Understanding search engine optimisation or SEO for personal trainers can transform the number of clients you have. The process will help your blog or website rank highly in Google so that more people find your services. If you’re looking for a way to boost your revenue, then optimising your site for search engines may be the answer.
But, getting to grips with SEO can sometimes be tough if digital marketing isn’t your thing. Some people dive in headfirst but others find the whole idea quite daunting. Thankfully we’ve found a knowledgeable personal trainer whose guest post breaks it down into bitesize chunks…
In this article – Gerald from Slimmer Fitter Stronger explains the fundamentals of SEO for personal trainers so that you can attract more local and online clients through Google.
Overview of SEO for Personal Trainers
- How to do a competitor analysis and improve your SEO
- Why research your competition?
- Identifying competitors
- Starting with Google
- Making a stand
- Outshining the others
How to do a Competitor Analysis and Improve Your SEO
Personal trainers need to rank for their city through an intricate SEO strategy. Taking common steps that other businesses use for search engine optimization isn’t enough.
The training you provide is unique but conveying its core takeaway is difficult when thousands of personal trainers are saturating the market. Google is a battleground where everyone is fighting for position.
The generals (or top PT businesses) who are top of Google are the ones with the best war strategy. If you want to take on the big boys, you need to be clever in your approach!
Finding out who your competitors are will give you insight into what they are doing to generate positive results. Competitor research is an area of online marketing that millions of small businesses overlook. This is good for you because if you are strong at SEO you can rise through the search engine ranking and get dozens of highly targeted leads to your business.
Why Research Your Competition?
You need competitor research because once you have seen what your competitors have done to rank first, it gives you a blueprint for success. You need a window of opportunity within your market that only you have an edge in.
The search engines are determined to provide the most relevant personal trainer in your city or location. This online technology knows when a personal training brand is being original. A clear view of what your competitors are doing can build your strategy in areas that they haven’t taken advantage of.
Here are two reasons why you should research your competitors:
1 – Services and Brand Identities
You can make yourself stand out by finding a niche that your competitors have not found. Perhaps, you are going to work exclusively with mums or older adults. Businesses ultimately succeed when they provide solutions to the problems that buyers face in everyday life.
A closer look at your competitors can reveal which consumer needs haven’t been met. This research can complete your product package in full.
2 – What Works and What Doesn’t
You will learn what keywords are bringing the top personal trainers in your area the most traffic. It will help your fitness blog or website to rank for keywords that you haven’t even considered.
Also, you will get an idea of how much traffic your competitors are getting from pay per click and SEO. This will allow you to set your budgets accordingly.
Identifying Your Industry Competition
Besides knowing the details about every business in your market, you need to know who they actually are. Businesses lose a competitive edge when they aren’t sure about where they stand among a group of similar retailers.
Our objective is to lay the strongest foundation by relying on as many resources as we can. In the end, the successful businesses that you research will have a great deal to teach you.
The exact areas to research, once you identify who, are:
– Keywords
The top personal training companies are relying on core keywords when their businesses are generating good SEO. Some companies invest years into leveraging the right keywords for their area of expertise, market, and consumer. You can devise a competitive strategy by adapting to the methods that your top competitors are using.
– Paid and Organic Traffic
The amount of money that a business spends on ads is often in direct relation to the amount of sales they generate. Ads can be expensive if they don’t convert leads and close more sales.
An ad, which you find regarding a competitor, will present itself more, the more successful it is. This is critical data, for the content, audience, and staging of an ad campaign strategy that you might also need.
– Website Design and Structure
Search engines are constantly making the correlation between web content and brand identity. The brand identity that websites establish makes any SEO strategy impactful for the business.
There are specific structures and themes that have to be used. The structure of your competitors’ websites reveals what the audience expects and what works. Look out for things like colours, quality of copywriting, calls to action, straplines, and testimonials.
You might also like… A Simple Guide To Google Ads for Personal Trainers.
SEO for Personal Trainers – Start with Google
No matter what tools or experience you have, the best place to start your research is in a Google search bar. However, you will need to progress to paid tools like Ahrefs.com to find data on backlinks, domain authority and other key ranking factors.
Do a search like ‘personal trainer London’ (or insert whatever town/city you’re based in). Allow the results to fully load.
- Read the content that appears and make note of the businesses that come up.
- Go to each domain for a closer look and to find any core concepts that are similar to or different from yours.
- Write the websites down to keep a record of the market competition you have.
- Ask questions to yourself about the quality of their content and what it achieves.
The reason that Google is so reliable for market research is because of the consumers who are using it every day. The results that you discover in Google are the same items presented to your online prospects. Those are critical moments; for once you search your terms, an entire overview of your market is revealed.
Standing Up Against Your Market Competitors
Research leads to amazing discoveries, but don’t get carried away with strategies that your business can’t sustain. The objective behind competitor research is to know what your competitors have done to get to their position. You don’t want to copy exactly what other businesses are doing. You need to tailor make a strategy based on your budget and ability.
– Aiming Low to Reach High
Your best strategy is to use keywords that don’t force you to go head to head with big competitors. Not yet anyway.
Once you have seen how many backlinks your competitors have it may take you months to catch them, so initially start low and as you gain more authority you can go for the bigger keywords like personal trainer London, Liverpool, or whatever city you are from.
Making a Louder Statement Through On-Site SEO
Businesses can establish themselves as unique by building their image through website SEO. Now that you know who your competitors are, you can focus on the innovation that your brand offers over theirs.
This calls for you to look at the details of every web page you own. The dynamic of SEO is empowered by words, but your placement of text is based on how the reader will see it.
On-site SEO focuses on each page listed under your URL – in order to perfect all of the SEO elements that exist. Those elements consist of titles, meta descriptions, the first 100 words, subheads, keywords, and tags. The key to improving on-site SEO for personal trainers is knowing the following about your competitors:
- Their SEO
- Domain Strength
- Their Universal Links
- Monthly Traffic
Accomplishing this research today can eliminate the need to constantly watch your competitors. You should stay up with the trends and innovations of your market, but the strategy you develop must be yours. Doing the research can lay a foundation that you will benefit from indefinitely.
More About The Author
Gerald has a bachelor’s degree in Exercise, Nutrition & Health. He is an ASA qualified swimming teacher, and a qualified personal trainer. Gerald has developed his own exclusion diet, which he uses to help his clients lose weight.
- Exercise nutrition and health, BSc
- Biosignature – Poliquin institute
- Chek exercise and lifestyle coach
Check out his personal training blog or follow him on Pinterest.
