SEO for Gyms

A Step-by-Step Gym SEO Guide

Are you ready to attract more members to your gym through organic search? Keep reading to learn how a targeted SEO gym marketing strategy can help you get found by potential members online.

In this guide you will learn:

Chapter 1
Intro to SEO →

Chapter 2
Keyword Research →

Chapter 3
On-Page SEO →

Chapter 4
Off-Page SEO →

Chapter 5
Best Practices →

Chapter 6
FAQs & Resources →

What is SEO for gym owners?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a website or web page to increase its visibility in search engines, like Google and Bing.

SEO is crucial for any gym owner looking to attract more members. The higher your gym’s website ranks on Google, the more likely potential customers will click through to learn more about your services and sign up.

Think of it like fitness for your website.

Just as regular workouts keep your body healthy, SEO ensures your website is in top shape. In other words, it helps your gym’s site get noticed by search engines, driving more traffic and potential clients to your business.

A person searching for a gym on Google may use a search query like “gym near me” or “best gym in [city name]”.

They may search for specific services such as “24-hour gym”, “weightlifting gym”, “gym with a sauna”, or “personal training in [city name]”. Or they may even include membership-related details in the search query, such as “affordable gym in [city name]” or “gym with no contract”.

In order to benefit from SEO, you want your website to rank for these kinds of searches.

Why is gym SEO important?

Here are some of the benefits of using SEO for your fitness business:

• Increased visibility: SEO helps increase the visibility of your gym’s website on search engines, making it more likely that potential members will find you when searching for fitness services.
• Cost-effective: Compared to traditional advertising methods like print or TV ads, SEO is a cost-effective way for gym owners to reach new members without breaking the bank.
• Targeted audience: SEO allows you to target specific keywords related to your gym’s services, classes, and amenities, helping attract the right audience to your website.
• Local SEO: Local SEO helps boost your gym’s visibility for people searching within a specific geographic location. This is especially beneficial for gyms, as it targets individuals looking for fitness centers in your area.
• Building trust: SEO can help your gym’s website establish trust and authority with search engines and potential clients by providing high-quality, relevant content. This, in turn, can help attract new members and build a strong reputation in the local fitness community.

How do search engines work?

Search engines work by crawling billions of webpages with their own web crawlers, known as search engine bots or spiders. These are then stored and saved in an index.

Google Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines)

The Google Search Essentials define the actions that webmasters can take to make their websites better indexable or crawlable.

Read them here: Official Google Guidelines

The guidelines are based on three central aspects:

1. Crawling – webmasters should support Google in finding websites.
2. Indexing – webmasters should help Google to classify and “recognize” the content.
3. Usability and user experience – webmasters should support the users of the websites in their use (usability and user experience).

Essentially, according to these Google guidelines,  a website should support the search engine in crawling and indexing and ensure a good user experience. 

Before you get started with SEO, there are a few prerequisites you want to check off first:

SEO Basics

At a bare minimum, you want to make sure you cover these basic standards before embarking on doing SEO:

• Website Speed – Have a fast loading site so potential customers don’t get tired of waiting for things to load.
• Mobile Friendliness – Make sure your site works on mobile as over 50% of users browse on mobile devices
• Analytics – Setup Google Analytics, Google Search Console & so you can understand what is and isn’t working.
• XML Sitemap – search engines use this to get your site’s URLs
• Robots.txt – tells search engine crawlers where they can (and where they can’t go) on your site.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the process of making website and server optimizations to help search engines to crawl and index your site more effectively (and therefore help to improve organic rankings).

Technical errors can hurt a website’s ability to rank. There are potentially a lot of errors, but here are some of the most common that will have the biggest impact when fixed:

• 404 errors
• Broken backlinks
• Poor URL structure
• Duplicate/thin content
• Poor internal linking
• Poor website architecture
• Missing metadata (page titles & meta descriptions)
• Missing H1 tags

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What is keyword research?

Keyword research is the process of identifying the words and phrases that people use when searching for specific products or services:

Once you understand the keywords your target audience is using, you can optimize your website to appear for these in search results.

Think of keyword research as a diagnostic test for your gym’s website. Keyword research helps you understand what potential members are searching for online when looking for fitness services.

For example, if people are searching for “best gyms near me” or “affordable fitness classes,” keyword research identifies these terms. You can then optimize your website with these keywords so that it ranks higher in search results, attracting more people who are looking for the services you offer.

Why is keyword research important?

Keyword research is important for gyms because it helps to:

• understand what people are searching for when they are looking for fitness services and clubs, and to optimize their website accordingly.
• identify the specific needs and pain points of their target audience, which can inform the content they create and services they offer, ultimately leading to more conversion and better client experience.
• identify the competition in the local area and understand what they are doing, so they can create a more effective SEO strategy.

What keywords are best to target?

Understand that there’s no “best” keywords, just those that are highly searched by your audience. With this in mind, it’s up to you to craft a strategy that will help you rank pages and drive traffic.

The best keywords for your SEO strategy will take into account relevance, authority, and volume. You want to find highly searched keywords that you can reasonably compete for based on:

• The level of competition you’re up against.
• Your ability to produce content that exceeds in quality what’s currently ranking.

How to do keyword research for your gym

To start keyword research: put yourself in your customers shoes.

What words, phrases and terms might they use in order to find solutions to these problems? These are the keywords you want to find and target.

Here is a simple process to follow:

Step 1) Make a list of broad topics

Create a list of general topics related to your business. These might correspond to product categories, services or anything you believe your target audience would be interested in.

For example, broad topics like:

• Weight Loss Programs
• Strength Training
• Group Fitness Classes
• Personal Training Services
• Yoga and Flexibility Training

Step 2) Expand topics into a list of phrases

Now you want to take those topics and expand them into a list of related phrases to target.

Imagine yourself as a buyer looking for your product or service and ask yourself: what would I type into Google?

Whilst keyword research tools are useful here, you can do this for free by Googling your keyword.

For example, Google “best workout for beginners” or “how to build muscle fast,” and you’ll see a list of related questions people commonly ask.

As well as related searches which may uncover other keywords to target:

Step 3) Analyze your keywords

Once you have a list of potential keywords, you need to gauge which terms are worth targeting.

You’ll need to use a keyword research tool here to pay attention to the following keyword metrics:

• Search volume
• Trends
• Search value over time
• Difficulty
• CPC
• SERP features

But most importantly, you want to consider relevancy and search intent:

Relevant keywords:

For relevancy, you want to ask yourself:

• Are these keywords relevant to my business?
• Do I have a chance of ranking for these terms based on the competition?
• Is ranking for these keywords going to have a positive ROI?

If you can answer YES to the above questions, chances are you have picked a relevant keyword

Search intent:

Search intent is the goal and purpose of a search query in Google. When someone searches for something, they are typically looking for more information before performing an action.

Search intent falls in four buckets:

• Informational – Searchers looking for information, they’ll use words like: how, what, why, when etc.
• Navigational – Searchers trying to find a specific site, they’ll use words relating to the service/product/brand
• Transactional – Searchers looking to purchase, they’ll use words like: buy, cost, pricing, cheap etc.
• Commercial investigation – Searchers researching prior to making a purchase, they’ll use words like: best, review, comparison etc

Not only is it important to select good keywords, but also to pick keywords you have a chance of ranking for.

If you’re trying to rank for a keyword like “Beginner Gym Workout Plan,” but your page only provides general fitness tips without an actual workout plan, you may struggle to rank well.

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What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO describes specific elements of the pages on your website that you control, such as:

• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• Header tags
• Internal linking
• Images
• Content

Why is on-page SEO important?

On-page SEO is important for gyms because it helps ensure that your website is easily found and understood by search engines, which can increase visibility and drive more traffic to your gym. This can ultimately lead to more members signing up.

For example, if your gym offers a specific service like “personal training” but it’s not mentioned or not emphasized on your website, it will be less likely for your site to appear in search results when someone searches for “personal training” or related terms. On the other hand, if your gym has optimized its website with “personal training” as a focus keyword, it will be more likely to show up in search results, attracting potential members who are looking for that service.

Additionally, on-page optimization can improve the overall user experience, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates. For instance, having a well-organized and easy-to-navigate website with clear calls to action like “Join Now” or “Book a Consultation” will be more likely to convert visitors into gym members.

On-Page SEO Checklist

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What is off-page SEO?

Off-page SEO refers to specific actions done outside of your website, such as getting backlinks from other websites or social media.

What is link building?

Link building is the practice of building one-way hyperlinks (also known as “backlinks”) to a website with the goal of improving SEO. Common link building strategies include content marketing, building useful tools, email outreach, broken link building and guest posts.

Why is link building important?

Link building is important for gyms because it helps to increase the visibility of a website on search engines. Google, for example, use links to a website as a way to determine the authority and trustworthiness of a website.

The more high-quality links that point to a website, the more likely it is to be considered an authority in its field and be given higher rankings in the SERPs (search engine results page).

This increased visibility can drive more traffic to a website, which can lead to more memberships for the gym.

Additionally, link building can help establish a gym as a reputable and trustworthy provider of fitness services, which is key to attracting new members. High-quality links from reputable websites in the fitness or health industry can signal to potential clients that your gym is well-respected and reliable.

Link building can also increase referral traffic to your gym’s website, where visitors are directed from other trusted websites. This helps raise brand awareness and reach new audiences who may not have otherwise discovered your gym.

In summary, link building is important for gyms because it increases visibility, builds reputation and trust, and drives more referral traffic to your website, ultimately leading to more memberships.

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Gym and Fitness SEO Best Practices (+ 4 Tips)

4 Actionable Gym SEO Tips

Here are some things you can do to begin the process of developing a good marketing strategy for your gym.

1. Add relevant keywords
2. Optimize for local searches
3. Start blogging
4. Earn links

1. Add relevant keywords to your website

People looking for gyms also search for specific services like personal training or yoga classes for beginners. Long-tail searches typically have fewer searches, but the traffic they bring is often highly targeted and ready to convert into actual members.

For example, instead of just focusing on optimizing your website for “gym” or “fitness center,” you could add keywords like “gym in [your city]” or “best personal training in [your area]” or “yoga classes for beginners in [your city], [state]” to it. This helps attract visitors who are looking for those specific services and more likely to become gym members.

2. Optimize your site for local searches

If your SEO plan doesn’t use local SEO to target specific areas, you’ll likely miss out on some great leads. Adding the name of your town and nearby towns to your website copy is the easiest way to get better results.

But don’t forget about things on your site besides writing copy. You should also add places to the titles and URLs of your pages.

Also, make sure that your business is listed on Google Maps and local directory sites. This will help your business show up more in local searches.

3. Start writing useful content

The main goal of SEO for your gym is to get more clients by making your website more visible in Google.

One way to do this is to write a blog. If you write a blog with tips on how to improve fitness, workout routines, or healthy eating, you’ll attract interested readers and potential gym members. As your traffic grows, so will your search rankings, and people looking for a gym in your area will turn to you as a reliable source for fitness advice and services.

4. Earn quality links

How high your site ranks in search results for keywords and phrases related to your business depends on how many and how good the links are to it. This means that you need to get good links if you want to keep your rankings.

You can do this by making good content and reaching out to bloggers and leaders in your field to ask them to share it. This will not only help you move up in search results, but it will also make your fitness club look like a leader in the field.

Backlinks are a very important part of SEO for gyms. They are like a vote of confidence for the content your gym puts out. Because of this, links are one of the most important ways that search engines like Google decide how to rank pages.

How does gym SEO work?

SEO for your gym means making sure that your website is optimized for both search engines and users. This makes your website more visible in relevant and organic search results.

Optimizations include:

• on-page SEO
• link building
• technical SEO review
• content audit
• local citation audit

Why do gyms need marketing?

It helps you set your gym apart.

Your members are your customers. A marketing plan not only helps you find your target audience but also helps potential members understand why they should choose your gym over others.

A good gym marketing strategy should attract new members, retain the ones you have, and raise awareness about your services. The main goal is to get potential members to visit your gym, sign up for classes, or schedule a consultation online.

How long does gym SEO take?

Typically, a gym’s SEO takes at least six months to deliver results.

In some cases, gyms may start to see results like increased traffic, phone calls, and appointments, in faster time frame than this.

Although typically 6 months is a good benchmark as SEO is a long-term strategy vs. a short-term strategy like PPC.

How much does SEO for gyms cost?

Prices for gym website SEO depend on multiple factors, but the average cost for workout facility SEO is $1500 – $5000 per month.

If you’re looking to partner with a consultant or gym SEO expert, the average rate is $100 – $300 per hour.