The fitness industry took the online world by storm.
Over the past few years the fitness industry has truly broken past gym walls and found unlimited space to expand on the Internet. The Internet has become a place for online training, a plethora of exercise and nutrition information, and tools that allow anyone to put together a workout routine and meal plan. It has become a place for fitness brands to grow popularity and sell their supplements, apparel, equipment, and knowledge. It has built a community of people who care about their health and physique and a community that welcomes others looking to do the same. The fitness industry is full of information, ever-changing trends, fashion, competition, diets, and people looking to connect with other people.
What does the fitness industry need from marketing experts?
The fitness industry is experiencing a rather unique type of growth, as it is simultaneously saturated yet continuously booming and expanding. But here’s what marketing experts have that the fitness industry needs: expertise in online growth through SEO Content Marketing. It’s no doubt that successful and upcoming fitness professionals and brands do an awesome job of sharing their businesses online, but just sharing content is different from sharing SEO dense content. There is a difference between any content and content that serves to help target audiences find businesses. Marketing experts know the strategies needed to grow online and know where best to invest marketing budgets.
When it comes to growing your business online, marketing budgets need to include SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, and Pay-Per-Click Marketing (PPC). Adding strategy and expertise will not only improve your website, but your entire online presence as well.
What is SEO Content Marketing and how can it help fitness professionals?
With innovative websites for fitness brands and gyms, and social media spearheading brand awareness, fitness professionals need SEO Content Marketing more than ever. SEO Content Marketing uses technical expertise on the backend of websites with front end optimized content distribution. It is the harmony between algorithm matching and quality content. SEO Content Marketing helps businesses rank higher on Google searches for their related products or services. So, when potential clients search Google for “personal trainer in Scottsdale”, “how to lose weight fast”, “best pilates studio in Phoenix”, or anything similar they’ll find your expert listing on the 1st Page of search results.
Speaking of searches, it’s important to learn about keywords
What are keywords? Keywords and keyword sets are the words and phrases web users use to find information. Every business needs to harness specific keywords they want to rank for on search engines like, “gym near Phoenix, AZ”, “personal trainer Los Angeles”, or “group fitness classes Seattle”. Keywords used on websites and in content marketing helps tell search engines what your website and business is about so that search engine crawlers can accurately match user searches. The more keywords you have, the better chances you have of being matched so long as your SEO is of high quality.
The Madison Improvement Club
One of our most exciting SEO clients, The Madison Improvement Club, is a fitness force to watch out for! This cycle and yoga studio created the popular hashtag #PartyOnABike, because that’s exactly what their spin classes are. The Madison has created a fun, pumped up, welcoming culture and they want everyone in the Valley to join the party. As part of their outreach and marketing efforts, they’ve hired us to manage their SEO Content Marketing. As part of their package, we constantly improve their website’s SEO, ensuring the have all the necessary tags utilized and a strong linking strategy executed. We also provide SEO blog articles that live on their website as well as blog forums. Check out this awesome promotional video we put together for them too!
Stay local with local SEO
What is local SEO? Local SEO is the best and fastest way to build your online presence and rankings in your surrounding area first. By targeting your local area or the areas you want to immediately be found in, we add specific locations to your keyword sets. Local SEO tactics on your website, on business directories, and on corresponding content marketing is an excellent way to get in front of your immediate target audience. Unless you focus solely on online coaching, you’ll definitely want web users in your area to find you.
One of our clients, Sugarland Fit Life Studio, is a prime example of how beneficial local SEO is. We use hyperlocal searches so that people in the area near their gym find their website when searching Google for “gym in Sugarland”, “personal training in Sugarland”, “group fitness classes in Sugarland”, as well as many other targeted keyword sets. It’s important to understand where most of your customers are coming from. If you have a single gym in one city you’ll only want to get people who are searching in your city instead of just anyone searching for a gym. This specific SEO strategy helps you stay extremely competitive in your area versus competing with major facilities that have multiple locations.
How websites reflect the fitness professional
What sets our fitness professionals and their services apart in an already saturated and competitive market? Their service, business practices, and reputation of course. But, where is all of that amazing information located? That’s right, on their website. Websites for fitness professionals, gyms, and brands need to showcase all that they offer and how they are a reputable source for their potential clients. Let’s face it, if a website isn’t beautiful and mobile optimized, web users will not spend any time on it. These low-grade websites are often not even found in search results either.
One of our star clients using the Speenz website builder, Madison Murray, is a prime example of how she actively uses SEO Content Marketing to boost her search engine rankings on Google for personal training. Madison, founder of Mad Fit AZ, is a personal trainer who knows the value of her online presence. She blogs regularly to offer valuable information on topics potential clients would be searching for like “how to lose weight”, “macro friendly comfort food”, “eating during the holidays”, etc. When people search for information they find her articles in high ranking related search results. This SEO Content Marketing strategy is a great way to drive traffic to her website, build her online reputation, and potentially gain new clients.
I personally used the Speenz platform to launch my fitness business, Build-A-Butt. Build-A-Butt is a series of group fitness classes, instructional videos, and fitness equipment. My website allows me to share my products and services. Even more so, I am able to utilize SEO to boost rankings when fitness classes are searched in my area. Having an SEO and mobile optimized website serves to help grow businesses online. My business needs this level of online success in order to promote the classes and sell my fitness products that are only sold online.
So, I think I get SEO, but what’s all this Content Marketing talk about?
Content marketing is a marketing strategy that combines content creation and strategic distribution. Optimized content comes in the form of SEO blog articles, videos, graphics, social media posts, email campaigns, backlinking. The purpose of content marketing is to bring potential customers to you by being easily found listed on the 1st Page of their online search.
Content creation
For fitness professionals who double as experts in content creation or have decided to invest in a marketing team to help them, they truly thrive when it comes to proving they are experts in the fitness industry. From creating online tutorials, informational videos, nutritional graphics, and more, they showcase their fitness lifestyle through consistent and captivating content.
We’ve found that podcasts are great media outlets for fitness professionals because their audience is actively seeking insight, inspiration, tips, and stories. Karey Northington, IFBB Bikini Pro and co-founder of Northington Fitness & Nutrition joined a female entrepreneurial podcast, the Motivated Boss Babes, to share her story of how she went from nurse, to bikini athlete, to personal trainer and more.
Content for Northington Fitness & Nutrition
Northington Fitness and Nutrition is a personal training gym that offers private, semi-private and group training. They use nutrition as a major element of their training. This gym brings together professional in-person personal trainers as well as online coaching.
And yes, social media is a part of Content Marketing
The fitness industry relies heavily on visuals. From fitness instructional videos, to transformation pictures, to fitness motivation, using social media platforms has proven to be strong outlet in growing a brand. Some fitness professionals have been able to make their entire skyrocketing career purely from social media alone, using outlets like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Pinterest.
Social media influencers
Social media is a powerful tool and has become a prominent method for fitness professionals to gain a massive following and build their business through social popularity. Because of this, the use of social influencers has become a major need. Fitness businesses use social influencers to reach their following and help promote their brand, products, and services. If you scroll through your discover feed you’ll only see Instagram pages of people with hundreds of thousands to millions of followers promoting the awesome shirt their wearing, supplements their using, or trainers and gyms they’re working with. This type of cross promotion is essential building your brand through social media and it has been a very successful method for many businesses. But did you know that there is a heavy SEO presence behind social media. Hashtags are a great way to explain how keywords are used in SEO, it is the way people can find the specific things they are looking for online.
Time to show how strong you are online, not just in the gym
Digital marketing is like a giant online puzzle. Every piece matters when planning and executing your digital marketing plan. When it comes to online marketing strategies the bigger your online presence is, the more your website will be rewarded in organic searches. Digital marketing combines tech-based strategies like SEO with creative strategies like Content Marketing to help businesses build a powerful online force. Businesses that survive and grow online know how crucial it is to use precise research, updated strategies, and constant reputable content in their marketing plan. Some may see SEO Content Marketing as an investment, but it’s a relatively small investment toward how much your business can grow simply by offering high-quality, optimized information about your business online.
