In this guide, I start by covering the most important things you need to do in order to improve your online visibility. SEO for Jiu-Jitsu gyms is no different than any local business. However, I understand this niche very well because I have been a hobbyist for the last 6-7 years.
My hope is for this guide to break down the 7 core things you need to do to improve your Bjj gym’s SEO.
1. Google My Business Listings Optimization
Creating a Google My Business (GMB) Listing is really important for local businesses. You have probably noticed that any time you searched for something local like near me or a city-modified search, GMB listings almost always pop up first.
This makes optimizing your GMB listing a priority. In this section, I break down the core things needed to set up and optimize your listing.
Setup and Verification
First, you will need to set up your Google My Business Listing. You can do so by heading over to this link (if you already have a listing added and verified, you can just skip to the next step).
Once on the link, click on manage your GMB listing.
You will then be prompted to add in your Business name.
Following that, it will ask you what category your business is in. Just type in Martial arts school (it should auto-complete).
Then just add your contact phone number and your website.
You should get your postcard in the mail within 5 days.
Update your Info
Once you have verified your listing, you will want to make sure all your information is updated. This can be done by logging in to your listing and then selecting the info option on the left side bar.
Make sure you fill out the following:
- Hours
- Appointment links (contact)
- Business description (Try to be as descriptive as possible and add in your target location. For example, X Jiu Jitsu serves the YOUR CITY area).
- Phone Number
Add Core Services
You should also add in your services. While they don’t help you to rank for any additional keywords, they can give more context to users. (1) First, click on the services tab, and then select add a new business category. Type in “martial arts school” and select it. There should be an option for Jiu-jitsu.
I would also make sure to create custom services as well. For example, if you offer kids classes, No-Gi, Gi, and Women’s Self Defense, you can add custom services for each of them under one primary category.
Add Custom Products
Adding in products is neglected by a lot of business listings. Although Jiu-Jitsu services aren’t necessarily “products” you can still add in your services for each just like you did for services. This can really help your listing to stand out especially because you are able to add in images as well.
To do so, head over to products on the sidebar of your GMB listing. You will need to create a product category.
Next, you will be prompted to create a new category. I recommend just creating one for Jiu Jitsu Classes.
Then you can add in individual products for each class/service offering. Here is an example of a friend’s GMB listing that I added products for. We added products for kid’s classes, women’s self-defense, Gi and No Gi classes.
Ask your members for reviews
Getting reviews is very important to boost your Google My Business listing. Google claims that reviews help to improve prominence. (2)
Generally, users won’t leave a review unless they have a negative experience, so we recommend just asking your current members to leave one for you. (You may have to incentivize them to leave an UNBIASED review by giving free t-shirts).
It is also important that you respond to each individual review.
In info you can send people directly to your GMB listing by selecting the following option:
Then just copy the link and you can send it out directly to your customers.
Questions and Answers
This tip is a little bit hacky, but it can also help to make your listing stand out. Adding questions and answers to your GMB listing can also make your business listing stand out.
If there are questions you are constantly getting over the phone, this is an opportunity to kindly have your friend ask these on your GMB listing. For example, “Do you offer No-Gi Classes”.
Geotag images
Geotagging your images can also help Google to understand where your spot your business is located. I am not going to go too in-depth on this, but you can find a full how-to guide in this video.
Create posts weekly
Although there has been some debate as to whether creating posts helps your ranking, it can definitely make your listing stand out. (3)
An easy idea for a post would be to create a “technique of the week” video, which you can also use on your other social platforms. This can also give potential customers an idea of the style of Jiu Jitsu you have to offer.
2. Create a Yelp Listing
While not nearly as important as Google My Business, getting listed and ranked on Yelp is very important.
Yelp will generally rank very high on Google’s search results for a lot of local search queries (I.E. Jiu-Jitsu Philadelphia) because Google understands that people want to see a round-up of the best gyms in the area.
Local SEO is all about taking up as much real estate on the search engine results page (SERP) as possible. Getting listed on Yelp allows us to do so for free.
I won’t get into specifics on how to create your own Yelp listing, but the process is very simple and can be found in this guide (4). Just make sure you add in a description, address, and generate as many reviews as you can (just like your GMB listing).
3. Keyword Research / SERP Analysis
I like to take a 2 step approach to keyword research by looking at two things: The type of content ranking and the competition of the search engine results pages (SERPs).
What type of content is ranking?
With that being said, I like to look at the top 3 ranking results for my target keyword (I.E. Jiu-Jitsu/ BJJ Philadelphia) and check a couple of metrics using a tool called Ahrefs, which costs around $100 a month, but you can get a $7 trial week. Take notes as to what type of pages are ranking. Are the top (non-directory) sites ranking home pages or service pages. This can give you an understanding of what type of content you want to rank.
Just from analyzing a lot of the Search Results pages, I have noticed more Home pages ranking for general keywords like Jiu Jitsu Gyms + your city name, and individual service pages ranking for specific services like Women’s Self Defense or Kids Jiu Jitsu Classes.
Notice the pages ranking for kids Jiu Jitsu Philadelphia have dedicated landing pages for the specific services
However, something like No-Gi Jiu Jitsu brings up mainly home pages. THis tells me that it is probably best to try and rank our home page for this search result as well.
However, don’t take my word for it, every city may be different, so it is best to take a look to see what Google is rewarding for your location. I recommend checking for all your various services.
If the same set of search results are coming up for your modified searches (like in the No gi Jiu Jitsu and just Jiu Jitsu example), it is a safe bet that Google sees those different searches as synonymous and you may end up doing more harm than good by optimizing all your service pages (we will get into this later).
Competition of the SERPs
Google looks at a variety of factors including the strength of your overall domain and the number of links pointing to the URLs ranking for a given keyword. Brian Dean over at Backlinko conducted a good case study on this if you wanted to dive a little deeper into this topic. (5)
First off, I check the Domain Rating, which is a metric used by Ahrefs to calculate the strength of the entire site’s backlink profile and also the number of backlinks pointing to each URL. (6) Skip over Yelp or any other big directory site because their domain rating is naturally going to be very high.
This will help to determine how many links you will want to build for all these pages. If you want to go a little deeper into this topic, I recommend checking out this video by Ryan Stewart, where he breaks down this entire process.
4. On-Page and Meta Tag Optimizations
The most important thing about optimizing your website is making sure you have an optimized title tag and body content.
Title Tags
The title tag is the most important place to add your target keywords. I would suggest targeting your homepage with the keyword Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and your city. Adding the city to your title tag is the most important.
For example, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) Philadelphia – YOUR Gym Name
Since the homepage will probably be the most authoritative page on your website, I would optimize it for this keyword since it encompasses your service in its entirety, and then target your specific classes with other pages as I discussed in the previous section.
If you are on WordPress, you can download a plugin called Yoast. It allows you to easily add in the title tag and description of each page.
Don’t forget about your Meta Descriptions
While meta descriptions don’t affect rankings directly, they can have a major impact on the click-through rate, which is a ranking factor.
I like to optimize my meta description by including a call to action with some offering.
For example, if I offer free trials, I should add that in.
Here’s an example of a meta description I wrote for a friend’s gym.
Headings
There are 6 heading elements in HTML h1-h6. An H1 is the most important heading to have optimized, followed by H2, and so on. I usually don’t go past an H3.
Each subheading should be a subtopic of the parent subheading. For example, an h-2 should be a subtopic of an h-1 and an h-3 should be a subtopic of an h-1.
I like to have my H-1 optimized with my service and location. It can generally be the same or similar to my title tag.
Secondary Keywords
In addition to having my main keywords optimized throughout our headings and subheadings, I also like to sprinkle in some of the important secondary keywords people may be searching for.
For example, I know for a fact people are searching for the following:
- Gi
- No-Gi
- Gracie Jiu Jitsu
I would just make sure I mention these keywords somewhere on the main page you want to rank for the keyword “Jiu Jitsu + Your City” (in most cases this will be your home page).
As mentioned previously, I am not convinced that you need a dedicated landing page for both Gi and No Gi classes and you may end up cannibalizing yourself by doing so (just means you end up competing against yourself, which makes it really difficult to rank).
Instead of optimizing your gi and no-gi specific pages, you can optimize your home page to include both as seen in the image below.
5. Link Building
Links are still very important for SEO in 2022. However, Google has become a lot pickier in terms of what links help to move the needle. For local businesses, you will want to build niche relevant and local links (I.E. links from other businesses in your city).
From the keyword research, I had you record the average amount of links the top 3 competitors had. For example, if our top 3 competitors had an average of 6 links, if we build 1 link to our page per month it would take us 6 months to catch them.
So how do we get these links?
Local/Niche Directories
It is debatable whether directories help. I think general directories are garbage, but I have had good results with niche and local specific directories. I like to do this for all local clients.
I use a service from Whitespark, which does all the heavy lifting for you. If you sue Whitespark, make sure to select the niche citations services
Industry-Specific Links
Next up will be getting links from the same industry. For Jiu Jitsu gyms, you can easily reach out to other BJJ gyms outside of your city and ask them if they want to do a guest post exchange (in other words you offer to write a blog post to their site and vice versa).
This is a very easy pitch because you are offering FREE content to them. For example, you can pitch a blog post idea about tips for passing the open guard, or share one of your favorite passes, submissions, etc.
If they don’t want to reciprocate, it doesn’t matter, you really just want to get a link back to your site. You can easily find these opportunities by typing in city name + their city. Then just find their contact information and make a pitch!
Synonym Method for Local Links
The synonym method is similar, however, we are going to reach out to other businesses that are similar to yours, but not a direct competitor.
For example, massage therapists, yoga practitioners, cryotherapy businesses, pilates gyms. Anything that is also operating in the athletics department.
Then you could easily make a similar pitch. For example, if you are a Jiu Jitsu gym in Chicago, you can find massage therapists in the area with active blogs.
You can pitch them a guest post on why every Jiu Jitsu hobbyist should get a massage regularly. Again, this is a very easy sell, because you are essentially offering them free press on their site!
6. Do you offer Open Mat?
This is a very big missed opportunity in my personal opinion. A lot of people are looking for an open mat first before trying out a new gym.
Regardless, it is very good for exposure and can attract new and visiting students. If you offer an open mat, free or paid you should have a dedicated page about it.
Here are some examples of questions people have asked on BJJ Reddit…
As you can see people are specifically creating Reddit threads about this because most gyms don’t openly advertise this. However, it is a great way to get your website in front of other people!
The competition to rank is lower as well because most gyms aren’t targeting this keyword specifically.
7. Schema Markup
According to Moz, Schema markup is a semantic vocabulary of tags that you can add to your HTML to improve the way search engines read and represent your page in SERPs. (7) In lamen’s terms, it helps Google to better understand what your content is about.
I recommend using the local business schema markup. You can generate your own code using this tool. This can help Google understand that you are a local business in x region/city.
I am not going to get into the specifics of implementing it, because it does get a little bit technical. If you have any questions about adding it to your site, feel free to reach out to me.
Additional Resources
If you want to learn more about SEO, here are some additional resources that I recommend.
