Finding Your Pilates Business on Google and Other Search Engines
Every Pilates studio owner knows that getting customers is critical to ensuring the success of their business. With the growth of the world wide web, the internet is playing a large role in helping to achieve that goal.
Why do you ask?
It’s because the internet is where people go to find or search for things they are looking for. Did you know that in the past 12 months that approximately 80% of the consumers in the United States searched for local businesses online?
Is SEO in Your Pilates Business Plan
While the days of running your fingers through the thick paper book affectionately known as the Yellow Pages may not be completely gone, they are moving further and further into the past. Today, when consumers want to find a business, product, or service, they will likely go to their computers and tickle the plastic of their keyboards using Google, Yahoo, Bing, or another search engine to find what they are looking for.
Here is another interesting statistic. Did you know that approximately 42% of the traffic online goes to the first 5 sites with the number 1 site listed getting over 18% of that share? After the first 5 sites, the remainder of the pages listed only gets just under 2% of the traffic.
With these figures you can see why getting your site online and listed as one of the first sites on page one can be so valuable to bringing traffic to your door. The big question is, how do you get your site to that position?
Well first, it’s important to understand what the search engines are looking for to know what sites should go there. See, they want to give the searchers a good “user” experience. To do that, they want to provide the best results for the user to meet his search request. They achieve this by listing sites that are relevant, demonstrate authority, can be trusted, and have a social following, in addition to a few other items.
There are several things that you can do to demonstrate to the search engines that your site meets that criteria. Here is a list of a few of those action items:
On-page optimization – Make sure your web page lets the search engines know what the page is about. For example, if you’re a Pilates studio in Dallas, have that information somewhere on your home page.
Reviews – When people give a review of your site, that helps demonstrates whether you are a quality business that can be trusted and also contribute to a social following. (Testimonials on your webpage are helpful with this as well.)
Comments – Feedback from customers and readers of your articles offers interaction. If people are commenting, the search engines see an interactive site.
Content – Articles (like this), blogs, and other commentary that is unique to your site will demonstrate authority and uniqueness. No one wants to see the same thing in print over and over again.
Social pages – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and others help show your social side. The more interaction with users you have, the more “love” you’ll get from the search engines.
These are just a few of the items that will help not only get your Pilates business found online, but also get your site to the top of the search engines and in front of your new customer.
Photo Credit courtesy of Google Images