“Gyms Near Me” – How Your Fitness Brand Can Appear for Locally Relevant Searches

2022 is almost here, and New Year’s resolutions often come with the ringing in of a new year. One of the most common New Year’s resolutions for people across the country is improving fitness or health. As a multi-location or franchised gym, it’s more important than ever to ensure that your gyms appear in locally relevant searches. After people make their resolutions, they will likely begin searching “gyms near me.” Appearing at the top of these search results will give your gym franchise a significant leg-up on the competition. 

While you likely understand the benefits of appearing at the top of search results, it’s easier said than done. We’ll go through various tactics your fitness franchise can implement within this blog to improve your local SEO and ultimately boost online visibility on Google. 

Optimize Local Pages Across Locations

If your fitness brand doesn’t already have local pages for each of your gyms, you could be hurting your rankings on Google. If you already have local pages, there’s likely room to optimize them. Local pages connect your target audience with specific details about your local gyms. The more customization you add to your local pages, the better.

For instance, information that should be included on your local landing pages includes, but should not be limited to: 

• Gym hours
• Contact information 
• Local business address
• A schedule of fitness classes
• Social media links 
• Local promotions 
• Images of the business location 
• An interactive map

You can also include CTAs on your local pages to “Join Now,” where potential customers will be able to sign up for a membership. The easier you make it for consumers to find everything they need to know about your local gym from the local page, the better. For more information on what it takes to build a winning local page strategy, check out our blog on the topic. 

While managing local pages across 100s or 1,000s of locations is no easy task, SOCi can make the process easier. SOCi Local Pages allows your gym franchise to take complete control of 100s or 1000s of customized, responsive local pages or sites that deliver a consistent brand presence and improve local search visibility. With this tool, local gyms will also have the ability to easily make real-time updates to local page and website data, including custom titles, meta descriptions, keywords, categories, and contact info for every location. A solid local pages strategy is a significant first step towards appearing in locally relevant searches. 

Strengthen Your Reputation Management Efforts

Responding to reviews and managing your online reputation is a must to improve your local SEO efforts and appear for locally relevant searches. Review diversity, review recency, and review quality are all signals that Google’s search algorithm considers. Google has also confirmed that responding to reviews will help boost your gym’s search ranking. So what exactly should your local gyms be doing in terms of reputation management? Our 2021 Localized Marketing Benchmark Report provides answers. 

The report examined what leaders in localized marketing are doing in terms of reputation management. On average, those studied in the report responded to 31 percent of reviews received on GMB and 26 percent of reviews on Facebook. When responding to these reviews, businesses took an average of 39 days on GMB and 92 days on Facebook. Your fitness brand must meet or exceed these averages. 

When it comes to responding to reviews, consider these guidelines:

• Respond to reviews promptly, especially for the negative reviews!
• Personalize review responses. 
• Improve key online reputation metrics – average star rating, review per location, and response time. 

Check out our blog for more insight into building a reputation management strategy to differentiate your local gyms from the competition. While managing your reputation management efforts is crucial, you don’t have to do it alone. SOCi’s streamlined reputation management software allows users to view every action taken on reviews and monitor every activity on social media. Now, your local, regional, and corporate teams will always know which reviews and social engagements are addressed and which ones still require attention to ensure the prompt responses members expect while also boosting your online presence. 

Update and Elaborate in Local Listings 

Finally, local listings are another Google ranking factor that can help your local gyms appear in “gyms near me” searches. While your gym locations likely have already claimed your local listings, it is essential to ensure that they are consistently updated with the most accurate business information. For instance, will your local gyms have different business hours on New Year’s Eve? Will fitness classes be limited the week between Christmas and New Year’s? These adjustments should be indicated on your local listings. 

While keeping local listings up-to-date with accurate information is an excellent first step, it’s also essential to include as much detail as allowed by Google Business Profile, formerly Google My Business. For instance, Google has various attributes such as “woman-owned,” “online classes,” or other attributes related to accessibility or health and safety that your gyms can add to its local listings. Along with attributes, your local gyms can also include a business description and select categories related to your business within its local listings. Similar to local pages, a potential consumer should be able to find anything they need to know about your local gym from its local listing. 

Managing local listings can be challenging, but SOCi is here to help in this aspect of local search as well. SOCi Listings empowers you to manage your business listings at scale and optimize your online presence and local search rankings effectively. From syncing, updating, and managing your local listings to custom audits and profile recommendations to the flexibility for local managers to make their updates with corporate oversight, SOCi Listings covers every step of the process to propel your listings to the top of search results.

Stand-Out in the Post-Holiday Rush

Early 2022 brings a lot of potential for your gym franchise. Are you prepared? Now that you understand what it takes to stand out from the competition and appear in relevant “gyms near me” search results, it’s time to get started. Improving your local search efforts is non-negotiable, and SOCi is here to assist every step of the way. As mentioned throughout this blog, from local pages to reputation management to local listings and more, SOCi has you covered. For more insight on how SOCi can help your business boost its online visibility and ultimately win more gym memberships, request a demo today!