Your health club website is your very best sales person. Do you have more than one gym location? If so, listen up!
Location, location, location: because location is a primary factor for potential members when deciding which health club to join, it is absolutely imperative to include individual pages and information on your website for each of your health clubs. This is not only helpful for prospects interested in learning more about your gym and its offerings, but it’s also a huge part of the local SEO (search engine optimization) game.
Essentially, you want the location page(s) to be a mini website for that specific location that gives the prospect or member all of the information they could possibly need. What does this include, you ask? Let’s dig into the best practices:
Keyword Strategy
Research and use SEO best practices by implementing keywords throughout your website copy that highlight your keyword strategy and promote your overall health club marketing efforts. Most consumers search for gyms using a local identifier such as “sacramento gym” or “chicago athletic club.” Make sure to take this into consideration when determining the page title, meta description, headers and content on the page.
Contact Information
Be sure to include your health club physical address, the name of the lead manager, and accessible phone number and email address. This information will be indexed by the search engines and associated with that location.
Hours of Operation
Include all hours of operation open to the public including the gym itself, customer service, childcare and other amenities available to members.
Maps & Tours
A map of the location and its surrounding region (cross streets, too) is a quick reference point for prospects. Embedding a Google map will be another tip-off to the search engine giant as to where your gym is located. Another map, if you have it available, is of the health club itself – a layout of the entire floor plan to give prospects an overview of all that the gym has to offer. An interactive virtual tour is even better for the interested prospect viewing the page.
Photos
Give prospects a clear visual of what your health club looks like through original high-quality photos (tip: hire a professional photographer to take photos for your health club website). Make sure to highlight images outside your club, and most importantly from the inside so that they know exactly what to expect when they walk through those doors.
Class Schedule
Prospects will most likely be wondering about whether your health club offers group fitness classes, and if so will want to know if the classes they want to take are even offered at the location of interest. Including a full listing of classes and schedule of days and times are important for prospects and may be the determining factor in their decision to become members. Most clubs don’t realize how many non-members are relying on the fitness calendar to make a decision as to whether they end up joining.
Testimonials
Let your existing and satisfied members do the talking (and selling) for you! Interview 5 – 10 members with various backgrounds, fitness levels and experiences at your health club and use a quote (one – five sentences) from them to post to a testimonials page. Include their name and age along with a real photo to give an extra personal and real-life touch for prospects.
Blog Posts and News
One of the most impactful and effective tools to bring in prospects, and keep existing members engaged, is through your health club blog. Here you can utilize consistent blog posts to motivate and educate members to help them stick to their goals throughout their fitness journey. You can also use the blog post to highlight recent news around the health club like new group fitness classes, seasonal hours, new personal trainers, and more.
Remember, each of your health club locations is unique to its community and what it offers the local region. Give each of your locations maximum opportunity for growth and expansion with its own, in-depth webpage(s) to effectively market to potential members.
