Building a Website that SELLS for your Fitness Center is the most important objective. The problem is there is so much misinformation going around about what to do and what not to do for search engine optimization (SEO).
Read these Ten myths to give you a head start over your competition that will keep you from wasting time on your Website marketing.
Myth 1) Use a Keyword Rich Domain Name: It has been taught by some so called experts that if you include your keywords in your domain name like www.PhoenixArizonaFitnessCenters.com it will improve your search engine rankings among competing gyms in your area. This is not true. It’s better to choose a domain name that is short, easy to remember and if possible includes your company name.
Myth 2) Meta Keyword Tag: Counting on Meta keyword tags for your fitness center website is shortsighted thinking. It used to be that the Meta Keyword Tag on your Health Club website was given a lot of weight. But that only worked in the early days of SEO, but fitness center webmasters abused it and now it does very little. You still want to include your fitness keywords in your Meta tag. Just know it won’t help too much and in fact most search engines won’t even check it.
Myth 3) Bold or Italicized Text: Adding emphasis to certain keywords on your fitness center website can help the reader. Like using bold or italics that can make your text easier to scan and catch the eye for the reader. But has little to no effect on your fitness center website pages in search engine ranking.
Myth 4) Avoid Flash: Any text that you place in Flash will not be readable by a search engine, but this doesn’t mean you have to avoid flash altogether. You can still use Flash pictures or videos. Just be sure to give it a title and intro that is not Flash. And don’t have an all Flash site or use a Flash intro on your home page if you are interested in increasing your search engine rankings.
Myth 5) Update the Site Frequently: Update your fitness center website as often as you have valuable updates. When you have something new to say to your members or potential members then it’s time for an update. Just don’t change around a few words to try to trick the search engines into to thinking you have new content. Regularly adding legitimate new content like articles, press releases and blog entries will help your rankings.
Myth 6) Content Length: There is no search engine rule that requires your content to be a specific number of words in order to get indexed. Just write your fitness center content to make your point to human readers. No more words or no less.
Myth 7) Duplicate Content: Posting your fitness center article on your blog and on your website will not get you penalized in the search results, Google will recognize that it is duplicate content and might only choose one of the pages to display, but it will not hurt your overall search engine ranking.
Myth 8) Pay-Per-Click: Some experts have said that using Pay-Per-Click will help your organic search engine listing while others say it will hurt. Neither is true. The fact is Google has separated these two departments of organic and paid listings. They don’t let these 2 departments communicate or even sit at the same table for lunch.
Myth 9) Google Partnership: If you are ever approached by a company claiming to have a partnership with Google, hang up the phone or delete the email. There is no such thing as a “preferred” relationship with Google. The fact is, on Google’s website it even states: Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google.
Myth 10) Doorway Pages: Some SEO companies will sell you the idea of increasing your ranking by creating hundreds of one page websites. They want to load these mini sites with your keywords and then link them back to your main fitness center website. This is considered spamming the search engine and is not recommended. In fact it has caused some websites to be blackballed from Google. AND YOU DO NOT WANT THAT! If you properly set up your website and optimize it. You will improve your Gyms website ranking in Google and other search engines.
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