the prices and schedule for your offerings on your website and online profiles. This includes any introductory offers you may have.Â
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One of the fastest ways to start implementing local SEO solutions that will boost your numbers quickly, is to perform a website audit.
We know...
What is a website audit and HOW on earth do I do this?!
The good news it's not as challenging as it seems. AND, you'll be way ahead of competitors who decide they don't want to time to learn this step.
To audit your site, you'll want to start with a quick performance review.
There are a number of free, online tools that will quickly show you the strengths and weaknesses of your site. When you’ve got a few clear bullet points showing you why your website is slow to load or isn’t ranking for important keywords you’ll be super efficient in targeting your local SEO strategy to address these, giving you a quick boost.Â
A website SEO audit will typically address the following, all of which contribute to your businesses ability to rank in search results:
There are a number of free, online SEO auditing tools as well as paid options that give you even more information about the effectiveness of your local SEO strategy and the SEO health of your website. These include Moz, Semrush and Ahrefs.
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Let's talk about website architecture.
What is website architecture and why is it an important local SEO solution?
Your website architecture is how your website content – titles, text, links, videos, etc. – is organized.
It’s kind of like a well thought out kitchen where utensils and supplies are placed intuitively in the drawers and cabinets where a person involved in cooking a meal would naturally reach.Â
Websites that are built with the user in mind clearly present information, make it easy and fast for users to click through to find relevant information and have an obvious menu-ing and navigational structure. These sites are intuitive and help users find what they’re looking for without thinking about it.
Create a website architecture that has:
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This may seem like a daunting task.
But consider this:
According to Google, 76% of people who search on their smartphones for something nearby visit a business within one day.
Even more surprising is that 28% of those searches result in a purchase
So a bit of research can boost your opportunities to connect with customers.
Local keyword research is done by using an online tool to find out:
Once you identify the keywords your potential customers use most, you can use these in the content on your website to make sure they find you first. The ultimate goal is to drive more, qualified leads to your website – and into your classes or gym.Â
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There are a host of online tools for researching keywords.
Before you get started, take a moment to map out what your local target audience wants most.
Why would they be searching for a gym or fitness studio like yours?
Here are some deeper dive questions to ask yourself:
When you’ve gotten clear on the answers to these questions, you’re ready to move on to the next local SEO solution: Researching your competition.
The goal here is to find keywords that your desired customers are typing into Google that your competitors don't rank for.
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You can use any of the online tools we’ve mentioned – such as Moz, Semrush and Ahrefs – to find out what SEO keywords your competitors are ranking for, and which ones they are not.
First, you'll want to determine who Google thinks is the competition.
You can do a quick Google search, using the keywords you identified from your keyword research.
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You'll want to look a few things:
1) Grab the top competitors who come up in the map pack.
2) See which competitors are running ads for your target keywords (this will help give you an idea if anyone is your area is advertising or if there's an opportunity to grab some impressions with search ads).
3) Grab the top 5-7 competitors who come up in regular search results (below the map pack).
Then, you'll use some of the keyword tools we just mentioned to dig into the good stuff about your competitors.
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These local SEO research tools can tell you information like:
AND much more!
This process can take up multiple blog posts and it's easy to go down the rabbit hole with SEO sleuthing.
By going through this process, you can target the keywords that your fitness business is most likely to rank for, and develop content on your website that will map to your target audiences local queries. It’s as simple as typing your competitor’s website URL into one of the SEO research tools listed above.
If you'd like an even deeper dive into keyword research and competitor analysis, Neil Patel has an excellent post that will walk you through SEO Competitor Analysis.
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There are two primary ways to identify topics that will answer the questions your target audience is “googling for” most often.Â
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FIRST WAY
You can see from your local SEO keyword research what terms are popular in your area – keywords like “HIIT for weight loss,” or “yoga for stress relief” or “group fitness class schedule” will give you some idea of what people want more information about and can be a good jumping off place for writing blog posts.Â
A super easy way to do on-the-fly keyword research like this is to type some keywords (like those above) into Google and see what types of SERP features appear.
Ask yourself...
Does Google show the Local Pack (the map and Google My Business ratings and profiles for your seed keywords?
Does a competitor’s Google Ad appear?
What about a list of bulleted items from someone’s blog or website?Â
If Google shows local organic search results for your seed keywords, then your website has a chance of ranking if you optimize specific web pages for those and other related keywords.
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SECONDÂ WAY
You can also plug your seed keywords into either a free or paid keyword research tool to view specific data around these keywords (e.g. search volume, keyword difficulty, SERP analysis) as well as other related keywords or questions.Â
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When you're ready to write a blog post:
Make sure to use your designated keyword frequently to attract search engines. This is called keyword density, and basically means the number of times that a keyword is used in relation to the total words on a page.
Rather than play a guessing game, you can use a too like WordCounter to tell you keyword density.
Once you're done with a post, paste it into WordCounter's box, then look at the information displayed in the right columns. Specifically, the 'word density column.' Select 'x2' or 'x3' (depending on keyword length, to display density.
A good target is 3% keyword density.
It's good practice to use synonyms and variations of your target keyword as well.
If you need help determining what those might be, plug your keyword into Google, then scroll down to the bottom of the page and look at related searches. Use those as inspiration and add them where they make sense in the article.
Keep in mind that there’s a balance in being user-friendly and practical in conveying relevant information and simply putting so many keywords on a page that it’s annoying and not giving the end-user any benefit.
Not only can this turn off users, but Google's algorithm can penalize sites who are guilty of "keyword stuffing" their pages and blog posts.Â
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As we mentioned in our previous posts about maximizing your local SEO, having a strong Google My Business profile is key to capturing that highly motivated local search traffic. Here are some power moves to get your fitness business to the top of search results within Google’s Local Pack results.
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