How To Get Your Fitness Business Seen Online By Your Ideal Clients

You’ve put blood, sweat and tears into getting the right qualifications, you’ve invested in all of the kit and equipment and you’ve set up your social media account and website. Now where are all of the customers?

Your appointment book should be full now that you’ve done everything that everyone has told you to be successful in the fitness industry. Yet no one mentioned online visibility and how difficult it can be to get your business seen by your ideal client. In this article, my aim is to highlight to you the areas you should be focussing on to make your business more visible and get those ideal clients booking your services. 

I’m Pamela, and I have been working in the corporate world of operations, sales and marketing for over 20 years.

In that time I have been able to build up a wealth of experience in understanding digital marketing and crafting a brand strategy across a variety of fast changing sectors; and the fitness industry is one of the fastest growing, but also fastest evolving sectors.

I set up my creative business to help small businesses like yours with getting their brand messaging on point and develop an online presence that attracts your ideal clients.

Most recently in the fitness industry the overlap with the wider “wellness” industry is muddying the playing field for pure fitness professionals. Although the rise of social media has provided a fresh platform for providing your messages, it can be really hard to get seen and be the preferred choice for potential customers when there are so many competing with the same information!

Here are 5 ways to get your fitness business seen online:

1/ Brand your online presence consistently.

There are so many fitness businesses which use different styles on different platforms which gives an inconsistent message and will restrict your potential for being memorable to your ideal client. A customer needs to see your brand at least 7 times before they will interact or purchase from you, so think about this when you are creating your content strategy.

Use a consistent aesthetic for your brand, use a consistent tone of voice and behaviour and make sure you keep all of the platforms that you operate on up to date. There is nothing worse than having a website design which is not reflective of the experience a user gets on Instagram or Facebook and vice versa. 

2/ Google My Business & Bing for Business.

If you want to get yourself seen by as many new clients as possible, then you need to optimise your local SEO. Setting up your Google My Business account is really simple, and you can then use this to set up your Bing account where it will use all the same details. Why set up on Bing when everyone uses Google I hear you say?

Well – voice search is one of the fastest growing methods of search, and the use of home assistant devices like Alexa are becoming the default way to get answers to queries. Alexa uses Bing as a search engine so it is important that you don’t miss out on that potential search traffic!

3/ Focus on adding value to solve a problem, rather than selling an offer.

If you constantly focus your content on selling offers because you think this will get you more clients, then you are more than likely only on a downward direction with your prices and your margins. If you switch your content up to helping people with solving their pain points then you can engage them on a different level.

If their pain point is motivating themselves to start exercising then do a series of posts on how to get and keep motivated – you can also use video content to talk to people directly (video content is very powerful in the fitness industry).

Show results and transformations that people have had from working with you – but not just before and after pictures which is a really saturated technique. Show the benefits of lifestyle, time, or other areas that could be a pain point for your ideal client. This approach does take a while to make an impact (see point 1 – you need to build a brand) but it will pay dividends. 

4/ Collaborate with other like minded businesses

…but not directly in your industry. For example if you work with clients that are Mums, then why not look to partner up with a local children’s fashion brand to do a social media takeover or write a guest blog for them on regaining your mojo after childbirth – or whatever other pain point Mums may face. There are so many opportunities with this which not a lot of fitness professionals are focussing on to help boost their online visibility. 

5/ Fall in love with your website as much as fitness!

The more time you spend creating great content, posting updates and demonstrating the results people can get from working with you, the more you are going to get ideal client traffic to your website. Don’t be put off by thinking it is all techy or you don’t have time.

You can learn simple techniques which will really boost your websites visibility and will get you the traffic which isn’t on social media (and with over 6 billion searches conducted every day do not think that everyone is on social media!)

6/ Think differently about your online visibility.

Thinking differently about your online visibility can make a real difference to your business. The fitness industry is overly saturated on social media, but very few have a website that reflects their brand and brings them clients who are less dependent on price. By creating a locally optimised website which is current and well maintained then you can set yourself apart – and it doesn’t need to cost the earth.

If you would like to learn more about how to get to grips with your website and online visibility then I have a free membership group on Facebook which gives daily advice and inspiration – join SEO Beautiful and you can get free, jargon-free support to help you get seen online. 

Pamela Rae-Welsh is a leading branding stylist, website designer and online visibility specialist with a boutique studio based in Manchester with global reach. Passionate about providing small businesses with a toolkit that allows them to operate at the top of their field, she is also a keen fitness enthusiast and runner, and is often seen doing farm circuits in the countryside!