How do you search the internet? - Personal Trainer Community - Forum

[Christina]

I was talking to a client today and she said that my site was not the first one (or two) that she looked at because it didn't come up in her search. I thought I had my site pretty far up there for my area but apparently not in all searches.

If you were searching for a mobile fitness professional, what phrases would you search on?

Thanks,
Christina

[Arami]

Mobile Fitness Professional (exactly how you put it! Ha!)
Mobile Fitness Training

Mobile Personal Trainer

In Home Personal Trainer
" " " " @ [insert state or region]

[Fitness_Geek]

I agree with arami. Your client was probably just searching "Personal Trainer". I know of some trainers around here who will put up a website or even put their cell # in the yellowpages even though they work for a company or small gym.

[Christina]

Thanks Arami and Fitness_Geek.

Mobile Fitness Professional (exactly how you put it! Ha!)
Mobile Fitness Training

Mobile Personal Trainer

You think so? I would think "personal trainer, (location)" would be how most people would look for a trainer. (?)

Guys... no one else can chime in here and tell me how you might search for a personal trainer?!? This isn't hard stuff!

[mo256]

Thanks Arami and Fitness_Geek.

You think so? I would think "personal trainer, (location)" would be how most people would look for a trainer. (?)

Guys... no one else can chime in here and tell me how you might search for a personal trainer?!? This isn't hard stuff!

Hi Christina, I understand your frustration..

Unfortunately, what we as professionals think we would type in the search engines and what our customers actually type are ofter two totally different things, as we think from a logical perspective, but our customers tend to think from an emotional perspective because they are often looking for a solution to their problem e.g. "how do I lose belly fat" rather than "mobile personal trainer".

So they best thing to do if you really want to get your website to rank for what people are looking for I suggest your start off by doing some keyword research using Google's Keyword Tool (you can Google it, to find it, if you've never heard of it).

The next thing you want to do, once you've identified some likely terms is to note them down and then run a quick test, by doing a Google Adwords pay per click campaign to help quickly drive traffic to your site to see which terms they are actually typing in to get to your site...

So, when you set up your pay per click campaign, have a small budget to start, say $50 or whatever you want to budget, and make sure you set your ads to only display when someone types in the actual keywords you've found via the Google keyword tool.

That way you'll quickly see what key words they are typing in and which ones result in them clicking through to your site.

Make sure you have a good analytics package installed on your site before you do this, such as Google analytics as it's free and it will show the exact what keywords people are using to find your site.

Once you've identified what terms people are clicking through to your site and taking action e.g. calling your telephone number or signing up to your newsletter, than you can start to optimize your website in confidence that your not going to be wasting your time optimizing for the wrong keywords.

Hope this helps.. Mo

[ptjustinbowers]

I agree with the above post. Everything is on point.

I do fundamentally want to add that this is a bit different for local searches. Generally when someone is looking for a personal trainer, they're not going to type "How do I lose belly fat" into Google. They are generally searching for some form of the term "personal trainer" and then their location. That being said, the term "How do I lose weight" is so broad, and is a keyword that is definitely watered down with search results. Your chances of getting to the top of the search pile are slim to none. Even if you pay for it, you're not guaranteed that the traffic you get for the keyword is local. It's great to think that you can possibly get someone as a client that searches for "how do i lose belly fat" but odds are these people aren't even looking for a personal trainer. Wouldn't you rather get pre-screened traffic to your site? Don't you want to get visitors that ARE looking for a personal trainer IN YOUR AREA and are already set on hiring one? By narrowing down the demographic, your conversion rate for your website will be a lot higher.

Here are the results below for the top searches that come to my local personal training website:

PERSONAL TRAINERS <CITY>
PERSONAL TRAINER <CITY>
PERSONAL TRAINER <CITY, STATE>
PERSONAL TRAINING <CITY>
PERSONAL TRAINING <CITY, STATE>
GYMS <CITY, STATE>
I NEED A PERSONAL TRAINER <CITY>
PRIVATE PERSONAL TRAINER <CITY>
FITNESS INSTRUCTORS <CITY>
LOSE WEIGHT <CITY, STATE>

These are just my top ten keywords that bring people to my website. Even the 10th keyword is 3.39&#37; of my keyword traffic. As you can see, every single one of these keyword phrases has the location in them. That's one of the important things to remember is:

SOMEONE SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING LOCALLY WILL INCLUDE THE LOCATION IN THEIR SEARCH TERM.

It's also important to make a name for yourself locally. Several people have heard of my name via word of mouth and then search for my name or my business name. You should check to make sure that your website comes up near the top of the page if someone searches for your name and city.

Google Ad placement is great, but with the leg-work, you don't have to pay for every Google click to your website. You also don't want to have to pay for a click to your website that's as vague as someone searching for "how to lose belly fat". The odds are big that they're not even looking for a personal trainer. That person is more than likely looking for a free resource online for their search criteria-- not hiring a professional.

For example, if I am looking to do some gardening and want to learn a few how to's, I'm probably going to search for "How to garden" or some simple search term like that. If a Google Ad for "Big Crazy Bob's Big Gardening Specialists" comes up, I'm going to ignore it. I had specified in the search terms that *I* want to know how to garden, not hire someone else.

There are millions of searches every day. Pre screening and choosing the best corresponding keywords is the best thing you can do. Getting traffic to your website for the sake of getting traffic will prove fruit-less. You want targeted local leads.

Justin.