How to make sure your fitness clients find you online
Often we feel intimidated by acronyms such as 'SEO' (Search Engine Optimization) and shy away from understanding what it really means, and how it applies to you and your business. Well, I'd love to break it down for you so that you can at least get the basics covered, and in this blog post I'd like to discuss one of the fundamental steps to SEO success: understanding what your clients are searching for. Without this, it'll be pretty difficult to get your website on the right track...
Now before I dive in, I'd like to break your 'customer base' into three categories:
1) 'hot' customers that already know about what you offer (eg. pilates)
2) 'warm' customers that could be interested in understanding more about you offer
3) 'cold' customers that don't know about you or what you offer
Ok, step 1: common sense. What might the three categories of customers be searching for?
pilates near me
best pilates studios
pilates for back pain
what is pilates
benefits of pilates
is pilates like yoga
Next you want to figure out the most popular way customers are searching for your business. Some may be using the phrases you have guessed above, others may be using longer and more convoluted search phrases. Never underestimate what people can google. Example:
I'm looking for a great pilates studio nearby where I can move my body, feel good, lose weight and meet people in my neighborhood
So from that type of sentence, you can pull out key phrases. Here is where SEO starts to come into the picture. These key phrases help inform websites on how to optimize their SEO through the use of 'title tags'.
The best way to then go back in and check that you're on the right track and haven't missed anything out is by cross checking the quality of the keywords in Ahrefs Keywords Explorer. This is a great tool that will allow you to check the amount of times any given phrase has been searched.
And, while you're at it, it'd be great to understand other ways your customers may be searching for you. You can do this by taking the 2–3 most relevant top ranking pages, insert them into the Ahrefs Content Gap tool to reveal the common keywords.
Finally, you can go even deeper by looking at the 'Search Suggestions' report in Keywords Explorer which will pull up the keywords generated by Google autocomplete.
Next up is creating content that links back to your potential customers, so that you can close the gap between what those customers are searching and the probability that they will find you. This means finding out what interests them and creating content on those topics. If you need some inspiration, Content Explorer is a great tool that will allow you to identify which relevant topics are popular, and you can even see the keywords used by clicking 'Details'.
Once you have figured out the keywords for which you want to rank and what searchers are expecting to see when they type them in Google, you'll need to assign those keywords to the pages on your site. Pro tip: create a map that ties each keyword to a page on your site.
Catalina's consultancy, Telomere Consulting, provides 1:1 fitness consulting, strategy coaching and marketing automation for fitness studios ('done-with-you' and 'done-for-you') to fitness businesses looking to serve their purpose and become even more profitable. Catalina also coaches her clients on strategies for sales, pricing, and the creation of new revenue streams.
Telomere Consulting provides strategic insights and advisory services to clients in the fitness and wellness industry. Catalina and her team provide end-to-end marketing support on all things boutique fitness and would love to hear from you. Click here to book your free intro call. We want to help you treat your business the way you would treat your body – making the right choices now to optimize its potential for a long and healthy life. Visit us here to learn more.