The GYM Club as it is known in the search industry consists of Google, Yahoo, and MSN. It’s not the gym that contains weights and treadmills. But believe it or not, the members of both types of ‘GYM’ do share some common ground.
Visibility
One of the reasons people go to the gym is to get noticed. To get noticed is the only reason people want to be found in the GYM Club. What is the point of having a great website if nobody sees it? Visibility is a cornerstone of search engine optimisation (SEO). All of your website pages need to be found in the search engine index of Google, Yahoo and MSN. And you need to be included under relevant keywords or key phrases.
According to various internet research companies the GYM Club accounts for over 80% of all searches on the web.
In the UK the dominance of Google for searching is even more evident. With a Netimperative article saying that Hitwise reports that over three quarters of searches in the UK are through Google, with Yahoo and MSN tying for second place with 7%. But as well as being found in these search engines, you also need to feature highly in the search results.
Studies have shown that you ideally need to be found on the first of the search engine results pages (SERPs) and no more than three pages deep for selected terms relevant to your business. Think about when you search, do you go beyond a few pages? I know from experience that I often don’t go beyond one or two pages. So as well as being a member of the GYM Club, you need to be a prominent member. To find out about your membership level there’s a search engine to do this for you.
The Jux2 search engine lets you find your website’s position in the GYM Club. At the time of writing for the search term ‘UK Online Marketing’ TH UK were number one overall, with positions 6, 5 and 1 in Google, Yahoo and MSN respectively. Where does your website feature under the important search terms for your business? If not too good, how do you get a first page listing with the GYM Club? Well, like the other gym, don’t expect everything to happen overnight.
Long Term Outlook
Great bodies aren’t built in a day. And neither are great results in the GYM Club. Great search engine positioning is an ongoing process. It needs a long term outlook. The web evolves rapidly. Search engines constantly change their algorithms, like Google’s ‘Big Daddy’ update, and your competitors often don’t stand idly by as your search engine position climbs. As well as looking long term you need to set realistic goals.
Setting Realistic Goals
Like at the gym, with the GYM Club, people sometimes expect immediate results. They become disillusioned if they don’t get the results they expect. But a good search engine listing at the GYM Club can take time. There will be improvements in the short term but expectations have to be realistic. It often needs a couple of months before there are noticeable gains, even though the hard work has been put in.
Hard Work
With the gym, you get out what you put in. That great body you see on the beach didn’t happen overnight. While that person is effortlessly looking great in the sun. What you don’t see, is to get to that point took many hours of dedicated training and good nutrition. And getting great search engine results at the GYM Club is based on the same principle. A lot of time can be involved in keyword research, competitor analysis, arranging link building, creating content, fixing web pages, consultation, writing SEO reports and analysing the results.
Recording Progress
To know where you are going, you need to know where you’ve been. Many people when starting the gym keep a log of their progress, whether it’s weight loss or lifting more weight. Before you start doing SEO on your website it is recommended that you create a baseline report. So you will end up with a before and after view of your SEO efforts. If you want to get a free baseline report of where your website stands presently with the GYM Club under particular search terms for your business, just get in touch.
Google has launched an experimental version of its 
