Getting found online is the main way in which customers come across new businesses in their local area. Therefore, it makes sense that it’s more important than ever for small businesses, like gyms or fitness centers, to prioritize optimizing their online presence by creating effective digital marketing strategies that cover all aspects of local marketing and SEO.
One of the best ways to boost your online presence and gain visibility with new customers is with the help of directory listings. In this blog, we’ll help you understand what an online directory is and give you some local directory listings tips for gyms that will offer guidance and support as you start to build your plan and work on implementing better tactics for online growth and visibility.
Understanding the Impact of Directory Listings
To begin, let’s explore what a directory listing is. An online directory is a digital guide that lists different businesses and provides information about that business that a potential customer might find useful, like contact information, hours of operation, or reviews from other customers.
In many cases, a directory listing is the first result that pops up in a search engine when someone searches for businesses around them. That makes it even more important to improve your business’s local search visibility through online directory management. In fact, according to recent studies, 92% of customers use online directories in their research. If you don’t prioritize them, you could be missing out on major traffic and potential revenue.
It’s also important to make sure that you optimize your business directory listings with accurate and consistent information. You never want two listings on separate directories to have different information. That can lead to confusion and irritate your potential customers. That’s why having a strategy for your directory management is important. You can’t just create a listing then forget about it. It needs to be ever-evolving alongside your gym or fitness center.
Steps to Localize Your Online Presence Through Managing Directory Listings
Now that you know a little more about what a directory is and why having listings is important, let’s dive into the specific tips and tricks you can implement to ensure that your directory listing management is working for your business.
Follow these steps to help localize your gym and boost your online presence through directory listings and gain better results in local SEO rankings.
Claim and Verify Business Listings
The very first step is to identify which online directories are going to be relevant to your business and spend some time researching what the options are in your area. For example, is there a local page that lists gyms and has contact information about how to become a member? Does your local Chamber of Commerce have dedicated pages for different types of businesses? Asking these questions can help you find the best local listing opportunities.
Next, you need to claim and verify those business listings and create a profile in major directories, like a Google Business Profile. When you leave a listing unclaimed, it means that anyone could try to take it for their own. While you hope no one will try such a thing, it’s always better to play it safe and claim them while you can. Verifying the listing also provides extra protection.
Ensure Consistency in Business Information
It’s crucial that all the information on your directory listings is accurate and updated. If you have missing information or details that are different from platform to platform, it can be very confusing for customers. It can also make search engine algorithms think your business isn’t trustworthy and hurt your search result rankings.
Updating and maintaining consistent NAP (name, address, phone number) information across all your listings is critical for success in your online directory management strategy. It’s also important that you have a plan in place to address discrepancies and inaccuracies that may come up in your directory listings.
Optimize Business Descriptions for Local SEO
Once you’ve identified and claimed your directory listings, you can then work on optimizing them for local SEO. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to incorporate location-based keywords and use local lingo and phrases in your business descriptions. For example, use a common community phrase in your bio or use a location tag for your neighborhood to really emphasize your physical location.
You can also provide detailed and relevant information about the products or services you offer at your gym and fitness center. That can help you get discovered if anyone is searching for those specific products or services. Being as detailed and strategic as possible can go a long way in helping you get found before your competitors in local searches.
Utilize Additional Features of Directory Listings
Online directories can be used for more than just listing your business name, address, and phone number. You can also add photos of your business, upload videos of workouts or classes, and use other multimedia content to enhance your listings and make them more appealing to potential customers.
Another important feature of online directories is the reviews and ratings they offer. Most people trust the opinions of others, so the more high quality reviews you have on your listing, the more likely it is that people will be interested in exploring your gym as an option. Encourage your customers to leave reviews on your directory listings and share those reviews across platforms to get as much value out of them as you can.
Leverage Industry-Specific Directories
In addition to general directory listings like a Google Business Profile or other search engine profiles or local directories, there may also be industry-specific directories that you should invest your time in. These are directories that feature gyms, fitness centers, personal trainers and other health and wellness businesses.
After you identify these directories, prioritize your listings here as they target customers that are actively looking for your services. Update your listings to highlight any unique offerings that your gym provides and find unique value offers that help you stand out from the competition.
Monitor and Update Directory Listings
It’s also valuable to make sure that you are monitoring and updating your directory listings. Establish a regular schedule for maintenance on all of your listings so that you never forget to update new hours or add a new service or class to your options. By having a routine for updates, you can avoid any costly mistakes.
To help you accomplish this, you can utilize tools and services that streamline the management of directory listings, such as Surefire Local. These tools help you keep track of your listings and update them within one tool, so you don’t need to do every maintenance task individually.
Analyze the Impact on Local Search Rankings
Finally, it’s important to track any improvements that your directory management strategies make in your local search rankings. You want to be able to analyze the impact your improvements make and take the time to track those changes over time to get a real picture of your return on investment.
This approach is also important, so you can adjust strategies based on analytics and performance data. If your implementation of directory listings isn’t making any difference in your local search rankings, then you may need to reevaluate your keywords, directories, or content to see where improvements can be made.
Create a Local Directory Listing Strategy with Surefire Local
Localizing your online presence with directory listings helps customers find you online and get important information about your gym, like how to contact you and when you are open. By prioritizing and actively managing your directory listings, you can improve online visibility and appear higher in search results on Google and other major search engine platforms.
At Surefire Local, we want to help businesses like yours with localized online marketing, including directory management. We’re all about helping small businesses establish their online presence by creating local signals across platforms and profiles that make it easier for new customers to find you.
Surefire Local is the all-in-one marketing platform for local businesses, with helpful features and tools to help you manage all aspects of your digital marketing efforts, including:
- Directories Management: Claim, edit, and publish new content like photos or a special offer from your business across 80+ online directory listings platforms.
- Content Marketing: Use tools to create locally targeted and relevant content on your blog, Google Business Profile, business directories, and social media profiles.
- Analytics and Reporting: Gain transparency into campaign performance and how much revenue your marketing dollars are generating with AI-generated recommendations on specific actions you can take for improvement.
- Educational Resources: View webinars and read blogs designed to help small businesses learn all things local online marketing.
To learn more about how the Surefire Local platform can help your gym or fitness center grow, click the link to attend a Surefire Local demo today and explore the tools that can get your small business discovered locally.