SEO for Personal Trainers: Ultimate Guide

If you want to improve your business visibility, you should become familiar with SEO for personal trainers. Below, we have created an extensive guide on how to improve your search engine optimisation to get more clients, more specifically we will talk about:

• SEO for PTs: What Is It & Why Do I Need to Use It?
• 5 SEO Ranking Factors Personal Trainers Should Know About
• 6 Tips for Personal Trainer SEO

Before we get straight into the basics, if you’re looking to start off your career in the fitness industry, a good start is one of OriGym’s accredited personal training courses. Find this and many other vocational fitness courses in our downloadable course prospectus here.

Keyword Glossary

Before we move on, we suggest you familiarise yourself with some key terms below so you feel confident in understanding all of our tips!

SEO for PTs: What Is It & Why Do I Need to Use It?

First, let’s get to know the basics of what search engine optimisation (SEO) for personal trainers is.

S-E-O is an abbreviation for search engine optimisation and is a marketing strategy made up of techniques used to get your site to appear on the first page of results on search engines (for example, Google).

Applying SEO techniques can help you to improve your chances of getting found online, in particular Google search results. 

Since using a search engine like Google is the first point of contact for most interested customers looking for a service, it is somewhere you need to draw your attention to.

Just so you’re aware of what this actually looks like, below you can see the first organic search results for the search term ‘personal trainers in liverpool’:

Here, you can see the first 2 organic results. Bear in mind that when you see the word organic, this means that it is SEO enriched, in other words, their space has not been paid for.

Instead, the web pages appear here because they have been optimised for SEO.

These results might not always be right at the top of the page. Instead, the first result you actually see will more often than not be paid for spots or 'Ads', like this one below:

In order to see the SEO enriched result, you should scroll to the first result you see that doesn’t have this ‘Ad’ marker.

You should be taking into consideration the importance of ranking on the first page, just take a look at what it could mean for your business if you do rank in the top 10 by reading these statistics below.

For this, we utilised BackLinko’s research, a reliable source for SEO statistics. 

One of the key things to take away from these statistics is the fact that 32% of people searching for a specific keyword, perhaps ‘Personal trainer in Liverpool’ choose the first result, potentially resulting in an enquiry. 

This is a huge section of users that would click on your site, simply because it is in the most convenient position. Since all results look the same, there isn’t anything other than the correct matching keyword necessarily pointing them toward your link. It boils down to the fact that users are impatient. 

They want to find the results they want, as fast as possible. SEO allows for users to do just that which is why it is so important to get your site as close to the top as possible.

All of these stats are incredibly important to remember, but something else to keep in mind is that almost 50% of marketers report that organic search has the best ROI (return on investment) of any marketing channel.

This is a huge statement. There are some marketing techniques that are hugely successful like PPC (pay per click) but these come with a pretty hefty price tag. The fact that you can still achieve an extremely successful return on investment with SEO with a minimal to £0 price tag is impressive.

One more thing here that needs highlighting is the final statistic telling us that nearly 60% of pages ranking in the top 10 Google search results are 3 or more years old!

So not only are you investing less, but your work won’t be worthwhile for just a week or two, so long as you keep on top of the health of your website you can sit back and still reap the rewards of the hard work you put in some years ago.

This is of course if you consistently keep on top the SEO ranking factors that we will talk about next, you can’t completely abandon your site but it isn’t on a timer the same way it will be with PPC marketing or other paid marketing techniques.

5 SEO Ranking Factors Personal Trainers Should Know About

To tackle SEO as a newbie, the first thing you should become familiar with are ranking factors. 

Ranking factors are the factors that you need to check off your box when putting together a website that you’re hoping will rank on Google, as these are essentially the things that Google looks for when determining where sites rank for specific terms. 

Before we get into our advice for improving your SEO, here's what you need to know about the top 5 ranking personal trainer SEO factors. 

#1 Quality Content Is a Ranking Factor That Can Improve Your Sites Success

Any website needs content, that’s a given, but there are some aspects of your content that require attention for it to meet the requirements of Google’s algorithm in particular. 

You can’t just slap any old thing on your website and label it as “content” on your site, Google is especially clever at recognising quality content. 

Your content needs to be:

• Helpful
• Unique
• Relevant
• Appropriate length

For example, this is one blog that we have here at OriGym that shows how easily you can check these boxes. 

Pay attention to the contents, it doesn’t have to be lengthy in order to still meet requirements. This article is helpful in the sense that it is informative by explaining the reason why. As well as that, it is unique in that it offers an example for users to utilise through the free template. 

One way to ensure that you’re doing these things is by assessing what is already on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) and making sure that you’re filling in any gaps and making yours better.

One thing with content is that you need to post a consistent flow of content in order for your efforts to be fully recognised. 

For example, one blog post for example is simply not enough, you need to show the algorithm that you have a steady flow of content coming to your webpage and that you’re a trusted source. The content needs to be fresh, unique, and add value to website users. 

It really is what's within this content that matters. We will talk more about the specifics of the contents of blog posts for example later, but the key thing to remember for now is that fresh and consistent content is a must to engage in SEO practices.

#2 Keywords are One of The Most Important Ranking Factors

You also need to think about the keywords you’re using on your website. Keywords are words and phrases that mirror the search terms that people put into Google or other search engines.

These should be littered throughout your content to indicate to Google what a particular piece of content is about and what search terms the page should rank for.

The places that you need to place your keywords include the likes of:

• URL
• ALT text (on images)
• Title
• Subheadings
• Within the content
• Links

Say you're a PT in liverpool and you want your website to appear when users search 'personal trainer in liverpool', you should include this exact phrase (or 'keyword) in the places listed above so that Google knows to show your site when users search this phrase.

Having keywords in meta descriptions is particularly important, here is why.

First, what is a meta description? It looks like this below:

You can see how important having the key search term in the meta description is here. The search term for this example was “personal trainers in Liverpool” and you can see how they’re highlighted in bold in the meta description.

This tells Google among other ranking factors that you’re the relevant party for their end user. Whatever website builder you use, there will be a section on meta description, ensure that this is always filled out and is an ideal length like that example. 

Your search term should be within the first couple of words in the first sentence. But first, you need to find your target search term, which we will talk about later but for now, ensure that you get to grips with what keywords are and why you need to include them in all of the aforementioned places. 

For every piece of content you have on your site, your meta description will be different depending on what it consists of and what your focus keyword is for that particular page.

So What Keywords Are Best For PT SEO Optimisation?

With the structural issues out of the way, you’re probably wondering what the best keywords are to include.

While holistic words like “personal trainer” would be great to rank for, it is almost impossible to get on the first page of Google for this big of a keyword. There is no specificity to it and it is casting a very very wide net, just look at the stats below for this target KW:

This is an extremely popular keyword, with a 'keyword difficulty' of 44 or 'hard'.

Similar to what we spoke about earlier, you’re better off narrowing down your search like the post-natal trainer example. If you don’t have a niche, using your location can be an easier way to reach your target market. 

For example, you could narrow it down to a town or a city, for example, look at the difference in stats from the aforementioned example to this one below:

This is a way to reach the people who are truly interested in your service, just like how we said earlier about mentioning your niche. 

Plus, there is no results for the 'keyword difficulty' indicating that it will naturally be much easier to get on the first page of Google for this term.

You can see below, the first organic result for this target keyword. Notice how they have their target search term in their meta description too. 

Clearly, this site has used the appropriate SEO techniques to be first on the SERP (for organic results) and with the location being clear you’re only getting the right people interested clicking into and through your site.

The bottom line is to be specific, particularly if you’re just starting out, use keywords that refer to things such as:

• Your Niche
• Location
• Expertise (e.g - nutrition)
• What you offer (e.g group PT)

These are great ways to increase conversion rates and to get your SEO benefiting your income.

#3 You Should Increase Backlinks to Contribute to SEO for PTs

Something else that contributes massively to the success of your website landing on the top SERP results is backlinks or what you may have heard of as “inbound” or “incoming” links. 

These are direct links to your website from another site. 

So why and how does this optimise your site?

It is really simple, by one website linking to yours, it is essentially telling the search engine that you have authority and the information on your site has been confirmed as being useful and reliable.

This in turn, boosts your SEO score. The more this happens, the more valuable your site becomes. In combination with the other ranking factors, this is what will allow your site to climb up to the top 10 results.

One thing to be aware of regarding backlinks is that quality trumps quantity - the quality of the website linking to yours is important. 

You may have heard of the term ‘Domain Rating’(DR) before, this is a score out of 100 that determines the health and strength of the site due to the amount of backlinks behind it. This score can be used as a good indication of the quality of a website.

 To determine this you can use these average figures as a guided scale:

• 40 - 50 = Average
• 50 - 60 = Good
• 60+ = Excellent 

If you receive backlinks from a website with a higher DR, the quality of the backlink is higher and therefore will have a more significant impact on your website's DR and rankings.

There are some things to do with backlinks however that can actually damage the efficacy of your SEO. Google in particular is intelligent in spotting non-organic methods of generating backlinks and penalising sites for using them. 

That's why you should use things like listicle articles, like this one or even sign up to the likes of Response Source so that you can share your expertise with publications that need it. 

One method in particular that can be detrimental to the success or failure of backlinking is reciprocal linking or exchange linking. This is when two websites agree to link to each other so that they both receive a backlink. 

For example, if you planned a partnership with a fellow PT to exchange backlinks in order to boost both of your sites, this would be classed as ‘reciprocal linking’. This would actually be damaging since Google’s algorithm can spot this. 

Other methods like spamming your link in other places or a high amount of weak links pointing your way are also no-go’s. 

Ultimately, you’re best keeping to the books when it comes to backlinking and ensuring everything you do is legit, we will talk about how to gain links organically a little later to make sure to stick around for that.

The bottom line is that you should avoid cutting corners, the efficacy of SEO can take some time to show and to work so allow this time and do it the right way or it’s likely that you’ll do damage to your own DR.

Stick around for our SEO tips where we'll share the best ways to generate backlinks!

#4 User Engagement is a Must to Improve SEO

Another one of the top factors for improving your personal training SEO practices is to ensure that your user engagement is consistently improving. 

User engagement encapsulates various factors that include people surfing through your website and taking action, it is a holistic umbrella for various features that can improve your user engagement and thus, your SEO.

You should always be looking to keep user engagement high and the only way to do that is by creating engaging content with a site that is easy to navigate and all round a positive experience.

One piece of research found that User Engagement as a ranking factor in the last year (2021-2022) has more than doubled in importance. User engagement used to be just 5% of what makes up SEO ranking factors, but now it has bumped up to 11%. 

This is a huge increase in just one year, so there is no reason why this percentage won’t rise any further. That being said, it would be a good idea to get ahead of the race and make user engagement one of your prime factors to focus on.

This is a good place to remind you that Google’s algorithm changes, alot! This is why it is important to research different areas of SEO and ensure you implement them individually so that they can work together successfully.

For example, one way to improve user engagement is by using interactive features on your site. This could be as easy as a short questionnaire to determine what kind of plan would suit your client best or a live chat box. 

Interactivity can also increase dwell time, we will get into how to increase your dwell time later since this is an important topic but the bottom line is that you should be implementing features that makes your users stay on the site and actually engage with what is on there. 

The clue is in the name!

#5 Internal links are an Easily Used SEO Tool that Can have Great Impact

Finally, the last ranking factor we have on our list are internal links. 

If you’re new to SEO for personal trainers, this is an easy yet effective way to begin optimising your site. Internal links are dissimilar to that of backlinks since you’re keeping the end user on your site. 

You just send them from one page to another, still in the realm of your site. For example, perhaps you have other articles or sales pages on your site and the end user is reading one of your blog posts, it would be relevant to link out to another blog post that could be informative.

Similarly, you could link to something that you sell in turn, leading to conversions which is of course the ultimate goal for a PT. You probably use internal links more than you think, because they’re genuinely useful for the end user.

They don’t have to leave a site where the resources are already in front of them, it’s easy. 

Though they need to be relevant, you should avoid linking to other areas of your site out of the blue with no relevance. If you’re putting these links within the likes of blog content (contextual links) you should ensure they’re going to help the end user find what they’re looking for.

One reason why this is so important is due to the fact that Google as a particular search engine uses “Googlebot” to crawl websites and add them to their ‘index’ (essentially, the essence / brain of Google).

Internal links are a good way to help Googlebot crawl through your website, sending them from one page to another. It also tells Google which pages are topically related to one another improving the overall link value which is positive for your site.

Something else that can be an easy way to tackle this ranking factor is things like recommended posts, this is a simple part of a website that is often a staple part of many sites no matter the genre PT or not. 

You can see below what this can look like with an example from one of our blogs:

These are articles placed at the bottom of another relevant article, these can be helpful to the end user and since they’ve reached the bottom of this article, chances are they’re going to be interested in these topics too. 

We should emphasise the importance of this, it is a really simple way to improve SEO for personal trainers and shouldn’t be overlooked. 

For more helpful resources on marketing your PT business successfully, head over to our articles below:

• 9 Gym Marketing Ideas & Examples
• Personal Trainer Video Marketing: Step-by-Step & Tips
• Personal Trainer Marketing Strategies And Tips

6 Tips for Personal Trainer SEO

Now that you’re aware of the most prominent ranking factors that can impact the success or failure of SEO for personal trainers, below are some more specific industry tips when it comes to implementing SEO practices.

Here, you can find some useful examples on how to start using SEO for your personal trainer website ASAP!

#1 Make your Niche Known to Google

Something that can be really beneficial for personal training SEO in particular is deciding on a personal trainer niche. 

Having a niche can help you better reach your PT target market by giving you a good idea of what kind of content you should put on your website and what keywords you should use. 

Something that you should be aware of is the definition of Niche from Google, which reads:

“products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialised section of the population”

To truly reap the benefits of this tip, one of the best ways to identify your niche is by finding out the demand for it in the first place and acting accordingly. 

You can do this by using the aforementioned AHRefs, let’s take the niche of post-natal personal trainers as an example. Below you can see there is clearly a demand, but the term is not so holistic that getting on the SERP is unachievable. 

As you can see, the difficulty of ranking is ‘Easy’ at a score of just 3. This is the keyword difficulty, meaning it is “Easy” to rank in the top 10. Nonetheless, the traffic potential is high and could be hugely beneficial for your business in the business of a post-natal personal trainer (if this is your niche practice of course).  

This is super incentive information since the volume refers to the number of people searching for this every month, while the traffic potential refers to the number of people who could potentially end up on your website.

If there is ‘volume’ under this term, for example under the keyword “post natal personal trainer” then it shows there are people searching for this specific niche.

You can use relative keywords throughout your content, which we will talk about some more next to really utilise the power of SEO when it’s done well. 

Similarly, refer back to what we spoke about earlier with Googlebot crawling sites. 

If you make it familiar with your niche by using the likes of internal links referring to articles you have written on post-natal personal training, you’re making good communication between you and Google; thus, your website health will benefit.

This is why you should make it known what your niche is, this means more than a home page with all the right keywords in. Though yes this can help, you should branch out, create a blog dedicated to mums new and old and create some quality content.

You will already have the right audience on your home page, so if they navigate from there to relevant articles chances are if they’re good quality, dwell time and engagement will increase.

All of these contribute to SEO and can help get your website ranking.

#2 Use Softwares to Identify the Best Keywords for Your Website

Something that can really help you understand how to and which keywords to use is specialist software, this is how you can really get the upper hand on any competition.

For example, if you’re a personal trainer in London, you can use the likes of AHrefs to find the data behind the relevant keyword. 

As you can see, the difficulty of this word is relatively high but the reward on traffic is worthy of the hard work you’d have to put in. However, if you’re new to the industry and want to start off by targeting a less difficult keyword, you can use specificity to your advantage.

This means that instead of using a holistic search term like personal trainers London in your meta description, you could narrow down the search.

As you can see, with the narrowed down search term of personal trainers in Central London, the keyword difficulty has dramatically decreased. This means that it is much easier to rank in the top 10 organic results than the more holistic search term we mentioned earlier. 

This is a good start, plus it isn’t a bad idea to be more specific about your location. Another way the likes of AHrefs can assist you in this instance is by looking at the “also rank for” column. 

Under the analysis of the search term personal trainers in Central London, you can see the aforementioned KW: Personal trainers London. So what does this actually mean and how is it helpful for you?

AHrefs explain what this means clearly, you can see below what they have to say about this feature:

This is a super helpful feature to be aware of if you want to land on the SERP for a wider audience and get your website ranking across more than just one keyword. 

Keywords are a huge part of SEO, so it would be worthwhile looking into any helpful PT softwares (like the aforementioned AHRefs) that could help you to get more insight into what your target market is looking for.

#3 Utilise The Power of Keywords (But Not Too Much)

By now you know all about keywords by now, but one thing we really need to emphasise is just how important it is to implement them properly. 

While you know how to find your target keyword, and even how much traffic that could develop, the correct way you use said keywords is crucial to the success of your personal trainer SEO implementation.

We will talk more about what specific keywords would be beneficial to you as a PT next, but first there are some ground rules of keywords for SEO that make or break the outcome. 

One of the main downfalls for many who utilise keywords in their content is using too much. You need to be careful where you place the keywords and the frequency that you use them. 

The term keyword jamming is important to be aware of, it is exactly what it sounds like. It is the overuse of keywords at a high frequency with no regard to their placement. It makes the reading seem unnatural and Google can recognise this easily. This can be detrimental to your SEO.

Instead, you should always write to benefit the end user, if your writing is hard to follow and reads jagged, not only will Google recognise this, but you won’t have readers sticking around for long increasing your bounce rate too (also, impacting your site negatively).

Below, we have an example of what keyword jamming might look like on a page where you’re trying to sell something, for your reference:

Target Keyword: Equipment for Mobile Personal Trainers

“Here, you can find equipment for mobile personal trainers that can take your business to the next level.

We only stock the best equipment for mobile personal trainers, with delivery available up and down the UK.

So if you’re looking for compact equipment for mobile personal trainers that makes your job easier, find everything you need here.”

Within the first sentence, having the target keyword is always a good idea, but to have repetition in every sentence not only is hard to read, it is clear keyword jamming for Google to recognise.

This goes for related keywords too, like you may notice in the example that the last sentence has not the identical KW but a related one, this still counts as jamming since you have already placed one a couple words before.

Aside from actually looking at the search volume and where you’re going to put the keywords in the content, you should also be thinking arguably more so about user intent.

Think beyond the keyword for the likes of pages where you’re directly trying to sell something, ultimately, you’re trying to make or at least contribute to the end goal of converting the customer and making a sale. 

So think about why the user is searching for this term, but on the other hand, ensure that your end goal for pieces like blog content is to answer the users question and become a reliable source.

Are they purely looking for information? Are they already at the stage where they’re ready to purchase? When you’re creating content, think about this primarily. 

Because the importance of keywords are so broad, it can be easy to get lost in searching within the data since there are so many utilities like AHRefs and similar sites that can help you deep dive into what people are searching for.

Therefore, make a conscious effort to not forget about the simple but hugely effective tools, like just reviewing the SERP. Take a look (as a minimum) at the first 10 organic search results for your target keyword(s).

Analyse how they write, do the keywords blend in seamlessly? Does it read well? Pay attention to how they’re coming across and make yours even better. 

#4 Make the Effort to Generate Backlinks to Improve Your Rankings

Though we have spoken about the importance of backlinking and how it is beneficial for the health of your website, implementing it can be difficult if you’re a personal trainer new to SEO. 

Backlinks don’t happen on their own, if you’re only just starting out you need to make a conscious effort to generate the backlinks. 

This means utilising strategies to find PR opportunities and searching for other sites that you expertise could benefit.

This might include writing content featuring relevant products or even guest posting on other relevant sites to generate a backlink. Ultimately, a good way to market your fitness business is to get featured in the press, which is actually easier than you think with some hard work.

For example, if you begin offering a new service, this is a good opportunity to take advantage of a press release. This can be simple to do by contacting a local publication that has a similar target demographic to your business since it’s going to reach the correct people.

For example, see it in action with us here at OriGym. Below, you can see a press release that we have done in the past below:

As you can see, it is a great opportunity for big events that are happening in your country, particularly if you have a niche. 

If you’re opening a gym or business with a particular USP as a gym, relevant publications or blogs would be interested in sharing this with you. This will not only create brand awareness but also the all important backlinks which is the ultimate goal.

#5 Write Quality Blog Content to Improve Your Dwell Time

We went over earlier the importance of having quality content on your blog to increase overall dwell time. 

Dwell time is a huge factor in optimising your site, your content is what is going to increase dwell time and click through rate both of which are highly beneficial for ranking your site. 

There is a distinct difference between good quality content and ‘just content’. Users are not going to stay around on your website for any old content jammed with keywords, it has to incite user engagement. 

A good quality blog piece will encapsulate everything that we have spoken about thus far. From keywords to your niche. 

Don’t forget to consistently search the SERP for what SEO enriched results actually consist of. These will include variables such as:

• Valuable information
• Crawler accessible(Googlebot)
• Embedded keywords
• Mobile phone friendly 

Ensuring that blogs are user friendly on desktop and mobile is hugely important, this means that you might want to put more images in to keep it engaging or change up some pop-up ads between desktop and mobile and do some testing on what works best for each.

This is also crucial for the likes of your social media, if you’re linking to these blogs from a social media site, you don’t want to link to a weak mobile efficient site.

As well as this, ensure that your blog posts are relevant to what you offer at the heart of your site, in this instance it is of course fitness related content.

One final tip when it comes to blogs is to keep them updated frequently and reduce your bounce rate at all costs with content that has been well thought out and researched.

#6 Ensure that Your Page Speed is Monitored

Another tip that is crucial and what all SEO services for personal trainers will be considering is your page speed. 

Page speed can absolutely affect your SEO and it is something that some PT’s may overlook, so it is worth getting the upper hand against any competition by improving this. Just so you can see how detrimental this can be, take a look at these stats:

As humans our attention span is weak, we are impatient especially when it comes to the internet since we are so accustomed to getting what we want so quickly.

You can use the likes of Google’s “PageSpeed Insights” to find out your page speed, it looks like this below once you have entered in a URL:

You can then measure any site that you wish and act accordingly. You can do this by researching and implementing some simple common practices including:

• Time to first byte  - time of responsiveness, from the message going to the browser and the browser responding)
• Reduce redirects - e.g: don’t have 3 different links to get to the contact page)
• Optimise images - don’t use images larger than they need to be, they require more energy. 

These are basic things that you can do as an individual, there are some other things that require more research and attention. You could hire a personal trainer SEO service to invest into the success of your site but doing some simple jobs on your own could save you in the long run.

Before You Go…

Hopefully, by now you have some indication on how to do SEO for personal trainers, this guide is a good starting point in researching some key points of SEO but we recommend taking time to research all ranking factors.

Taking on board our tips can be a good first step in the right direction. If you’re trying to improve your business in more ways than one, by completing a Level 4 Personal Trainer Course. Find this and more in our downloadable course prospectus here.