First, let’s make the distinction between the two types of results you see on the SERP (search engine results page) when you enter a search into Google: organic search results and paid or sponsored results.
Paid Search
The sponsored links you see on the right and sometimes at the top of the SERP are essentially advertising – this is why they are referred to as “pay-per-click (PPC) ads.” Your business can use Google AdWords (a PPC advertising program) to bid for placement. This is how it works:
Since health clubs have physical locations, it helps to drive the cost down a bit for keywords that are geo-specific.
Organic Search
Organic (natural) results are not based on a bid, but rather the quality of the content and whether Google believes it to be valuable to searchers. Not only are clicks to these pages completely free, but they are also significantly more likely to be clicked than PPC ads; 75%+ of searchers click on organic results while 25% click on PPC ads. As marketers it is in our best interest to budget most of our time to SEO, and determine our PPC budget later.
In order to succeed with SEO it is important to understand the reasons why pages show up at the top in the first place (and I promise that this won’t be too technical). When you enter a search, Google has to sort through list of pages to give you high quality results based on authority and relevance.
Relevance: Google determines relevance by how close of a match the search term is to the content of the page. It bases the decision on keywords within the page title, URL, headings and sub-headings, image ALT tags, and the page content itself (don’t worry, there will be more on this in a bit).
Authority: this is basically a measure of how important and credible a page is in Google’s eyes. Authority is based on the number of links from other web pages as well as the authority of those pages themselves (marketers like to call these links backlinks).
Here’s an example. Let’s say you’ve written a blog about healthy recipes that include kale. If it is just sitting there in cyberspace with nobody linking to it, Google assigns your page a relatively low authority score because it has no reason to believe the content is of high quality. If other nutrition-crazed bloggers link to your page from theirs, your authority will increase. If Men’s Health links to your page, your authority will skyrocket because Men’s Health is a high-authority web site.
Keeping relevance in mind, let’s go over what you can do on your own website to optimize your site for search and come out on top. These are the 9 most important page elements to optimize on every one of your current and new pages to make sure all of the work is done on your end.
1. Keywords: choose keywords based on what people are searching for, not necessarily what you want to be found for (hopefully they are one in the same). It is also best to try to get found with long-tail keywords (kale recipes for kids, kale smoothie recipes for kids) versus short-tail keywords (kale recipes)
2. Page Title: the blue, bolded and underlined text you see on a Google search results page as well as the top left of the browser bar.
3. Meta Description: the brief description you see under the page title on a Google search results page. Google does not consider meta descriptions for rankings but searchers (who don't forget, are human) use meta descriptions as a reason to believe that the contents within that result are relevant to them.
4. URL: “www.yourhealthclub.com/optimized-page-title”.
5. Heading Tags: (e.g. H1, H2, H3) this is usually the first thing you will see at the top of a web page.
6. Page Content: the content that makes up the body and majority of a web page.
7. Calls-to-Action: (“download this,” “request that”). Calls-to-Action help with SEO by creating an internal link on your website to a landing page and since they are usually an image, you can include ALT text to describe it using a keyword.
8. Internal Links: link to another existing (and relevant) page on your website.
9. Images: Google can also “read” images by their file name and ALT text.
Off-Page SEO helps increase your authority in the eyes of Google and makes significant improvements in your rankings and ability to get found by those who are searching for what you have or what you know. The most important off-page aspect is inbound links, and the most effective way to get them is by creating content that addresses the needs, interests or problems of those searching on Google – but more importantly content that people are going to talk about.
Besides letting it happen naturally, there are ways you can get links from other people or pages. One way is to request a link via email to the web site or blog owner; however this is something I would not recommend. Unless you know the website owner it is going to be hard to get a quality link because more than likely they will delete your email or mark it as spam. If you are going to try this method make sure your content is exceptional and beneficial to the readers of that site or blog. Your email should be highly personalized and show that you’ve been reading the site and understand the needs of the audience. You should also not be explicitly asking for a link; think of your email as a way of sharing your knowledge (link) that you believe is useful to them. If it is, they may link to it.
The sole purpose of a search engine is to provide searchers will relevant and useful information and it is your best interest to make sure that your health club website is optimized to show up organically. Once you have a good grasp on SEO you should look into a PPC as a means of getting your best lead generation offers (e.g. a 1 week free trial of your club) out there to the people that are actively searching for them.
Have you had success with SEO and SEM? How have they helped to get your website found on Google?