Your gym’s Google ranking plays a significant role in how easily potential customers are able to find your gym online and how motivated they will be to either call or visit your facility. Naturally, this impacts your overall revenue, so you want to make sure it’s as easy as possible for customers to find and contact your gym. Here are some optimization strategies you can use now to help your gym become more visible on Google Search and Google Maps.
How Your Gym Can Appear In Google Search Results
Improving your gym’s visibility on Google can be rather complex, especially for beginners who may not know a lot about search engine optimization (SEO). Optimizing everywhere you appear online is an important part of creating a strong brand and online presence for your gym, but it can initially be overwhelming or intimidating for most people.
Let’s first break down the ways in which your gym might appear on Google:
- Search Engine Page Results (SERPs) — these are traditional search engine results where you will be listed above or below your competitors.
- Google Maps — if your business is registered with Google, you will appear as a location listing on Google Maps when people search in your area, even if they are not searching specifically for your business or the industry you serve.
- Google Image Search — images on your site tagged with certain keywords will show up as results in Google Images, either in front of or behind your competitors.
- Video Search – Google now displays top video results for certain keywords and phrases. Your gym could appear here if you have videos on YouTube or another video hosting site indexed by Google.
These are the places you’ll want to monitor your web presence and ideally optimize your content to make your gym’s listing highly visible to people searching for fitness facilities in your area.
How Is Your Google Visibility Determined?
Google uses complex algorithms to survey and rank websites according to a number of different factors. These factors are never revealed in their entirety in order to prevent savvy marketers from gaming the system, but if you pay close attention, you’ll see where Google hints at specific areas that make a greater impact on your ranking than others. The following local search ranking signals are important to focus on:
- Recency – How long ago was your last review, published blog, website update, etc.?
- Relevance – How much value does your content have to your ideal audience?
- Distance – Where is the searcher in relation to your established online service area?
- Prominence – Do other sites link back to your website or business name?
- Availability – Is your hours of operation updated? Are you open at the time someone is searching for you?
For a more in-depth dive into these how to make these local ranking factors work for your business, check out our on-demand Google Search and Maps Visibility Masterclass
7 Ways to Improve Visibility on Google Search and Google Maps
Below, we explore some ways to improve your gym’s visibility on both Google maps and Google search:
Google Maps
Optimize Your Google Business Profile
Customers are more likely to select your gym over others if your Google Business Profile is optimized, but there are also other advantages to doing this for successful local SEO marketing. Google’s Business Profile page ranking algorithm takes into account the proximity of your gym and the relevancy it has to the user’s search, but also the amount of activity generated by your website and the quality of the content you publish.
When you optimize your Profile, customers can do any number of things, including but not limited to finding your gym via keyword search, calling or emailing your gym, visiting your website, learning about your services and any products you may sell, viewing and contributing to frequently asked questions (FAQ), viewing or requesting prices, and scheduling an appointment or reservation. You can also use Google Analytics and UTMs to measure clicks from your Google Business Profile to your website or appointment booking system.
Google Search
Optimize Your Website
Each page on your website should be optimized for a number of relevant and highly searched keywords in your industry. Ideally, these keywords will be geotargeted, meaning they include location tags like your city, county, or state.
Optimizing your website involves boosting the performance of the site by employing sophisticated tools, techniques, and technology to generate more traffic, improve your conversion rate, and increase profit. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is one of the most crucial parts of optimizing your website for local searches.
Manage Your Directory Listings
A directory listing is a local listing for your business that includes your NAP (name, address, and phone number), as well as additional data points about your company that customers want quick access to, like your business hours or photos of your facility. You have access to an almost infinite number of internet directories, the most of which are free to use.
If you want to maximize the value of directory listings in your optimization strategy, you should review your gym’s listings for accuracy on a regular basis. Look at directories you know your gym is listed in, and check other directories often to see if your business has been listed in another directory without your awareness. If this happens, you can usually petition the directory to update your information and list you as the owner of the account.
Optimize Your Social Media Profiles
Social media usage has become a fundamental everyday activity in today’s culture. Social media is commonly used for group engagement, media and news access, and when making important decisions. It is a useful tool for communicating with people regionally and abroad, as well as for sharing, creating, and disseminating information.
Your social media business pages will rank highly in Google search results if you have taken the time to optimize them. The more social platforms you use, the more chances you have to get your gym noticed in search results.
Run Google Ads
Google Ads is a powerful tool for attracting qualified website visitors and customers looking for facilities and services similar to those you provide. With Google Ads, you can improve site traffic, boost page views, get more phone calls, and encourage in-person visits. A good Google advertising campaign will take about 3 months at minimum to mature, and then another 5 to 12 months to evolve into a powerful marketing strategy.
The most significant distinction between the kind of people you can reach with Google Ads and those you reach through other kinds of marketing is user intent. For example, people on social media aren’t as likely to expect to be marketed to. They’re looking for answers to their problems, browsing funny videos or memes, and looking for family updates.
Your gym is more likely to be shut out when you market to users who aren’t prepared or don’t want to be marketed to. When you use Google Ads, however, you are advertising to people who are already anticipating ads and promotions and who are looking for something specific. When properly optimized and targeted, you can match your gym’s ads to what users are searching for.
Publish New Content & Reoptimize Old Content
Ideally, your gym is publishing helpful blogs on topics relevant to your target audience on a regular basis. Blogging should be consistent and articles should be high-quality and well-formatted with images, tables, bullet points, etc.
Old content should be reoptimized frequently based on your Google Analytics data. For example, if you have a page ranking #12 in Google SERPs for a particular keyword, you should weigh the value of that keyword and decide if the page should be further optimized for it. Reoptimize your content for this keyword and check your analytics again over time. This approach could push the page to #10, or the first page of Google search results.
Optimize Your Visual Content
Finally, you should optimize your visual content for search engines and for users with disabilities, according to the American Disability Act. Include keywords in the naming conventions of your visual assets and keep them organized in a way that allows you to quickly find and publish any asset you want.
Fill out your image ALT tags with complete sentences that describe the image, ideally with keywords if possible. Individuals using screen readers will be able to discern what images you’re using on your website instead of being left to guess. Your visual assets are too valuable to be missed by any segment of your audience.
Attend a Surefire Local Marketing Platform Demo Today
Learn how easy it is to promote your gym on Google with an easy-to-use, all-in-one digital marketing platform. At Surefire Local, we assign a professional Digital Marketing Strategist who acts as an extension of your business and helps guide you through the process of using the platform to create and publish assets, optimize your website, and monitor the public perception of your brand. Book your demo here.
