How To Get More Clients With SEO For Fitness Websites

Quick Summary:

In today’s technology-powered world, people look for the best gyms on Google before making a decision. Investing in SEO to make your fitness website show up on Google’s first page can fetch you more new customers, improve brand awareness and increase your business ROI.

• Conduct keyword research to narrow down search terms your website should show up for and include appropriate keywords contextually in your content.
• Establish your presence on Google My Business (GMB) using accurate information related to your fitness center, including NAP (name, address, and phone number), photos and location on the maps.
• Optimize your website for improved page loading speed to ensure a good user experience.
• Create a sitemap to get your important pages crawled and indexed faster by the search engine.
• Build high-quality backlinks from other fitness-related sites to increase your domain authority and magnetize more organic traffic. Make sure you leverage the right anchor text to create contextual backlinks.

There are many challenges associated with owning a fitness center or gym. You have to make sure you’re completely prepared with all the equipment that your clients would need.

You’re definitely signing up to invest a huge sum of money when you think of this business. What’s unfair is not having much footfall despite investing so much in your gym. This necessitates having a website dedicated to your business and knowing about SEO for fitness websites. Let’s dig deeper.

A lot of people look for the best gyms on Google before making a decision. Your responsibility towards having more clients visit your gym doesn’t end at having a website built.

You have to make sure it’s visible on the first page of the Google search results because people rarely go to the second page when selecting a fitness center. Ranking on the first page makes people believe that your gym is popular and reputed. SEO helps achieve better ranks, therefore building brand authority for your business.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization helps in improving website ranks and makes your online business more visible to prospective clients.

When you have a local business like a gym, it is important to target local searches so that you can attract the local audience. So, we will be talking about local SEO for personal websites for the best results.

4 Tips For SEO For Fitness Websites

1. Know Your Keywords

The first step to optimizing your website is to come up with a list of keywords related to your business and services. Make a list of your services, like Zumba classes, cardio-training, etc.

Now, find out the keyword volume with the help of tools like Keywords Everywhere, or Google AdWords (Keyword Planner). This will give you a fair idea of how many people search for those terms. You have to include two types of keywords.

a. Buying Intent

This is meant to directly target people who are looking for services and are ready to sign up for them. Buying intent is important for a business since they attract potential clients and aid in high conversions.

You can use these kinds of keywords on your home page and service pages. Some examples of fitness keywords of this nature are- “yoga classes Sacramento,” “fitness center Sacramento,” etc.

b. Research Intent

This set of keywords is for people who are looking for information related to workout and fitness. Let’s say, a large number of people look for blogs about a diet plan that goes well with their workout.

You can use keywords for health and target highly searched keywords that people use with research intent and provide the relevant information.

While such an audience wouldn’t join your gym right away, it adds to your online presence and drives more traffic to your website.

2. Be On Google My Business

People generally conduct a complete background check before joining a gym. This involves all the details of your fitness center like NAP (name, address, and phone number), photos, location on the maps, etc. Being on Google My Business is one stop to get all the required details.

Ensure that you complete the verification process for Google My Business so that you get the symbol “verified” next to your online business on the tool. This adds credibility to your gym.

All the information that you provide, especially the NAP, should be the same everywhere on the internet. Google also crawls through this info to see consistency. It would help if you specified the hours of operation and any special training courses that you provide.

There are many categories that you can choose for your business to be more specific. You can list about three or four categories like “sports club,” “fitness center,” “gym,” “Zumba,” etc. This makes your business relevant to the specific searches.

Come up with a small description that provides all the important information about your business. It will help if you add pictures of your gym and the equipment that the fitness center is equipped with.

Most people make a choice based on how the gym looks and if it has all the needed equipment. Post high-resolution pictures that have a focal point so that each picture is informative to people.

Ensure you ask your existing customers to leave reviews on Google My Business. Answer any queries that are in the review section so that people get all the information they are looking for.

3. Optimize Your Website

If you want more people to stay on your website and find what they’re looking for with ease, you have to optimize your website such that it is user-friendly.

With so many fitness websites on the internet, you need to have a unique theme for your website that goes well with your niche, is simple, and delivers your brand story and message.

Ensure that there are proper categories and subcategories so that it’s easy for people to find the information that they searched for within a few clicks. Add a sitemap to your website so that the search engine can crawl through each page without missing any. This is definitely an important factor concerning SEO for fitness websites.

Also, you should keep a check on the page loading speed and make sure that it doesn’t take more than three seconds for your website to load. People leave websites that take a lot of time to load. This increases the bounce rate of the website and impacts your rankings negatively.

4. Build Quality Links

If your website is relatively new on the search engine and you want to add credibility to your business, you have to build links.

In fact, building links is one of the most effective ways to improve ranks. When you write a blog, choose a part of the text that is relevant to the page you’re linking to.

The words you use to link to the website is the anchor text. Additionally, when you’re linking to another page, these links are known as outbound links.

While outbound links are worth adding, what gets you extra points are inbound links- links coming from other websites.

However, the websites that link to your content should have a higher domain authority than your website. Inbound links from powerful websites that point to your website give Google a signal that your website is credible and relevant.

To figure out the number of links you can use, look for the links in your top competitor’s content for a specific keyword. It’s important to build an optimal number of links for it to not look like you’re spamming the content.

Conclusion

That was all about SEO for fitness websites. It’s quite easy to follow and you don’t need any expert knowledge to implement them.

However, there are certain SEO aspects that you can do yourself without any help. When you feel like your online business needs that extra kick and you’re ready to make that investment, you can always look for an expert SEO agency to do the job for you.