for pilates professionals keep simple design · - your google places account: pilates studio, 123...

www.pilateswebdesign.com

KEEP SIMPLE DESIGNFor Pilates Professionals

A Simple How To Guide:

HOW TO GET MY PILATES STUDIO TO SHOW UP IN SEARCH RESULTS

WITHOUT PAYING FOR GOOGLE ADS


When you find yourself looking for a gym, restaurant, massage, or some other local

business ... how do you go about finding it?

You pull out your phone and search for a specific type of local business such as “Pilates

Studio in My Town”. Getting your website to show up organically on Google or Bing

when someone does search Pilates Studio in My Town is called local search. As a stu-

dio owner, you want to make sure your business shows up when potential customers

perform those local searches. Ideally, you want to show up in Google’s “3 pack” and

map (see image below).

With other local Pilates studio’s competing for the top spots in those searches, know-

ing how to optimize your website is the only way to get there.

How do you stand out from the crowd in search?


1.. MAKE SURE YOUR WEBSITE IS MOBILE-FRIENDLY

Mobile is critical to your business and will continue to be so! Making sure visitors have

a good experience on your site when they’re visiting on their mobile devices is very

important to Google and a major factor in how they rank your site in their search results.

GOOGLE’S OWN WORDS“Starting April 21, 2015, Google Search will be expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking

signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in Google Search results. Users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results

optimized for their devices. “

With technology and new devices of varying sizes coming out all the time, you ideally

would like your website to be responsive in design. Which is a design that is com-

pletely flexible regardless of device. Rather than detecting a specific browser type or

device type, the website automatically orientates itself based on the screen size of

the device.

Is your website mobile friendly? Find out here: https://search.google.com/test/


2. KEYWORD HEADER AND TITLE TAGS

Having site content that is specialized to your city is a great way to appeal to local

searches. You don’t want to abuse the keywords on page but you can make header

and title tags relevant in a big way by adding city names. The great thing about Pilates

studios is your main keyword is Pilates! No keyword research needed.


3. SET UP YOUR NAP (NAME, ADDRESS, AND PHONE NUMBER)

You know that attention to detail you give to your clients when you are teaching?

Well, you need to take that attention to detail and give it to your business name and

address. Every online citation that lists you name, address and phone number online

has to be the same. I can’t stress enough how important this is!

On your website the most common location for the NAP is in the footer or header of the

site so it is on every page. Decide carefully

what you put on your website and then use

that for everything.

I. BUSINESS NAME

Your business name, or business title, is

probably the most crucial factor when it comes to ranking well in local search

engine results. Your business title needs to be the same across the board—

meaning that every single data source must list your name the exact same way.

You have to decide is your name: The Pilates Studio or is it The Pilates Studio, LLC?

Doesn’t matter which one it is. Just pick one, put in the footer or header of your

website and don’t deviate!

II. PHYSICAL ADDRESS

Again, the most important thing is to be consistent. The slight variation in street

address might not seem like a big deal but search engines are extremely fussy

about details so these addresses will be seen as three separate businesses, and

they’d lower the search engine’s overall confidence in your business and, as a

result, lower your rankings.

This is a example of what NOT to do:

- Your actual NAP: Pilates Studio, 123 Joe Street, New York, NY, 10088

- Your Google Places account: Pilates Studio, 123 Joe St., New York, NY, 10088

- Your Yellow Pages listing: Pilates Studio, 123 Joe, New York, NY, 10088

THIS MEANS EVERY LITTLE THING IN YOUR BUSINESS NAME AND ADDRESS. IF YOUR BUSINESS IS AT 123 FUN STREET ON YOUR G+ PROFILE, IT BETTER NOT

BE 123 FUN ST. ON YOUR YELP PROFILE. DETAILS REALLY COUNT IN LOCAL SEO.


III. PHONE NUMBER

As Martha Graham said “Tell them what you are going to tell them, then you tell

them, then you tell them what you told them.” Here I go again telling you what

I’ve told you: BE CONSISTENT!

If multiple phone numbers are attached to your business name it will trigger

Google and Bing algorithm alarms and your site rankings will suffer as a result.

One main phone number! That is it.


3. CLAIM YOUR GOOGLE AND BING BUSINESS LISTINGS

This is huge! Google My Business feeds directly into Google results!!! This helps your

studio to show up in the 3 pack and map on Google search results.

Claim your Google listing here:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/2911778

Claim your Bing listing here:

https://www.bingplaces.com

You’ll be asked to pick 2–10 categories that best fit your business. The engines will use

these categories when giving search results for related keywords. Your rankings will be

DESTROYED if your categories are incorrect or nonexistent, so make sure you choose

wisely. So choose Pilates Studio, both engines have this as a category.

RAMP UP REVIEWSGOOGLE, YELP, AND OTHER REVIEW

SITES DIRECTLY AFFECT YOUR RANKING.

GET YOU CLIENTS TO YOU GIVE YOU REVIEWS ON THESE SITES!



REMINDEREVERY LITTLE THING IN YOUR BUSINESS

NAME AND ADDRESS MUST BE WHAT YOU DECIDED TO PUT ON YOUR

WEBSITE. IF YOUR BUSINESS IS AT 123 JOE STREET ON YOUR WEBSITE, IT

BETTER NOT BE 123 JOE ST. ON YOUR YELP PROFILE.

4. LOCAL CITATIONS

Claiming your business on Google and Bing is a great start with your online citations.

But if you really want to step up your local search game and really have a fighting

chance at getting listed in Google’s 3 Pack, you need to get your studio listed in as

many online citations as possible.

What are online citations?

A local citation is a mention of your business on any webpage other than your own.

Citations include your business name followed by your address, phone number, or

both, and don’t have to be linked to your website.

These can include but are not limited to:

- Google Places

- Bing Places

- Yahoo Local

- Yelp

- YellowPages

- Foursquare

TIP: The easiest, fastest and most consistent way to get citations is to use a data

aggregator. A data aggregator will automatically create 100s of listings for your

business—cutting out hours of tedious busy work on your end. It also will alert you to

duplicate and inconsistent listings. It’s worth the money. The best part, you can relax

and not wonder did I put Street or St on that listing I posted?


NOW WHAT?

Now you know what needs to be done, whose going to do it? Depending on many

factors (like your budget and tech skill), there are two main ways you can go about

implementing and managing your local SEO.

Do-It-Yourself

I got this..

• Start by seeing if you website is mobile friendly by clicking here.

• Go through your website and check title and header tags for places that

make sense to insert your city name and Pilates.

• Make sure your NAP (name, address, phone) is on the header and footer of

your website.

• Claim your Google and Bing listing if you haven’t already:

Google

Bing

• Decide if you want to manually want to set up citations on sites like: Yahoo

Local, Yelp, YellowPages, Foursquare and more. Moz created a great excel file

to keep track of all your listings: click here.

Find a data aggregator to do all the listings for you. I recommend Moz Local.

Hire Keep Simple

Don’t feel like you have the time or the skills to get all this done? Contact us to see

how I can help you change that and improve your Pilates website.

for pilates professionals keep simple design · - your google places account: pilates studio, 123...

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