Blogging Tips for Yoga Studio Websites: An Easy Way to Drive Traffic

I spend a lot of time analyzing other small business owners’ websites. I like seeing what other business websites do well and what they don’t do well.

As publisher of Yoga Baron, I’m interested in yoga studio websites. I haven’t checked out every yoga studio website, but I’ve looked at many.

Some yoga studio websites are fantastic. They’re beautiful, informative, well-written, and educational.

However, some yoga studio websites are terrible.

If having a great website doesn’t interest you and you’re not interested in using your website to attract more yoga studios, then this post is not for you. However, if you want to attract more yoga studio students using your website, then read on.

1 simple activity to get more website visitors to your yoga website is … blogging.

I’m not kidding, and I’m not saying anything new. I didn’t come up with blogging. I blog and it works.

A comprehensive blog can attract traffic and be a very helpful resource to website visitors. Your blog, if well-done, should sell prospective yoga students to check out your studio.

But, you need to be smart about blogging.

One of the biggest problems I see with yoga studio websites is they target only 1 or 2 keywords.

I’ve spoken to yoga studio owners and they tell me “I rank really well in the search engines for XYZ keyword phrase” – usually their town and “yoga” such as “Seattle yoga.”

That’s great they rank well for a keyword phrase, but there’s not a maximum of keywords a website is allowed to target. However, there is a maximum of keywords any single website page can effectively target.

You don’t go about targeting more keywords by adding more keywords to your home page. Instead, you publish more website pages. This is where a blog comes in to play.

A blog is incredibly easy to add website pages. A blog page is called a post. A post can target keywords just as well as a web page.

Don’t guess your keywords in your blog

If you want to use a blog to attract traffic by using keywords, you must find out which keywords your prospective yoga students use. Don’t just write a list of keywords you think people use.

Fortunately there’s a free keyword tool provided by Google. It’s called the Google Keyword Tool. Be sure to get a Google account so the Google Keyword tool will generate more results for you.

Note a keyword can be more than one word. In fact, most keywords you’ll go for will be a phrase such as ‘Seattle Bikram yoga’.

Google Keyword Tool Tip:

Once you generate keyword results, look on the left side of the screen and you’ll see “Broad”, “Phrase”, and “Exact” matches. I generally restrict my output to phrase or exact (most often exact).

Broad means the keywords in the phrase you use show up in any order of a search. It’s not that precise.
Phrase means the keyword phrase is searched in that order, but there may be other words before or after the phrase.
Exact is the exact search executed.

Keyword Research Tips for Yoga Studios

1. Nearly every keyword you use will have a geographic area in it.

Your prospective yoga students are looking for a local yoga studio. Using geographic locations in your keywords is good because there’s much less competition and therefore easier to rank well for that keyword in the search engines.

Example: don’t go for “Bikram Yoga.” Instead go for “Seattle Bikram Yoga”.

2. It’s okay to go for keywords with few searches.

That’s the wonderful thing about a blog. You can add as many posts as you like. Even targeting a keyword that receives only 2 searches a day can work. If you have 50 posts on your website, each ranking well for keywords that receive 2 searches a day, you’ll attract website traffic.

3. Expand your keyword terms.

Once you’ve targeted your main keywords – the obvious ones that will attract the most traffic, expand your keywords. Start expanding the geographic areas you target. Think of neighboring towns and your state or province.

Once you exhaust neighboring towns, then consider expanding into related terms such as “fitness” or “personal training” or “meditation”. Think about the benefits your studio offers and if relevant to various searches, start targeting those keywords.

4. Focus on ranking well for your best keywords.

Despite #3 above, it’s usually best to work on ranking well for a few excellent keywords than ranking well for several less than optimal keywords. Start expanding your keyword terms only after you’re ranking well for your best keywords. Perhaps target 5 great keywords, rank well, then move on to the next best 5.

If you’re on page 2 or 3 for all your keywords, even though you’re targeting many, you’ll likely receive less website traffic than if you ranked in spot #1 on page of Google for 3 or 4 good keywords.

An example list of yoga studio keywords

Assume I’m researching keywords for a yoga studio in Seattle that offers Iyengar and Yin yoga. Here’s a list of possible keywords:

Seattle yoga
Seattle Iyengar yoga
Seattle Yin yoga
Seattle yoga studios
Seattle yoga studio
Seattle yoga classes
Seattle yoga class
Seattle hatha yoga
yoga in Seattle
Seattle yoga center
yoga studio Seattle
meditation Seattle
Yoga in Seattle WA
yoga downtown Seattle

This is just a sample list that I quickly gleaned from the Google Keyword Tool. Probably switching “Seattle” with a neighboring town and state/province would result in decent keyword selections as well.

Please don’t use this list for your town. I recommend doing your own research. This list is for illustrative purposes only.

How to write blog posts targeting a similar set of keywords

You probably figured out that the keywords set out above are very similar. How many times can you write about yoga in Seattle?

DO NOT write a series of duplicate content on your blog targeting slightly different keywords. Nothing kills a website in the search engines like duplicate content.

Instead, be creative. I suspect, as a yoga studio owner, that you could write a book about yoga. Well, that’s what you can do with your yoga studio website … in a fashion.

Using some of the above keywords, I’ll set out some yoga blog post ideas for you that will result in unique and informative content for your yoga website visitors.

Website Home page: I would target the main keyword which is Seattle Yoga. Be sure “Seattle Yoga” is in your home page title.

Blog Post 1 Title/Topic: What is Iyengar Yoga? Find Out at This Seattle Iyengar Yoga Studio

Write all about Iyengar yoga peppering Seattle in the blog post.

Blog Post 2 Title/Topic: What Are Some Seattle Yoga Classes Teaching These Days?

Write about some of the yoga classes your yoga studio teaches – going into detail about the yoga styles you teach.

You get the idea. When you can, place the keyword in your title.

What if putting the geographic area in the title sounds clumsy?

If it sounds clumsy to put your geographic location in the title (and it will sometimes), then do the following:

Keyword targeted: Seattle Yin Yoga

Blog Title: What is Yin Yoga?

Sub-heading using an h2 meta tag: XYZ Yoga Studio teaching Yin yoga for 6 years

Write about Yin yoga peppering Seattle in the content – but be sure the focus on the post is about Yin yoga.

How long should the blog posts be?

Aim for 400 to 3,000 words. I generally write articles that are 650 to 1,300 words long (this post is 1,480 words).

Some people suggest splitting up long articles into several blog posts. You can do this as well. I do it sometimes. However, I like longer posts and they do well in the search engines for me.

How often should you publish blog posts?

As often as you like. If you anticipate getting busy in the future, you can write a series of posts, and simply set the date on which you wish the posts to go live on the Web (at least you can do this in WordPress – I suspect it can be done in most blogging software options).

What if you don’t have a blog in your website?

The above techniques work well using pages as well. You don’t have to use a blog. I recommend a blog because it’s very easy to use.

If you have a static website in HTML or Flash, talk to your webmaster about adding a blog. In most cases, you can add a WordPress blog to a static website.

I hope these ideas get you started with getting more traffic to your yoga studio website. Please understand there are no guarantees when doing search engine optimization. At the end of the day, as long as you publish unique and helpful content, you should be fine and do well in the search engines.

Please also note that this is not the only way to attract more website visitors. But it’s practically free and can be effective.