Websites in the fitness industry have a very large addressable market, but face a lot of competition.
For local personal trainers and gyms, finding leads and signing new clients can be an uphill struggle.
Word of mouth is still an important channel to acquire new clients, but many prospective clients will search on Google for ‘gyms near me’ or ‘personal trainers near me’ and click on the first couple of results, ignoring the rest.
So, how do you get to those coveted first spots?
The first step is to take control of your online presence. Claim your social media profiles, see what reviews clients and prospects have been leaving about you, and if you haven’t yet, publish your website (no, a Facebook page is not enough). Then, it’s time to work on getting found online.
One of our power users has propelled his website to appear in quite a few top positions in Google results, and we had the opportunity to chat with him to learn about how he did it all himself.
Meet Ian Glass from Ian Glass Fitness, a Hartlepool (UK) based gym.
We often hear from Personal Trainers that are great at what they do, but selling themselves as a brand is something they think they are awful at, which discourages them.
SEO for Fitness, Gyms and Personal Trainers
What were some of Ian’s challenges?
- They were doing everything themselves with very little technical knowledge: building the website, doing SEO, social etc.
- There is high competition from other personal trainers and gyms vying for similar keywords.
- Very few backlinks
So how did marketgoo help Ian Glass Fitness gain visibility in search? Let’s take a look at their profile:
User Profile
- Using marketgoo for: 2 years
- # Sessions in marketgoo: 351
- # Keywords tracked in marketgoo: 20
- # Competitors tracked in marketgoo: 4
- Website Platform: Weebly
- marketgoo Plan: marketgoo PRO
At-a-Glance
# of keywords in Top 10 Google Results
Before: 0
After: 4
# of Ranked Keywords
Before: 1
After: 10
# of Backlinks
Gained +126 new backlinks
- marketgoo was chosen among other tools because it was the simplest
- They consider the most valuable feature of marketgoo to be Optimize Your Pages
- After getting over the initial SEO fixes, they currently dedicate no more than 1 hour per week to optimizing current pages, and have maintained top rankings.
Since I’ve used marketgoo my website is ranked at the top of Google for its keywords and it’s driving traffic to my business, helping me collect leads and make sales.
The Keys: local keywords and consistent optimization
- The Ian Glass Fitness team used keywords to narrow down their target market: they were interested being the top results for fitness, personal trainer or gyms in the Hartlepool (UK) area. They didn’t need to compete for visitors searching for gyms in other areas, so they really narrowed their focus.
- They used marketgoo to match each of these keywords to a unique page on their site, with pages that have content that’s focused on a single topic.
- They have reached out and asked for guidance from marketgoo’s Support team
- They understand what their competitors are doing online and their performance compared to them
- They have been consistent at obtaining reviews on Google, Facebook and Yell.com
- They have consistent details across their website, local directories and Google My Business profile: Name, Working Hours, Address, Phone Number.
- They have been extremely consistent in learning about SEO and focusing on local. Consistency is key!
Being brand new to DIY website builders and having zero tech or SEO experience, it’s really helped me make sure my pages are set up correctly and making the most of them and getting them ranked on Google.
