Most small business owners believe, unfortunately, that once they launch their website, it’s instantly going to have hundred of visitors and their membership will go soaring because of all the extra traffic. Sadly, that’s about as far from true as possible. Every day, millions of websites are launched, what makes you think that your gym’s website will stand out? That’s where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) come in. SEO is just the practice of getting a website to show up near the top of a Google search for a specific keyword. If someone types, “Yoga + your_city_here”, you want to be one of the firs sites to show up. Don’t let an SEO agency sell you on boosting your page to #1 on Google. That’s impossible to guarantee, and if they are doing it, they’re a shady company. Below are some simple tips that any yoga studio owner can take to increase their website’s search performance.

Make Sure You Have Claimed Your Google Places Profile

Yoga is a practice, but if you want to make a lifestyle out of it, yoga is also a business. You need to make money in order to keep your business open. First thing’s first, if someone is in your neighborhood, whips out their smartphone and searched for “yoga”, you’re going to want to show up on both the search results and the Google Maps results. That’s where claiming your Google Local/Places profile comes in handy. Have you ever seen a business listing show up on Google search and then, when you click on it, it asks, “Are you the owner of this business?” Google’s asking this because the business owner has yet to take control of their business’s profile. They aren’t able to monitor reviews, post hours of operation, upload pictures of anything. The more internet real estate that your business takes up, the most value Google is going to place on it. When you add a link between your website and your Google Places listing, you’re showing google that you’re taking ownership of your online property. Once again, don’t get burned by an SEO company saying it’s difficult to do this, it’s not.

Generate Website & Social Backlinks to Your Studio’s Website

Backlinks have been one of the bread and butter of the SEO industry since it became an industry. A backlink is when one website links to another website. The more links that a website receives, the more “important” it is, in terms of internet popularity. Let’s use CrossFit for an example. The CrossFit homepage is linked to thousands of times by news articles, CrossFit boxes, other gyms, blog posts, you name it. Google looks at all these links and correctly assumes that the CrossFit homepage is the most important website regarding CrossFit, so it puts at #1 in the search results. The same goes when a business shares your website URL on Facebook. Google sees the traffic coming from that Facebook post about your business and gives you a little more “popularity” in their ranking. So, that said, if any of your current members have websites, have them add a link to your website on their website. Maybe they can write a little article about your business, or a blog post about their yoga practice at your studio. Either way, the more links that come into your website, the higher your Google search rank.

Create a Yoga Blog for Your Members

Another thing that Google likes is fresh content. If your website is stale and doesn’t have new material getting produced, why would they want to show people your website, when they know it’s out of date. That would be like searching for “cell phone” on Google and have it show you a Nokia playing snake, instead of an iPhone 7. Google needs to keep its search results relevant. The easiest way to generate fresh content is to start a blog. I mean, it worked to get you to this website, didn’t it? Write a twice-weekly blog post about your yoga business, new yoga routines, or anything along those lines. Just get content out there. The more content you produce, the more will show up when people search for yoga and your city name.

Create a Noteworthy URL & Use Title Tags

Last but not least, make sure that your website has proper title tags and a good URL. First, let’s start with title tags. These are the tags that give each of your webpages its specific name. Your about page is most likely called “About” and your contact called “Contact”. That’s fine and dandy for those pages, but for your homepage, you might want to include your city and state in the title. Instead of “Yoga Vibes Studio”, you could do “Yoga Vibes Studio | Denver, Colorado”. Adding the city name to your homepage title tags can help get you to show up when people search that specific city. However, DO NOT, try to include hundred of nearby cities into your homepage. That’s called keyword stuffing and it’s a great way to get your site banned from Google. Lastly, pick a good URL. Nothing too long. Avoid misspellings. They are NOT GOOD for your search results. Extreme is spelled with an E, not Xtreme. You get my idea.

Image Credits:
https://pixabay.com/photo-241609/