We have received many requests to share effective tips for local SEO strategy for fitness centres. As more countries lift lockdown rules on these businesses, their owners and marketers want to learn how to bring back their existing customers, as well as new ones. After all, fitness is health and, thus, these businesses are extremely necessary in every community.
Why Do You Need a Local SEO Strategy for Fitness Centres?
Despite people’s eagerness to return to a normal life, they have also become more cautious with their spending. A fitness centre subscription may not be among their top priorities, despite the need to exercise and lose the extra pounds they’ve accumulated.
While you are working hard on your digital marketing strategy to give consumers the reasons to come back to your gym and to find new customers, you also need to think locally. This is why you need a local SEO strategy for fitness centres. You are not likely to persuade someone living across the city to visit your gym.
How Does Local SEO Work and What Is It?
Local search engine optimisation (SEO) ensures that your website shows up at the top of Google search results when someone looks for a fitness centre in your area. Localisation is done in several ways:
- The user specifies the city/neighbourhood name in their search;
- The user looks for a business and uses the term “near me”;
- Google offers results based on the user’s location according to their IP or GPS data.
Thus, even if a user living in Perth does not specify the location of the fitness centre, Google will display gyms in this city among the top results (the Local Pack). And this is why local SEO for fitness centres is so important – because your website has increased visibility to qualified customers.
Ways to Build an Effective Local Search Strategy for Fitness Centres
We will not repeat the same advice we offered in other articles on the topic of local SEO and Google Maps marketing. Instead, we will offer specific advice helping gyms find more customers in their local area.
1. Use a ccTLD Domain
A ccTLD domain is the website ending with the unique code for your country. In the case of Australia, you should pick a domain name such as www.MyFitnessCentre.au. This domain type is extremely useful as the first level of matching locations when users search for a fitness centre.
It is even more useful if you run a network of gyms at national level and wish to create an extensive local SEO strategy for fitness centres. However, even if you have just one or two locations in a specific area, a ccTLD domain is still useful.
2. Create NAP Citations of Fitness Business Directories
Google uses NAP citations to verify your business location. These are entries including your business name, address and phone numbers that you create on business directories to raise awareness for your gym.
You can find here a comprehensive list of citation directories specialising in gyms, health and fitness centres. Take the time to create NAP citations for your gym on as many as possible. This is one of the simplest and most effective tips for building a successful local SEO strategy for fitness centres.
3. Optimise Your Website for Local SEO
Your website needs some optimisation work as part of your local SEO strategy for fitness centres. Some of the key issues you should check and fix are:
- Do you have the name of your gym and location in the title tag?
- Do you display the NAP citation for your business on each page in the header or footer?
- Do you geo-tag your photos?
- Do you have geo-targeted anchor text in your content?
- Do you have a separate web page for each of your locations?
If the answer is No to any of these questions, you have work to do!
4. Review and Update Your GMB and other Listings?
Business listings on Google My Business, Yelp and other directories are not static. The owners of these websites may update the information based on feedback from consumers. In some cases, the new information may be incorrect.
Thus, as part of your local SEO strategy for fitness centres, you should constantly monitor your listings and correct them as soon as you notice erroneous data.
5. Encourage Your Gym Members to Leave Reviews
Last but not least, make sure that you remind your members to leave reviews and share their experience as customers. Google gives great importance to customer reviews and ratings. The websites included in the Local Pack are not selected only by location, but also by their good reputation.
This concludes our tips for an effective local SEO strategy for fitness centres. Good luck!