Search engines are our primary source of information finding.
We use Google to look for everything from paleo recipes, to programming articles, videos and more. As a business owner, however, search engines play another important part in our lives as one of our primary referral sources.
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Search engines are one of the first places a potential client will go to when seeking out a new gym.
Thankfully, there are steps you can take so that when they type the words “CrossFit” and your hometown into their selection, your gym has high visibility. This process is called Organic Search Engine Optimization.
Organic search engine optimization is the process of aligning a website with search engine best practices to maximize the position of the site in the search results page for relevant keywords.
SEO involves four components: on-page improvements, link building, citations and social media signals.
On-page optimization is a term used to describe the activities implemented on a site to improve the position in the search engine. On-page improvements include writing titles, descriptions, including keywords in your posts, incorporating HTML tags, and internally linking new and old posts to each other. On-page optimization is a key component to show “relevancy” when people are searching for your type of business which is what search engines use to determine what your site is about.
Link building aims at gaining links from related websites back to content on your website. Link building has to be done intelligently as Google is very focused on penalizing those sites with “unnatural link” profiles. Unnatural link profiles include links from unrelated sources, link farms and spam websites. Linking is also about driving traffic, each link should potentially drive interested people to your website.
Strategies for link building include:
- Asking others to write guest posts for your website
- Creating viral content like YouTube videos
- Creating your own content regularly
Citations are similar to links but with the goal of sending signals to Google about a websites geographical location so that others can easily find you when conducting a local search. Citations are listings, which include a business’s name, address, phone and URL. Citations should have the same information every time- consistency is key. Examples of top local directories where your business should be registered include Google Maps, City Search, and Yahoo.
Social media is an integral part of organic search and essential to effectively marketing your gym online. When someone shares content from a website it tells Google and the other search engines that the site has quality, interesting content. The more content from the site that is shared across popular social channels, the more the site is perceived to be rich in high quality content.
Search engines are constantly changing and updating their algorithm to provide the most accurate and useful information to the search engine users. Organic search engine optimization strategies have to anticipate algorithm changes in order to stay ahead of the competition.
As more boxes open, achieving prominent placement in search engines is increasingly vital to a sustainable business plan.
321GoProject has a team of search engine experts that help Affiliate gyms all over the country achieve prominent placement in the search results page. If you are looking for more info and assistance, we can help. Contact us to get in touch with our Digital Strategist.
Post by: Elle Wheeler, 321GoProject’s Digital Strategist
Elle Wheeler was born in Salt Lake City, UT. By the time she graduated from high school she had lived in 4 different states and attended 8 different schools. In 2007, Elle graduated from the University of Utah with a BS in mass communication with an emphasis on journalism. Since graduating from the University of Utah in 2007, Elle has focused her career on digital marketing. She has worked with a variety of clients including large corporate clients like Franklin Covey and OC Tanner and small businesses.
She is passionate about using online tools to effectively market client products and services. She is passionate about the environment and photography. Elle is an avid runner and enjoys being in the outdoors.