Anyone have experience good or bad with Yelp advertising?

[Boom782]

I have been contacted a couple times and am considering pulling the trigger but I wanted to see if any other studio/gym owners had any luck with yelp advertising.

It is fairly $$ but looks like it could also pay for itself fairly easily. The guy over the phone said roughly 4800 people in my area(Chicago) search yelp for a personal trainer a month. Cost of advertising is $325/m for 6 months and it would put me at the top of 600 of those 4800 searches. But then they obviously have to click on my page and then call or visit my website to setup an appt. Say only 1% of people actually do that, then it should mean 6 potential clients a month and if I sell just 1 training then I have more than made back the $325 that month.

Anyone able to find the flaw or wrong logic that wants to talk me out of this?

[Nate R.]

I have been contacted a couple times and am considering pulling the trigger but I wanted to see if any other studio/gym owners had any luck with yelp advertising.

It is fairly $$ but looks like it could also pay for itself fairly easily. The guy over the phone said roughly 4800 people in my area(Chicago) search yelp for a personal trainer a month. Cost of advertising is $325/m for 6 months and it would put me at the top of 600 of those 4800 searches. But then they obviously have to click on my page and then call or visit my website to setup an appt. Say only 1% of people actually do that, then it should mean 6 potential clients a month and if I sell just 1 training then I have more than made back the $325 that month.

Anyone able to find the flaw or wrong logic that wants to talk me out of this?

That guy is most likely lying about the numbers. What do you think people use more, google or yelp? Obviously google by far and "personal trainer chicago" is only searched 720 times each month in google. So I am sure the Yelp search is probably only gets around 1/4 the amount of those searches, if that even. I threw up a screenshot of the searches per month in google.



720 is still a lot for a local business and you are lucky you are in a big city like that. Your better off putting that money towards and SEO service to get your site ranked on google. I will throw in a plug for my business lol I am offering some pretty cheap prices for the personal trainers on here to do SEO. PM me if you are interested at all.

[Boom782]

That guy is most likely lying about the numbers. What do you think people use more, google or yelp? Obviously google by far and "personal trainer chicago" is only searched 720 times each month in google. So I am sure the Yelp search is probably only gets around 1/4 the amount of those searches, if that even. I threw up a screenshot of the searches per month in google.



720 is still a lot for a local business and you are lucky you are in a big city like that. Your better off putting that money towards and SEO service to get your site ranked on google. I will throw in a plug for my business lol I am offering some pretty cheap prices for the personal trainers on here to do SEO. PM me if you are interested at all.

Hmm, interesting. Thanks for the info. If you don't mind me asking though, how do you find that data?

I would be interested to hear what you could offer though. I am bringing on two new trainers to my team this month and I would love to capitalize on the New Years resolution rush now. My site is ranked fairly well now for certain searches but I'm sure it could do much better.

[Nate R.]

Hmm, interesting. Thanks for the info. If you don't mind me asking though, how do you find that data?

I would be interested to hear what you could offer though. I am bringing on two new trainers to my team this month and I would love to capitalize on the New Years resolution rush now. My site is ranked fairly well now for certain searches but I'm sure it could do much better.

That is the google keyword tool, if you type "keyword tool" in google it is the first result. Make sure when you use it that you click the "exact" tab when doing searches for keywords. It by default does the broad search.

No offense but your site is actually not ranking well at all for the searches that matter. What searches are you targetting right now? Unless you pop up for surrounding cities? I doubt they bring in much traffic. I only looked at "personal trainer chicago" and "chicago personal trainer" and didnt see your site in the first 3 pages of google. If you arent even on the first top 3 results of the first page you wont be getting like any of that traffic.

I will analyze some more data/competition and hit you up with a price quote, it is a pretty competitive search term but I could definitely do it

[Boom782]

That is the google keyword tool, if you type "keyword tool" in google it is the first result. Make sure when you use it that you click the "exact" tab when doing searches for keywords. It by default does the broad search.

No offense but your site is actually not ranking well at all for the searches that matter. What searches are you targetting right now? Unless you pop up for surrounding cities? I doubt they bring in much traffic. I only looked at "personal trainer chicago" and "chicago personal trainer" and didnt see your site in the first 3 pages of google. If you arent even on the first top 3 results of the first page you wont be getting like any of that traffic.

I will analyze some more data/competition and hit you up with a price quote, it is a pretty competitive search term but I could definitely do it

Well Chicago is obviously VERY large and since convenience is huge for many people, I am focusing on targeting specific areas within a square mile of my facility which has worked well. My facility is in Lincoln Park which is surrounded by Wrigleyville, Lakeview, River North, and Old Town and my site ranks in the top 5 for searches in all of those areas. It would be great if I was ranked high for 'Chicago Personal Trainer' as well but a client who lives on the south side of Chicago 3-4 miles away is not as likely to come to me as someone 4 blocks away in Lakeview.

[Nate R.]

Well Chicago is obviously VERY large and since convenience is huge for many people, I am focusing on targeting specific areas within a square mile of my facility which has worked well. My facility is in Lincoln Park which is surrounded by Wrigleyville, Lakeview, River North, and Old Town and my site ranks in the top 5 for searches in all of those areas. It would be great if I was ranked high for 'Chicago Personal Trainer' as well but a client who lives on the south side of Chicago 3-4 miles away is not as likely to come to me as someone 4 blocks away in Lakeview.

Oh okay gotcha! Although you will be the first one they contact and you can sell them on coming to you. A lead is a lead. If they really like you I doubt they will have too much problem driving 3-4 miles extra. And the huge majority of people will be searching for Chicago and not those smaller search terms.

[UtahTrainer]

Well Chicago is obviously VERY large and since convenience is huge for many people, I am focusing on targeting specific areas within a square mile of my facility which has worked well. My facility is in Lincoln Park which is surrounded by Wrigleyville, Lakeview, River North, and Old Town and my site ranks in the top 5 for searches in all of those areas. It would be great if I was ranked high for 'Chicago Personal Trainer' as well but a client who lives on the south side of Chicago 3-4 miles away is not as likely to come to me as someone 4 blocks away in Lakeview.

Sorry man but that's a terrible marketing mentality and a mistake limiting yourself to only pursue those within 1-2 miles around you. I have clients drive 10+ miles to come train with me. If you have a good service people are will to travel.

[Boom782]

Sorry man but that's a terrible marketing mentality and a mistake limiting yourself to only pursue those within 1-2 miles around you. I have clients drive 10+ miles to come train with me. If you have a good service people are will to travel.

I can definitely see why you would think that but I imagine you have never lived in a city like Chicago. Many people do not own vehicles and public transportation is the main form of transportation for those outside of walking distance. For those that do own vehicles, parking can be very difficult and i do not have designated parking at my facility. Someone who lives in the south side of Chicago would need to spend 45+ minutes on public transportation each way to see me. While that does happen occasionally, it is not common. Usually the only people willing to travel that far are personal referrals and google and yelp ads aren't neccessary for them.

I'm not against targeting those people but I'm more concerned with targeting the 250,000 people that live within 1 mile of me.