Blogging 101

Staying connected with your gym goers is essential, and blogs are one (fairly) simple way to do just that.

Fit For You Health Club in Traverse, Michigan, started their blog in 2008 according to co-owner Vern Gautheir.  He said the desire to increase the business’ search engine optimization (SEO) and online presence led to the creation of the blog feature on their website.

“We were investigating new websites and knew we had to get our SEO up and running before we got ran over by our competition,” Gauthier said.

Fit For You was founded in 1986, a time when websites, blogs, and social media were not a part of anyone’s business plan, but now a digital package is almost necessary to the running of any successful entity.

“The big national franchise gyms have people that make a full time job of running their website, blog and social media,” he said, adding that there is no such person on the Fit For You staff at this time.

Gauthier said the blog is updated every week on Sunday and he does a new video tip every week that goes out to all members and is uploaded to the blog and social media.

The co-owner added a major ‘do’ for running your blog is to keep its activity consistent.

“Always have fresh useful content,” he said. “I like videos because people feel like they get to know you. Try to provide tips that will benefit the customer and try not to just sell.”

Gauthier said he uses a simple tactic when searching for new content and finding out what it is his members want to know—he asks them.

“I will occasionally run a contest on what information our customers want and then do a random drawing. It is incredible how many subjects I will receive,” he said. “Also I like to keep up with the trends, what’s coming that my competition doesn’t know about and how can I leverage the information that I have learned.”

Whether you already have a blog, or are considering starting one on your company’s website, Gauthier emphasized one important key for success.

“Don’t forget to update every week,” he said.