Using Google My Business to support leisure and gyms

Google My Business is a vital component to any business in 2021. Launched in 2014, it integrates with your Google account to ensure that information that customers and potential clients are looking for is immediately surfaced in the search results.

For leisure and fitness businesses, you could find yourself with a huge increase in traffic to your website or physical business by just being seen in the Google My Business search results.

So whether you’re a gym, golf course, leisure centre or studio, your business will benefit from it no end.

Using more of Google Products is also a signal that you are actively working on your digital footprint, so is counted positively by Google when choosing who to show in search results.

It’s important to remember that you want to give yourself the best chance possible of being in your local 3-pack, which puts your location at the top of search results. Being in one of these top spots also helps with your general website ranking too.

What is Google My Business?

GMB is not a separate app, it’s a sub-section of Google that simply appears when you start searching for a location-specific term, such as, “gym near me”, only if you have your location data switched on, of course.

GoTopShelf reported that 34% of ‘near me’ searches on desktop or tablet ended up with in-store visits, while 50% of mobile users wound up visiting the location. It’s a fantastic way to get more people to visit your gym or leisure centre.

Claim your business for massive results

The problem is, you won’t appear unless you link your business with Google business record This is a common issue found across the world, as many places simply still rely on being catalogued by Google’s map data, instead of directly interacting with Google’s systems, which is what they actively want out of their users.

90% of people will check out of a search if the result or place they were looking for is not on the first page. The days of hunting for something on page 10 of a Google Search are long since dead. Even if your business isn’t fully decked out with a fancy website, SEO and paid advertising, you’ll be able to benefit from the reported 1009 average searches that most businesses achieve.

Assisting during COVID-19

Google My Business isn’t just a way to appear in searches though, as it can hold vital information for gym and leisure centre goers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Google will allow you to list and adjust your opening times, COVID-19 status and if you have to temporarily close if rules potentially change. Not only that, but when entering the next layer of the page, customers will be able to phone you directly and be ushered to your website.

Photos, busy periods (generated by location data) and reviews are constantly changing too, meaning that members can actively plan around this information, as well influence potential new customers.

Having multiple sources for members to leave reviews is important when potential customers are considering joining you. So having both GMB and TrustPilot only helps to bolster your Net Promoter Score.

This isn’t just to bring in customers, as it’s a fantastic way to ensure you’re seen as well as your competitors. You don’t want to lose out simply because you weren’t even an option.

In most cases, businesses not on Google My Business suffer due to the lack of information immediately available – especially for those who tend to only seek out information online, or prefer not to speak with staff on the phone.

If you own multiple locations, you can link them all together through one account and can adjust them incredibly easily. This is really important, as it helps people find information on the location that they are looking for – you could even give each location a nickname.

Alternative: What3Words

Be sure to check out What3Words too, if you happen to be in a remote location, as it’s a grid-based map that has split the world into 3m squares, which have a unique three-word name that you can then hopefully take advantage of when you use their system.

Find your location in the app and then you can promote the allocated words for anyone to locate you without the need for an address. Adding this information into your Google My Business listing is particularly helpful for sites such as golf courses, who are usually based over a larger space of land or in a more remote area and may be harder to locate.