Since the gym business is local, many owners and managers think the digital marketing revolution isn’t for them.
We’re a digital marketing agency, and given that we’ve used digital tactics to help multiple businesses scale and grow in the fitness space, we can tell you that you don’t have to sit out on it. In fact, you can leverage it to grow.
There are multiple fitness marketing strategies that can work for you. In this post, we’ll discuss how to market a gym with local SEO. First, let’s understand what local SEO can do for your gym business.
5 benefits of local gym SEO you should know
Here’s why it’s worth investing in local SEO to market your gym:
Increase your gym’s local visibility
Yes, traditional marketing methods like flyers, posters, and banners are still available. However, marketers agree that when you take the traditional marketing approach, you’re only able to use around 50% of your marketing collateral. The rest gets ignored.
Conversion is also much less, at around 5% only. It’s not so with local SEO. If you want to get more visibility in your neighborhood, local SEO is a cost-effective way of getting attention from potential clients looking for fitness centers nearby.
Further, the cost of local SEO only decreases over time. This is because digital marketing, unlike traditional methods, allows for measuring and optimizing strategies.
Target traffic in your region
Another reason to consider local SEO is that it draws attention not from everyone but only from people who are actually looking for your services in your region. The internet has become synonymous with global reach. However, it is critical for local business owners to know the distinction between local and global search results.
You know those people typing ‘gyms near me’ or ‘fitness centers near me’ on their mobiles? Those are the ones you show up in front of when you use local SEO. When you make a Google My Business profile and optimize it with the right keywords, you show up in local search results.
Level the playing field against bigger brands
Is your gym smaller, newer, or more expensive than your competitors? Guess what? It doesn’t matter. You can still show up above your competition in the local searches. Which means you can capture the lead before they can.
In the digital realm, you play by a different set of rules. Your audience doesn’t just want a place with weight racks. They want community, information, engagement, and inspiration.
So, by showing up in local searches, creating localized content, and engaging with your community through social media, you can effectively level the playing field against the bigger players and even win.
Enhance your local reputation
Your reputation is the perception that your potential audience has about your gym or your brand even before they’ve encountered you. However, what shapes this perception if they’ve never encountered your gym?
The online reviews, testimonials, or ratings that other customers leave are powerful psychological levers that influence buying behavior. Do you know that 92% of users agree that reviews play an essential role in their purchases?
Local SEO allows you to shape, manage, and enhance your local reputation. With a solid local reputation, you become a contender in local searches. When you have a higher listing in local searches and a better online reputation, even the bigger brands and gyms don’t stand a chance.
Experience higher conversion rates
When you target a pre-primed audience, provide them with social proof, and delight them with your online presence, conversion becomes a breeze. When 76% of online local searches turn into leads, it’s no surprise that 28% of them end up becoming your customers.
When you intentionally create and dynamically shape your local online presence, you can enhance its multiple facets to improve conversion over time. On the other hand, if you don’t use local SEO, you won’t even know your conversion rates and how they may vary, let alone optimize them.
How to promote a gym using local SEO: 5 key elements
Now that you know what local SEO can do for your gym. Here are five key elements to note:
Optimize Google My Business profile
The first and most important thing to do is to create a Google Business profile for your gym. Even if you don’t have a website yet, this free tool from Google enables you to control and manage how you appear in Google’s search results.
Think of this as the first impression you make on fitness enthusiasts looking for a nearby gym to join. Offer essential information like your gym’s address, directions, contact information, and opening hours. Whatever they need to get to you.
If you have a website, link it. Images play a big part, and 91% of customers prefer images to text. Leverage what you have. If you have reviews, great! If you don’t, start collecting them, and in the meantime, why not start posting? Answer questions, engage with your audience, and set up messaging.
After setting up your Google Business Profile, you can look at other directories like Yelp, Bing Places, Yahoo Places, and others. The most important thing is to have a consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) listing for your gym across different directories.
Do some hyperlocal keyword research
It’s obvious that you have to do local keyword research to stand out in local searches. However, once you’ve done that, don’t be afraid to go hyperlocal. That means zoning in on areas just blocks from your gym by targeting keywords such as ‘gym in [city]’ or ‘fitness center in [neighborhood].’
This is because distance is a key factor in gym memberships, as well as how often your customers actually visit your gym in a week.
Finding these hyperlocal keywords is difficult because the search volume is generally so low that most keyword research tools don’t pick them up. While there are ways to get around this problem, sometimes the best thing to do is contact a good local SEO service.
So, once you uncover some hyperlocal keywords, what do you do? It’s a bit counterintuitive, but inserting these hyperlocal keywords in your Google Business profile description is unlikely to have much impact. So what will? Read on to find out.
Create geo-specific website content
Geo-specific content refers to website content tailored to a specific geographic location. Consider the audience’s customs, diets, habits, traditions, and behaviors in your immediate geographical area.
Is your gym in mountainous terrain? How about creating posts on how to use local hiking trails for cardio? Are there some local customs or traditions that include fasting? How about creating posts on using fasting to get lean?
These not only inform your audience but also position you as an authority in your industry. If finding hyperlocal keywords to create geo-specific content to market your gym seems intimidating, a fitness SEO service can help.
Geospecific content tends to be very relevant, and that’s why it resonates well with target audiences. Bring in those hyperlocal keywords you found earlier, too. Integrate them in titles, headers, and throughout the content to create hyperlocal, geo-specific blogs and separate landing pages to market your gym.
Cleanup your citations
Online citations are online mentions of your gym’s name, address, or phone number (NAP). They play a crucial role in local SEO by helping search engines verify a business’s legitimacy and location.
Citations can appear in various places, including online directories, social media platforms, review sites, and local business listings. Citations with inconsistencies in the contact information or link can lead to a loss of trust with search engines and users.
So, start by auditing all your existing mentions of your gym across the web. Check major directories and correct any discrepancies in your NAP information to ensure uniformity. Most good local SEO tools offer citation management as part of their plans.
Track your local rankings
If you’ve put all that in place, it’s time to start tracking your local rankings. This is because when you start monitoring your local rankings, you can measure the efficacy of your strategies and make informed adjustments to market your gym better.
Begin by identifying the most relevant keywords for your gym, such as ‘gym near me,’ ‘fitness center in [City],’ and ‘best gym in [area].’ Regularly checking with good local SEO tools helps you understand your position and pinpoint areas for improvement.
Another benefit of tracking is that you can confidently experiment with strategies to market your gym. Once all the elements of local SEO are in place, try boosting your local rankings with content marketing or even on-page SEO and see how that affects your results.
No time to market your gym? Try Ranq’s local SEO services
You have all the information you need. Still, marketing your own gym can be tedious, especially if you’re already tasked with the day-to-day responsibilities of handling a gym.
We’re Ranq, a boutique fitness marketing company. By combining original strategies with tried-and-tested tactics, we’ve helped multiple businesses reach their business goals. Check out our portfolio. If you’d rather just do fitness, we can handle the marketing for you. Contact us for a free quote!