In order to have a successful online fitness business, you must understand the ‘client acquisition sequence’.

It’s really simple and looks like this:

Traffic >> Leads >> Sales

When people visit your website or promotional material, this is typically known in the online space as ‘traffic’.

Traffic is super important in the client acquisition sequence, as without it, we cannot get leads for our online fitness business and we therefore cannot make sales.

Traffic is right at the top of our ‘online funnel’ and something that you need to be maximising as an online personal trainer.

In this article you’ll learn the 6 traffic boosting strategies that will amplify your online personal training.  

3 Types of traffic

There are 3 main types of online traffic to consider:

#1 Owned (e.g. website and email list)

#2 Earned (e.g. SEO, referrals)

#3 Paid (e.g. ads)

Ideally, you can work on increasing all three types of traffic, as this will have the biggest impact on improving your online fitness business.

By focusing on each of the strategies below, you will be able to do this.

Strategy #1: Content marketing

As an online personal trainer, it’s important that you create regular content that is published for your audience to consume.

If you aren’t creating regular content, as in weekly, then now is the time to start. Pick a medium that suits you best, such as writing, video or podcasting.

If you are already creating regular content for your online audience, then now is the time to really take a step back and assess the quality of the content that you are creating. Can it be improved? What would make it better?

You should also consider creating some “epic” flagship content. This content is seen as super valuable and could almost be a paid product, expect you give it away for free and regularly sent traffic to it. This could be a lengthy blog post, video series or webinar.

Once you get consistent with one platform, you could expand into other mediums such as YouTube or iTunes. You can of course re purpose your existing content so that creating the new platform is easier.  

Strategy #2: Social Media

As an online personal trainer, it’s important that you are active on a number of popular social media channels. 

Take a look at how frequently you are posting, the variety of content you share and the quality of posts. You should be providing value to your followers.

The ultimate goal of social media is to build a fan base. Keep track of these important growth metrics and remember to engage with those who like, post or share your material.

There can be a lot of social channels to manage, and to help you create regular content for them, you could use channel-specific themes. Your Instagram could be for sharing healthy recipes, your YouTube channel for answering questions and your Facebook for exercise videos.

Using an automated scheduling tools such as buffer or CoSchedule can really help you manage your social platforms while reducing the time you need to spend on each. They are well worth the investment.

Social media not really working for you? Make sure you're avoiding these social media mistakes when starting and online fitness business.

Strategy #3: Search Engine Optimization

No matter what you use for your online personal trainer website, you should enable the SEO options on your site.

These can really help you cover the most important basics of good SEO for your site. For WordPress sites, I recommend the YoastSEO plugin.

You should then submit a sitemap to Google, which provides them important data about your site while giving them permission to continually scan your site for any new content. 

A big component to SEO is keyword research, which is why Google created the Keyword Planner. To use it, you need to create a Google AdWords account, which is free to use unless you publish any ads through the tool.

This will let you search for the exact words or keywords that people are searching for in Google. This is powerful, as you can then include these words in your content, so that Google acknowledges your site as highly relevant, and therefore boosting your rankings.

You also want to get as many high quality links as possible to your site from other influencer sites. This could mean guest posting or simply reaching out and asking for the link. Aim to provide value were possible.

Good common practice is to interlink your content, meaning each blog post should include links to other relevant blogs on your site. Aim for at least 2 links per article.

Improving your website speed can impact your SEO rankings, so be sure to use a good hosting company (I recommend WpEngine or LiquidWeb).

Lastly, don’t forget to make every page on your site mobile friendly, as search engines will now penalise your site if visitors do not get the experience they expect.

Strategy #4: Authority Marketing

Authority marketing is a powerful way to show that you are the expert. Public speaking, interviews on influencer blogs or podcasts should be opportunities you chase.

Publishing a book, be it a hardback or eBook can showcase your expertise while letting a large number of people consume it.

You can also use classic PR opportunities such as radio and magazines to reach more people and grow your online traffic as a result.

Co-promotions with other industry leaders or coaches in your niche can be a great way to ‘tap’ into new audiences.

Strategy #5: Paid Advertising

If you have never ran any advertisements for your online fitness business, then now is the time to start.

Facebook ads are my recommended platform and you should be driving this paid traffic to important pages, such as lead generation pages or free consultations. This means you can actually track your return on investment.

As your ads improve and your ROI increases, then begin to scale your paid campaigns to reach more people.

Use remarketing strategies such as Facebook custom audiences so that you can stay top of mind for those who are previously shown an interest in your site or service.

Don’t forget that other advertising platforms are available to you, such as Google AdWords, LinkedIn, YouTube and website banner ads. Pick the platform that suits you and your audience.

If you want to know the 5 biggest Facebook advertising mistakes and how to avoid them, make sure to tune into this podcast episode.