Most forecasts agree that the demand for personal trainers will increase in the next few years. If this is your career, you have clients of all ages waiting for you.
But it also means you’re up against many other trainers. How do you stand out? Bring your brand online through search engine optimization (SEO).
This post shows you the best SEO strategies personal trainers can apply to dominate the search results, drive traffic, and convert leads to clients.
5 Ways to Grow Your Personal Trainer Biz Using SEO
SEO isn’t the easiest digital marketing tactic. Personal trainers can benefit from working with an online marketing firm specializing in their niche.
According to Digital Authority Partners (DAP), these people understand the nuances of the industry. In turn, they can develop campaigns and craft messages that resonate with your prospects.
But it also helps to learn the critical steps so you can oversee the project. Here are five of them:
1. Define Your Brand
When it comes to SEO, some immediately jump into keyword research and all things technical. They forget that digital marketing can only do so much for them. What plays a bigger role in conversion is branding.
A brand differentiates you from competitors and aligns your marketing efforts. It also attracts your desired market. Most of all, it humanizes your business.
Defining a brand is challenging, but these ideas will give you a head start:
- Focus on the reason. In other words, know your “why.” What fuels your desire to become a personal trainer? Is it to change lives? Is it to let others experience fitness benefits? These stories show potential clients what you’re all about.
- Find your voice. How do you want others to perceive you? Do you want to be the instructor that’s all business? Be intentional with how you present yourself.
- Create a consistent tone. Your brand’s voice should run through all your content. It should be evident in everything from the language you use on social media to the way you answer phone calls.
2. Get Specific with Keywords
SEO won’t exist without keywords. But with so many types, it is challenging to choose the most ideal. Here’s our suggestion: get specific with them.
- Match the keywords with user intent. Not everyone looking for a personal trainer online wants your service. Others may be curious about what you do. Either way, the keywords should go with user intent. For example, use “hire personal trainer” for people ready to book an appointment.
- Consider long-tail keywords. Key terms and phrases such as “best personal trainer” or “fitness instructor” may have a high search volume, but they are also fiercely competitive. Your new website will struggle to beat established ones. For more targeted traffic, use phrases with three or more words, such as “LA fitness instructors for seniors.”
3. Focus on Local SEO
SEO is time-consuming and costly. If you’re looking for a “shortcut,” do local SEO.
Why will this work? Research shows that the global health and fitness club market could achieve a cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 7% from 2022 to 2027.
Bottom line: many want to be part of gyms, but humans don’t want to travel far for this. Instead, they are more likely to sign up for services in their neighborhoods and communities.
For local SEO strategies, set your sights on the foundations:
- Define your NAP and use it consistently. NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number. These three pieces of information help search engines verify your business and improve your ranking in local search results. You also need these when signing up for business profiles. They must appear the same way everywhere.
- Optimize your Google My Business (GMB) profile. Don’t just submit your biz to GMB. Optimize the page by using local-specific keywords (e.g., a personal fitness trainer in Los Angeles), adding authentic photos, engaging your prospects through answering comments or questions, and responding to reviews.
4. Establish Authority with Pillar Pages
Personal trainers can definitely make money online, but only if people trust them. Fortunately, you can use SEO to enhance your credibility and authority. To be more specific, build pillar pages.
These content types are comprehensive and informative. They also target a broad range of topics related to your niche. For example, if your focus is on weight loss, you can write about diet plans, workout routines, and healthy lifestyle changes.
Pillar pages are usually longer than 2,000 words (5,000 or more is ideal). They are also well-researched and thoroughly sourced. Plus, they contain internal links that guide readers to other related content on your website.
Here’s how it works:
- Choose a specific topic that closely relates to your niche or brand. Let’s say you are a personal trainer for 50-year-old women. Your pillar page may be about “Exercises for Women in Menopause.”
- Break the subject into smaller ones. In this case, you can have sections on the best exercises for weight loss, improving energy levels, and reducing hot flashes.
- Create individual pages or blog posts for each subtopic. After writing your pillar page, you can then develop other content that goes into more detail about each section. Don’t forget to link these copies back to the primary page.
5. Enhance User Experience
A good user experience (UX) is essential for SEO success. Among other things, it helps improve your click-through rate (CTR) and reduce your bounce rate.
Using the design thinking process helps you come up with a UX strategy that will take your prospects on a journey. It involves five steps:
- Empathize. Understand your target customers’ needs, pain points, and goals.
- Define. Once you know what your audience wants, define the problem you must solve.
- Ideate. In this brainstorming stage, you come up with potential solutions to problems.
- Prototype. Choose the best solution and turn it into a prototype or mockup.
- Test. Get feedback from your target audience to know if your solution works.
Let’s translate these steps into an example.
Say you run a blog that provides health and fitness tips for new moms. After empathy, you realize that these women are worried about getting their pre-baby bodies back. And they don’t have much time to work out because they’re always taking care of their infants.
The problem, then, is how to help them achieve their weight loss goals despite their hectic schedules. So you came up with an article entitled “5 Quick Workouts for New Moms.” You then test it by posting it on your blog and checking the engagement metrics.
If you see a significant increase in pageviews, social shares, and comments, you know you’ve created something useful for your audience.
Summing Up
SEO is a reliable online marketing technique for personal trainers. It puts your brand in front of your audience, shows your credibility, and helps you build trust. All these lead you closer to sales and conversions.
The tips above should help you get started on the right track. However, as you generate more leads and traffic, knowing the basics may no longer be enough. You must master the ins and outs of the practice to make it work for your business, or talk to a digital marketing agency that can help.