Increase Your Fitness Business Search Engine Ranking By Using Directories

By Chris Fernandez   |  Comments 1

One of the ways to increase your fitness business search engine ranking is by making sure that you list your personal training website on as many human edited directories as possible.

These directories are patrolled and updated by human beings, unlike the search algorithms that are commonly used with most search engines, and therefore the big boys like Google, Yahoo and Bing often place a much higher value on links coming from directories.

This is especially useful to your fitness business because a link from one of these websites, both free and paid, can greatly increase your overall search engine “juice” and lead to higher rankings for all of your pages and the credibility of  your website, which leads to higher traffic and more clients.

In this post I’m going to explain why you need to submit your personal training,  boot camp or fitness business to these directories, which directories you should submit to, how long it will take for the results to show up, and how much it will cost you if anything.

Why Should You List Your Fitness Business in Directories?

Back in the “old” days of the Internet, there were no such thing as search engines.

Directories were where you went to find websites related to a certain topic or purpose.

These websites were vast resources of human edited links to websites all over the Internet.

The problem with this process was twofold: first it was time consuming as there are only so many humans to go around and verify that a website was legitimate, and two, the data was limited in reach and scope as only the very best websites that were deemed to have significant value were accepted into these directories.

The directories were snobby and oftentimes would exclude websites that they didn’t think were appropriate or good enough for their selection of sites.

On the flip side, there were some good things about the directories too in that usually the quality of the sites within them was very high and tended to correspond greatly with the category and focus that they were listed under.

The bad news was that niche and highly targeted websites (like yours and mine!) were often excluded leaving many users very unhappy with the overall results.

Those days of course are long gone as now a quick search in any major search engine (Google is by far the largest with about 70% of the market share), will yield you thousands of results in about 1 second flat.

But here’s where being listed in directories can help your fitness business search engine ranking and marketing strategy:

Directories are still in use today, not so much by normal people, but by OTHER search engines to determine which websites are the very best and are the most important.

In turn, if you are listed in these directories, Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask, and other search engines put a higher value on your personal training website because in order to be listed in them your website first had to be reviewed by a REAL LIVE human being.

Therefore, when it comes to your local personal training or fitness business, it is ESSENTIAL that part of your overall marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy revolve around spending a little time and yes, a little money, to get listed in these directories.

Being listed in a few choice directories can yield a great return on your investment as a result of the increased traffic, SEO lift and overall perceived quality of your website content which in turn will yield you all sorts of great things in return, not the least of which is more clients!

How To List Your Fitness Business In Directories

Getting listed in the major directories is not hard, but it can be a little time consuming, frustrating and expensive, not to mention take forever for your fitness business to actually show up in the results and propagate to other websites across the web.

This is where a real lag can develop as the actual time it takes from when you submit your website to when the search engine rankings increase can be a very long time.

Some directories are free, but VERY difficult to be listed in (humans are slow and picky!), while others like Yahoo! require a fee to review your listing BUT do not guarantee that you will be accepted!

In the case of the paid directories, if your website is reviewed but not accepted your money is gone and you do not get a refund.

Pretty sneaky huh?

So here’s the breakdown (in order of importance) of all of the major directories that you should be concerned with right now, how to submit your site to them and how much it will cost you if anything.

There are many more directories if you want to find them and spend time submitting to them, but the list below should be a great way to start and yield the best results for the time and money invested.

• Yahoo Directory: https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro

Yahoo is at the top of the list because it is probably one of the most influential directories for Google. (Cost: $299 to submit your website, then $299 per year recurring if it is accepted.)

• Google Directory/DMOZ: http://www.dmoz.org/add.html

The open directory project located at DMOZ.com is heavily used by Google for its own directory and search results. This directory might take 2-3 months for you to get listed in, but it is well worth it! (Cost: FREE)

• Best Of The Web (BOTW): http://botw.org/helpcenter/submitcommercial.aspx

Use this directory if you have a website and NOT a blog (see next listing for blogs). It is one of the most trusted directories out there and has been around for a long time. (Cost: $149.95 to submit your website, then $149.95 per year recurring if it is accepted OR $299.95 one-time fee.)

• Best Of The Web Blog Directory: http://blogs.botw.org/helpcenter/submitblog.aspx

This is the Best Of The Web directory for blog style websites. Please note that your site must have at least 6 months of content on it before it will be approved by this directory! Don’t lose your money because you didn’t read all the fine print! (Cost: $75 to submit your website, then $75 per year recurring if it is accepted.)

• Joe Ant: http://www.joeant.com/suggest.html

Joe Ant is lower on the list but still worth your time and energy since it is cheaper than other directories because they subsidize their revenue with advertising. (Cost: One time fee of $39.99)

• Gimpsy: http://www.gimpsy.com/gimpsy/searcher/suggest.php

Gimpsy has a few options for submission, but to nobody’s surprise, the best option is the most expensive! (Cost: 3 options ==> A: Free, can take up to 6 months; B: Standard, $29 one-time, no refund, limited promotion; C:  Premium, $49, one-time, partial refund ($20) if site is declined, strongest promotion within Gimpsy)

Important Guidelines for Submitting Your Personal Training Website

REAL IMPORTANT: There are a few critical elements that you should know BEFORE you submit your website to any of these online directories:

• Make sure your personal training or fitness website is finished and has a decent amount of GOOD to GREAT content on it: Directories absolutely hate when websites are under construction, have broken links or are otherwise substandard. Make sure that your website has at least 25-30 pages of unique content on it and has no broken links and pages that aren’t working right. Remember, humans are reviewing it, so make them love your site and they are more likely to include it in their directory!
• The fees that you pay are for your site to be CONSIDERED, NOT ACCEPTED: Your money is non-refundable in most cases, so if you pay the fee and they don’t like your site, that money is gone forever. Buyer beware!
• It might take awhile: It might take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months for your fitness website to start showing up either within that directory (usually a few days for the paid ones), or across the Internet. Be patient, and don’t resubmit your site to the free directories for at least 2-3 months or else you can be knocked down and delisted, or penalized.
• Read all instructions carefully and follow orders: The directories all have their own way of doing things. Take a few minutes to read their instructions in detail so that you don’t mess up your submission. This includes making sure that your description of your website isn’t overly promotional (they hate that!), that it is submitted to the correct category (they hate when it isn’t) and that you’ve done everything they have asked. Failure to do so could greatly delay your listing, or have it be denied entirely and lose your non-refundable submission payment!

Final Word On Directories

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, directories are a necessary evil when it comes to getting higher search engine rankings for our personal training websites and ensuring that your fitness business gets the highest possible quality scores from Google and the other major players for proper SEO.

You can submit your personal training  or fitness website to all the directories that I suggested in a few hours and to all of these directories at the same time (better have your credit card handy, and please read the fine print!), but it is something that you SHOULD do and the sooner the better because it might take months before you get noticeable traffic and measurable search engine ranking improvements from these efforts.

But your time will pay off as your business grows because you’ll start to rise in the search engine rankings automatically, receive higher organic placement for your content, and ultimately be rewarded with a more solid and successful web presence that will help you get new personal training or boot camp clients and add one more spoke to your fitness marketing wheel.

March 16, 2010