How to Optimize Your Fitness Studio's Website for Search Engines?

On average, internet users across the globe carry out more than 40,000 searches on Google every second, translating to about 3.5 billion searches a day. Often, people will search for businesses and services in their own area, and this could provide your gym or fitness studio the perfect opportunity to gain new clients. With the proper search engine optimization, or SEO, your website will appear higher up in results for relevant searches, bringing visibility to your fitness brand and allowing you to reach a wider audience. But how can you make sure that your fitness and wellness studio stands out? Here are a few tips to help you improve your SEO:

Offer unique, quality content

Content is critical to your SEO success.

• Provide relevant, educational content to boost your ranking. Keeping content current is key. This could include blogs about the latest fitness trends, articles describing your classes, the benefits of membership and more.

Use HTTPS

• Put an SSL (or Secure Sockets Layer) certificate in place on your website. Having this certificate means your website’s URL address will appear with HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure), which supports data security and improves your search engine optimization. Work with your hosting provider, or purchase a certificate through a reputable provider like godaddy.com, comodo.com or verisign.com.

Target keywords

• Use free keyword research tools like Google Trends to find out what other gyms and fitness studios in the area are ranking for.
• Build these keywords into your fitness brand’s online content. It’s also helpful to identify any gaps or attainable keywords that your competitors aren’t ranking for, but users are including in their searches. Capitalize on these gaps by including these keywords in your website content and blogs.

Ensure your website works for mobile

• Many of your clients are looking to book their next workout on the go, so it’s important to make your website friendly for mobile devices.
• Use Google’s test to verify your studio’s mobile friendliness. - Make sure your website displays properly for tablets and phones. Search engines penalize businesses that don’t have mobile-friendly sites, displaying them farther down in results.

Optimize for speed

• Site speed matters in search rankings. - See how fast your studio’s website loads with Google’s speed test.
• The speed test will also offer specific fixes to help you improve your site - be sure to apply these so that visitors have a fast and enjoyable experience

Include alt text

• Alternative text (ala alt text), used for image descriptions, is another chance for search engines to learn what your site’s content is all about.
• Every image on your website needs to have alt text. This alt text should be an accurate description of the image. This includes photos of your classes, company logo, studio equipment, instructors and more.
• Use a keyword that lends itself to the image. While keywords can be helpful to include in alt text, don’t attempt to force them in where they don’t belong. Just describe your image as specifically as you can in 125 characters or less and consider including one target keyword that naturally fits into your description.

Focus on external and internal links

One of the biggest factors in organic search engine ranking are the link signals, or the other websites or internal pages that link to your fitness business’s content.

• If your gym or studio engages in cross promotions or partnerships with other local businesses, ask these organizations to link to your studio's website.
• Add internal links on your website. If you create a video about proper weight lifting form, make sure you add a link to your page that’s focused all about the intricacies of weight lifting. You want to point all of your links to the "winning" content that’s the authority on a given topic within your site.

To learn more about how MINDBOD can position your business for success, visit www.mindbodyonline.com/fitness