If you ask marketers today their number one tip for developing a gym fitness blog that attracts an audience, they'd likely say SEO. But there are a lot of fitness blogs that use SEO and have a large audience but aren't getting conversions. They aren't getting people out the door and into the gym.
So where's the disconnect here? How do you get people to join your gym, take up membership, sign up with a personal trainer, or register for fitness classes?
Well, if you are a gym that runs a fitness blog, have an audience, but aren't getting many members to sign up for your gym or products, it's likely because you're using the wrong keywords and you're talking about the wrong stuff.
Choosing the right topics for your fitness blog makes all the difference when it comes to lead conversion.
I've already discussed this a bit in my article: Why Your Blog Isn't Converting Readers Into Leads.
Essentially, it comes down to this- if you are going to blog, speak to the people you want to work with.
It sounds exceptionally simple, and yet, is it so often missed by businesses AND content marketers.
If you're just beginning to market your business, you've likely researched "how to market my gym" or "how to get more people to sign up for gym memberships". As a content marketer for gyms, personal trainers, and health and wellness companies, I'm looking at those search results as opportunities to reach MY potential clients.
I'd be remiss if I wrote topics like "The types of equipment that every gym should have". It may catch an audience, but it wouldn't be the right audience for my business (and not for yours either, unless you sell gym equipment).
The topics you write about matter just as much as the fitness keywords you use within your gym blog.
Top fitness keywords don't help you convert. They only help you gain an audience.
I can't scream at the top of my lungs loud enough to let everyone in the health, wellness, and fitness industries know that using the top industry keywords isn't good for their business.
**If you'd like to see a list of the top fitness keywords I found (and a good list for semantics, you can see this fitness keyword spreadsheet I made for you.
It absolutely does not matter how big your following, if you're speaking to the wrong audience, you're not going to get the leads you could be getting. A following is great, You want big numbers. You want to reach as many people as possible. You want to grow and grow and... Growing only matters if that's your only intent. If you're also trying to make money, sell your fitness products, get more people to sign up for your gym memberships, then you need the RIGHT keywords in the RIGHT content.
If you run a search for top "fitness" keywords, you'll get this:
You can see that these are verrryy basic, and many reference another gym. If you focus solely on the keywords that have the biggest search volume, you'll find the vaguest keywords around. Simply writing for search volume gets you lost in the shuffle of other blogs with more authority, and doesn't actually reach the people you want to talk to most.
Here, look at it another way.
Crossfit is an extremely popular keyword, with a search volume of 301,000 per month. When you look at the top pages for the search term, you find:
If you focus solely on the top industry keywords, you're going to get lost in this pointless slew of articles that mean nothing for your business.
Don't focus on the top industry keywords. You don't need them. Instead, you should focus your efforts on ranking for lower volume keywords with higher search intent.
Building an SEO strategy for your fitness business requires focus on intent.
I mentioned at the beginning of this article that intent is everything when it comes to building articles that convert readers into leads. This essentially means that you're targeting people lower on the sales funnel. You want to reach the ones that are already searching for solutions to their problem, not those that haven't come around to the idea that they have one.
*Disclaimer: your business is about solving problems, or pain points. This is what we call pain point seo, as described by the Grow and Convert blog. That is solely what I'm describing here. Health should focus on the mentality of your fitness level and positive views of your body. Body shaming or creating content that makes people believe there is something wrong with them is not encouraged.
In many cases, if you work with a marketing company or you're writing the articles yourself, you might search for keywords first, and base your articles on that. This isn't healthy for your business objectives, even if you get more specific with your searches and include words or phrases like "gyms near me" or "gym membership". You may get closer to your goal of reaching readers further down the funnel, but you're still not doing the one thing that every blog should do:
Solve reader problems!
For instance, say you are a gym owner, and you want to increase the number of people that are signing up for a gym membership. Developing your fitness SEO and content strategies for your gym should then be focused on driving gym memberships and solving the issue of why they feel they need a gym. Your gym is their solution, your strategy should be to produce all of the content necessary for them to see that.
Write articles similar to, but better than, these articles:
That being said...
You should have a mix of articles designed for sheer engagement- to grow your audience in general within your industry (within reason)- and for targeting your readers.
Continuing with our example, you still want to have a few articles that aim for the growth of your audience, which can focus a little more on general industry keywords. However, you should still stick to using more specific keywords and topics that relate to your business.
What this all really boils down to is this:
Don't search for keywords first. Don't rely on the top fitness keywords in your personal training advertisements, blog copy, website content, or other health and fitness marketing efforts. You don't need them.
Instead, you need more specific keywords that target the audience that will actually benefit from what you're selling and are actively seeking what you offer.
If you need help building your gym SEO and content strategy, we at The Write Destination are here to help.
