Interview with Jodi Rumack

My chat with Jodi Rumack about all things SEO, inbound marketing, email and website design!

Here's a breakdown of what we talked about:

Introduction

Jodi: Alright. Hey everybody, how are we doing today? So today I'm really excited because I have a really great guest on today who's going to come in and talk to us all about SEO, some e-mail marketing type stuff, Google Adwords, and really get us educated on those things because as we know the world is turning more and more online and we really need some help from some great experts like Dan.

So I'm really happy to have you today, especially because he's doing it at 10:30 at night because he lives over in Thailand, and it's 10:30 in the morning here in Toronto so we've got a bit of a time difference going on, so I really appreciate you doing it Dan, and being here to help us out.

So I wanted to introduce everybody my Dan ...who owns the MyPTWebsite web site and who's going to be helping us out today talking all things e-mail marketing and Google Ad Words and SEO. So Dan why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do first and then we can jump in to some questions?

Dan: Okay cool. Yes, so I run a company My Personal Trainer.com, it's a website designed as a marketing company, and the main thing we do is a website design, but the second main thing we do is the marketing coaching.

So it originally was a website design company which was like any other website design company, we built a website and say "Thank you very much, have a great day," then we realized PTs had no idea how to get clients from it. Now it's a website design and a marketing company, so we teach marketing coaching so when a PT signs up with us they don't just get a website they get long-term marketing coaching throughout the life time of their web site to make sure that they're actually getting...from it. So we do everything that's to do with marketing!

Jodi: This is actually a great fit for you and I because you're all the front-end stuff and I deal with all the back end stuff. So it's kind of cool to hooked up with you and be able to help each other out help and help each other's clients out and make sure that we're getting both pieces because we need them.

Dan: It's actually sent people your way already actually.

Jodi: What's that?

Dan: I've sent some people your way already actually.

Jodi: Oh yeah?

Dan: Yeah.

Jodi: Okay awesome!

Dan: I was supposed to tell you, so...

Jodi: Yeah, make sure they tell me that you sent them.

Dan: Yeah I'm just like, "Go see Jodi," and then I wonder off and go do something else.

Jodi: That's cool. Well we are going to...as everybody who will see this, you guys will see, we're going to be posting in both of our Facebook groups as well so that as many people as possible can have access and can get this really great information, so that way we can keep going back and forth and keep building the industry and making things better and better for everybody. So great to have you.

Dan: Cool.

Jodi: All right so let's jump right in. I've got a list of questions here for you so I'm just going to start from the top and then we can bang them out okay?

Dan: Okay.

What is SEO?

Jodi: Alright. So the first question is blogging. So a lot of people ask about how do I blog? Where do I blog? Like how does it affect my SEO ranking? Maybe you can even take a step back and talk about what SEO really is for those who are really just starting and then talk about how they can use blogging to help their SEO ranking.

Dan: Okay yes. So SEO first. So SEO Search Engine Optimization it's putting certain things on your website in place so that Google can understand what your website is about. So Google has these little things called "spiders," or at least that's what SEOs call them, and these spiders crawl through your website and they find all the words on your website and then they'll rank your website based on words that they find that match what the person has typed into the search engine.

So if someone was to type in say "personal trainer arrowgate," and your website has personal trainer arrowgate written all over it in various different places and Google thinks your website is relevant and trusted, it will position you at the top of the search results. So how they do that is sort of very complex, it's not just a case of spamming the crap out of your website with the keywords.

So...but a good idea is just to learn the very very basics of it because once you've got six or seven principles in mind as you're building pages, as you know key words ... into the key words, it becomes second nature eventually though you're going to have to refer to it, I mean you can write the website, you can learn what to put where and it's kind of like...excuse me I'm a little bit ill sorry.

Jodi: That's okay, I got my water here too so anytime, feel free.

Dan: So, yes. So it's a little bit like with your PT course, when you're learning anatomy and physiology, it takes a little while to sink in, then once you've got it, you've got it.

Jodi: So is it better than to maybe cover that question first, like the best way to you place the key words and stuff and then lead into the blogs?

When and where to place your keywords?

Dan: Yes, sure. Okay. So when it comes to keywords...get a pen and paper ready if you want to write all this down...so your keywords they need to be in certain places; you can also use synonyms for the keywords. So you don't necessarily have to use the words 'personal trainer,' you could use 'fitness instructor,' or 'gym,' or whatever your business serves.

So the first one is the header one, so this the..one, so that's the main header, the one that should be at the top of your page, so the key word or a synonym of the key word should be in there, it also needs to be in the first paragraph on your website. So your main page or any page that you're trying to optimize ideally would be 700 plus words long, a thousand plus words long if you can. I know lots of people like pretty pictures on the home page of their web sites but text is really important because Google can't read images, it can only write text.

So getting the words on there and dividing it up with wide space and text is quite important. So we've got it in Header One, we've got it in the first paragraph. We also need it in an old text of an image, so when you have an image in your website you have something called an old attribute which describes what the image is, so you describe your image ideally with the key words if it is related to your keywords.

Jodi: Ah! That I didn't know.

Dan: Yeah it's quite important one. Also Google's now picking up the filename of the image, so if you upload an image with a file name, personal trainer and your location, then Google will see that as important now...some references...

Jodi: Okay great.

Dan: So then we go to the last paragraph of your website, ideally it will be mentioned in there, you could mention it once in bold where it's important, and you could tell us as it ... So these are all things that have said to Google, okay this particular word on this website is important.

Jodi: When you say the last paragraph on your site is that the last paragraph on your home page?

Dan: On the page, yeah. On the page yeah.

Jodi: On that front home page right?

Dan: On the home page. We're talking about one page here.. So when it comes to SEOing your whole website, every single page has its own individual purpose, so your home page is attracting new leads, and because you're trying to attract leads from search engines you can assume that these people don't know you, they don't know you, they don't like you, they don't trust you so then and there it's just normal like that's how everybody searches, they search for it, and if you're on the top of Google you've already won some point because people trust things that are at the top of the Google, so...they don't...at the top because they know they're sponsored. So just like you don't trust a Facebook ad, it comes with a pinch of salt doesn't it?

Jodi: Right.

Dan: So, but people trust the first organic results in Google. They trust the local map of Google, so if you're there you've already won loads and loads of product points because if Google says you're awesome, you must be a little bit awesome. So then going back to the page of the website, your home page because it's for people who are brand new to your website, the goal of that page is to invite them into the other sections of your website so you go on to something...and we've talked in the past about having an email sign-up form on your home page and all that kind of stuff, so depending on where that comes from, we'll be...I'm sure we'll get into it later.

Jodi: Yeah, definitely.

Dan: Every single page needs a purpose and the SEO of that page should be related to its purpose, and so your back page is to tell people about you, so therefore if your name is Peter Parker, people are going to be searching for Peter Parker Personal Trainer, it's in the search for the app then your back page should be optimized for that, not optimized for the personal trainer location which your home page is optimized for.

Jodi: Okay, good. That's really key.

Dan: So in short, Header One, first paragraph, a Header Two which I missed out, last paragraph. In the whole text of an image one's bold and one's a...size if possible and each page is optimized for a different purpose.

Jodi: Okay. I think that's really key like you know I'm learning too, this is certainly not my area so even these little snippets I'm like "Okay that's something new to me as well to optimize each individual page for what they're for." But it makes complete sense, and of course then you're like, "Should have known this." So good thing I was doing this.

Dan: The thing is that this is boring, like when you look at the individual components of SEO it's boring as hell but it's kind of like, it's the same as PT, I mean use to be a PT so if we look at your different quadriceps muscles, you've got like your vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, vastus ....

So you've got your vastus muscle and your rectus femoris, that's boring, but then when you put it into a system, and like you learn how all of that works within a system, all of a sudden you're looking at...ligaments and how it attaches and you're looking at...muscles and all of a sudden these boring things become interesting, that's SEO.   Like SEO the individual bits are so boring but when you're looking at it as part of the bigger system, it's quite exciting stuff and a giant puzzle, like it's a giant game of chess because you have competitors involved so that's why it's interesting.

Jodi: Yeah I know, I think it's totally interesting and I think the more you learn about it and the more you understand about it the more interesting it gets right because then you can start to try things and do different things and see what works and all of that stuff. And at least for me, you know it's like Facebook ads, when you're testing and you're testing one image versus the other or you're testing copy, one versus copy two, I love that part, like "Let's see which one works." So I think once you get into it and the more that you know the more interesting and exciting that it gets and especially when it works, then you're like "Yeah it works!"

Dan: Yeah. So and also when it starts making you lots of money that also helps.

Jodi: Oh boy, yeah. Of course that's the goal right. So let's take that and sort of maneuver that into using it in your blogs and how those can help you increase your ranking.

How to SEO your blog pages?

Dan: Okay, so when it comes to your blogs you go back to the same principle that every single blog has its purpose, and every single blog should have a purpose as well. So you've got blogging for purpose and you're SEOing for purpose, so when it comes to blogging you have to have several things in mind about who you're blogging for, so for example where in the bio journey of these people like are they aware that they have a problem and they're looking for solutions to the problems? if so it might be how to lose X amount of pounds in 12 weeks, that might be a blog post.

If they're in the consideration stage and considering hiring a trainer, your blog post would instead would be how to find the best personal trainer in your location, because they're considering hiring a trainer so you want to position yourself in front of these people. And then the last stage, the decision-making stage where they've all decided, "Yeah I'm going to hire a trainer. I'm going to find someone to solve this problem that I have," then they might be looking for things like price and competency, so you could have five clients...or stories of our clients in whatever location.

So if you blog with purpose all of your blogs appeal to a person at a certain stage of the bio-journey, you'll then SEO accordingly for that because if it's how to lose pounds you want to SEO for how to do that, and if you're in a location you want a SEO for how to do that for that specific location. So that's our SEO for blog... and the same principles apply with like having your Header One full text, first paragraph, second paragraph and the two.

All of those things need to be in place but the key is just to make sure that everyone has a purpose and people don't just write for the sake of writing, which is fine, it can be re-purposed later when you've learned a little bit more. But have a quick Google search or have a look at my website, I've got templates and things like that. If you follow a template and you follow it over and over again, after five or six blogs you don't need the template anymore, it's all knowledge, you've got it, it's in your head, done it, and you're blogging more effectively, blogging with purpose. So that's probably the biggest things with blogs.

Jodi: So a couple of questions to go forward on that is, I guess a little bit more on the marketing side like if I'm a personal trainer, how do I decide, or what makes me decide what kind of ...or what place my buyers are in, like in that buyers journey, like how do I decide who I'm going to like ... like who I'm going to try to go after with that blog based on their spot in that journey?

How do I write content for different stages of the buyer journey?

Dan: Yes, so you can either work from the top down or from the bottom up. So you can say "I know there are people that are in my town that have this particular problem that I can solve, and I don't know how to solve that problem. I'm going to write about it." So these are the people that are in your awareness stage; or you can work from the other end which is "I have this great idea for a piece of content and I'm going to remodel that idea for a piece of content to fit this particular stage of the bio journey." So if you had a great idea or if you have five success stories then those success stories are ideal for people in their decision-making stage and the consideration stage because those people are getting to ... they're the types of people that need to see the success stories to persuade them to hire a trainer, whereas someone who's in the awareness stage and they're aware that they have a problem and are looking for solutions to the problem, just because they've seen a success story, they're not in their right mindset to take on all those success stories and go "Oh I'm going to hire a trainer," I mean don't get me wrong, like there's always like one or two people that kind of go against the grain, and that's fine, they're just like, they're in their awareness stage and then they're just... to the decision-making stage. That's normal and that's fine, and that's good, especially if it's...services. But generally speaking we can compartmentalize the different groups and then either write content specific to a group or create a content and then place it into one group.

Should you target people in the same stage of the buyer journey?

Jodi: So would you recommend then that a fitness business owner who's writing blogs and getting it up on their website would you recommend that they are continuously trying to target the same space in that buyer's journey or is it okay if they write some blogs that are for awareness and some that are for people who are ready to buy?

Dan: Absolutely, yes. You can spread it across the board, I mean if you're someone who's just starting out and you've got no trust and no rapport and you've got no success stories then you need to be writing more wellness blogs, you need to be solving problems for people to build up that rapport and that trust and to essentially position yourself in authority.

But if you're already massively well established and you know that you've got a really large audience of people who are already reading your stuff and you're trying to persuade them to become clients then you'd write a little bit more for the considerations and the decision stage.

So beginners it's always awareness, it'll the same way when I put the Facebook ads funnel together for a new PT, I don't go for any sales, so I just don't because I can have a conversation with a PT and I can teach them exactly where to find immediate sales by picking up the phone with somebody and they've got probably a hundred people in social circles I think in contact. Just give them a call and get some money to the business cause money is oxygen for a business. So you get the money in and then it can start investing in ads, you can start solving problems for people and these first ads they never ask for sales, the first ads are always offering value first.

So we offer the value for five dollars a day or five...a day and we push that value out to their ideal audience and then we build up that mass audience that lasts forever, like it goes on forever because this audience builds up and it builds up customer audience and you get likes and shares and that builds up more audience, and the Facebook retargeted pixel builds up its own audience, and all of a sudden you got this tiny little ecosystem of people who are becoming leading fans of your service. So it's...yeah so it's for every stage of the journey.

About the free resources on My Personal Trainer Website

Jodi: Okay, awesome. So now you're starting to like talk about putting the pieces together. So one of the things that's on your website, can you just maybe tell everybody quickly about the free programs and the free stuff that you offer on your website to help them with their marketing?

Dan: Yes. So on my website there's a learn tab, underneath the learn tab it's basically everything that all of my clients have asked me, and I've written about them very very in-depth. At first it was just a mass of information like a giant extremely comprehensive frequently-asked question section, now it's turned into a whole marketing thing which seems to be going crazy, I'm getting like 15 new leads per day at the moment...

Jodi: Crazy.

Dan: ...so it's a little bit up from last time we spoke, and this is without ads, so I'm not spending on this, so this is natural organic. So all I do is I boost blog posts, so I boost a bit of value, but that gets likes and shares and then it picks up new people and then those new people find a way to alert...

Jodi: That's awesome.

Dan: ...and then come in. And so the learning center is just six courses based around your fitness marketing fundamentals, social media, email marketing, fitness copywriting and online training which I figured needed certain specific course because it's a little bit different in terms of the way new clients think; and SEO, the last one. And I've also arranged all those courses into a road map so you can learn in different formats. Some people like to go intensive on a particular on a particular category, and other people like to follow a step-by-step process, so there's a road map on those courses, and then when they've done all of that there's resources for...there's website graders, there's marketing assessments that you can download and find out how much you know about stuff. So it's all typically...and it's all free.

Jodi: Perfect. So ...your resources for everybody, for...users and we can just touch back about it at the end as well but I wanted to mention it so that people aren't like "Oh my God there's so many things you're talking about!" But if you go to your website they'll actually be able to find the information, so I...

Dan: They can find it all there.

Does it make a difference if your blogs are on your home page or on their own hosted page?

Jodi: Okay, cool. And then the last question I have about blogs before we go to the next question is, does it make a difference if your blogs are on your home page or if they're on their own page in a different spot on your website?

Dan: It depends on the purpose of your website. So if the purpose of your website is to build and establish rapport with people and you already have a group of people ...let's say the way you can get traffic to your website is through search engines, through apps that you'd probably want the people who are coming to your website looking for services they'd probably want to see an overview of services, not on to each content.

But there's flipsides to this, so I have a client who he mainly gets people to his websites through blogs and doesn't want to sell his services on his website, all he wants is blog on there because he wants people to get in touch with him via blog posts cause he's already got a very well-established client base and he's got his whole reputation, so that works for him.

How to build a website based on your clients next logical step?

Dan: For a newer a PT or even a PT that's still trying to do build up and you can collect more clients then thinking about your client's next logical step is how you build a website. So your next logical step is everything so I'm going to build a whole fricking blog around this because it's so important it's unbelievable.

So when someone lands on your website it's so so tempting to try to get those people to do things that you want them to do, but people don't do things that you want them to do, they're only there with something in mind. So for example unless they search personal trainer location and they found your website, these people are probably looking for pricing to find out whether you are within their price range, unfortunately that's a big thing so you can either put it on your cart, if you don't put it on you risk not being short listed on that person's mind, you know like if you're going to look for a carpet cleaner and you go through three or four websites that don't have prices and one has a website with prices and you go "Ah yeah!" So you know ...cause they give you the info that you're looking for.

So they're looking for competency, which is basically testing can you what you say you're going to do; convenience, if you're in the right location; and they're looking for about you, so personally. So this is when people are kind of on the decision-making stage and ready to buy so they want to know a little bit more about you personally. So this is why an About page is important.

So on the website if you just need Home, About, Services, Contact, Blog, that's it. Super super simple, you don't need any special things at the top and you don't need anything out of the ordinary. You don't need to call yourself anything other than a personal trainer. If someone lands on the website, if they see a blog page and they have no idea where to go next you might lose a lead but if they see a small introduction to your services they're going to know where to go next. So that's kind of a long answer to that but...

Jodi: No, it's good, it makes sense like you know I've had lots of people ask about the blogging and putting on the front page and if that makes a difference and all that stuff, so I think the way that you explained it, like you want to create your website based on what people want to do next, I think that was a really...that's a really cool like takeaway. So when you are thinking about what you want to do or what the purpose of each page is I think... sorry. So the home phone. I think that's really key and that's really important to think about. So giving them the easy way to know, "Okay here's what you need to do next," and you would have just like small images that reach each of those other pages. Your About, you Services, whatever, so it's an easy click for them to just go to what they're looking for. I like that.

Dan: Exactly that's super simple. Who's going to be viewing the images and what do they want to do next.

Should you put your prices on your website?

Jodi: Okay, beautiful. So let's tie into this then which you brought up, two questions that people ask all the time is, one, the pricing, so you've already said you recommend that people actually do put their pricing because there's this whole idea of you know if you go to the website and the pricing isn't there... and I can say I do this, if the pricing isn't there on something I don't bother usually, unless like there's something so amazing about this website or unless it's been recommended to me and I'm going to it, but if I just search something and I'm looking, if there isn't a price I'm probably not calling them because it makes me think either like probably it's too expensive is what it makes me think that you didn't want to put your prices on here.

So I know you're an advocate of putting your prices on, there are certainly pros and cons for doing it and not doing it and other experts are saying don't do it, so you know I don't think there is a hard and fast answer to it but it's always nice to hear the different perspectives.

Dan: Yeah, I kind of think it comes down to the types of people that you're trying to attract and what you want them to do next. So if you've got people who already know, like and trust you, and like you say they've been recommended to your website and that's where all the traffic comes from, you might not need to put your prices on there, that's not a big deal, but if you want to position at the top of the search engine then you must send cold Facebook ads to landing pages on your website, people are going to want to know your prices because especially in the PT industry unfortunately, because of this whole high-end coaching thing, people think that if your prices are on there persons are just going to try and upsell you at highest possible price, so that's just how people think.

And it's also important to know that when someone does go on to your website they think they're in a rush, like even if they're not the busiest person in the world, they think they are because they've been used to that level of busy all the time. So because they think that they're super busy and they're in a rush that if they don't find the information they're looking for it means nothing to them to click the back button on the website, like it doesn't mean a thing. So just having them there, even if it's a form price and a to price could put your ahead of the person and the PT who didn't put his prices on because it was to another guy, so.

Jodi: Yeah, I mean that's great, and that's how I would handle like an incoming call as well, if somebody called in to my location that's how I teach my clients is like give them a range right, don't make them feel like "No, you have to come in, not telling you anything."

People don't like that, but if you can at least give them a range, "You know it depends on the program that you choose, it depends on the life of the program or the type program and it ranges between you know 60 and $80 an hour," whatever it is. So yeah I think that's a really simple way for people to kind of get around answering that price question and not making the client feel like frustrated that they're not getting the information that they want. So that's cool.

Dan: That's something the other PT you should know as well...

Jodi: Say that again, sorry.

Dan: That's something every PT should know as well like...

Jodi: For sure.

Dan: ...a lot of people say like with high-end coaching and stuff like they don't know the prices cause I have to dial a phone call. You should know the prices like how much are you worth, how good are you? If you don't know how good you are why would I trust you to coach me?

I know exactly how good I am so when a company outside of the fitness industry contacts me and says "We need to start our...marketing," I say "Okay cool, I...this company what to do and this that and that..." say "Okay how much do you charge?" Like it's no secret, this is what I'm worth based on what I've decided I'm really really good at or...So I've not even decided all these things, I'm comfortable with, I'm happy to take that amount," so I say "This is how much I'm wanting to get paid." So if they don't like that like "Sorry dude, see you later. I know someone else who might do it for that price." And if they aren't happy about it, I don't go "Oh well maybe I'm a little bit more...

Jodi: No, like your prices are your prices, like to me...I mean this is kind of a side bar but in terms of creating your pricing and stuff you definitely want to start where you're at and feel comfortable and confident asking for that amount of money. And also you want to stick to whatever your prices are. So you shouldn't be, in my opinion, you shouldn't be changing them based on the situation, like if someone... if you see somebody walk in with keys for a Ferrari in their hands you don't suddenly charge more...

Dan: Exactly.

Jodi: ...or if somebody really can't afford it, to me, and this is maybe a conversation for another day, but I still don't think you should drop your prices just to fit them, I think you need to stick to you what your prices are and what's ... what your level of service is, and you can help them down the road when they're ready right. So anyway we won’t get off on that tangent, but...

Dan: Oh yes that is important, I think it's an ethical thing as well like I'm huge on business ethics especially...

Jodi: Absolutely. Yeah it's not fair, right for somebody...

Dan: It's kind of knowing... it's knowing your numbers. It's knowing your numbers like in a year-long thing and based on the value of the service as well. I know the client who I PTed, and then he turned into a marketing client.

When I was PTing him I was charging him 40 pounds an hour, when he became a marketing client I charged him 250 pounds an hour, so...I say, "Yeah but the marketing that I did for your company..." which was basically to make sure his website didn't drop from Position One to Position Two...the next 40,000 per month...aim is 10% of what you're making, so I was kind of like, "So that's why it's worth more because my expertise makes you more and how much that expertise is worth."

Should you have an opt-in on your homepage?

Jodi: That's...and then I want to get to the metrics but I just want to finish this part here with asking you about the opt in? So you mentioned when people are usually searching for you and they're getting to your website it's probably the first time, they don't know you, they don't like you, they don't trust you, and one of the questions I get a lot too is should I be putting an opt-in opportunity for people on my home page to get my newsletter or to get my blogs, whatever you want to call it, or should I put them somewhere else? What's your guidance on that?

Dan: So it depends where the traffic is coming from. So if you know all of the traffic is it going to be coming from one leads, people who already know, like and trust you and you're going to provide them with something that you know they're going to need when they land on your website, then go for it, so put you in a sandbox. If you're going to get traffic from lots of different sources you need to figure out what the average of all those people want to do next, and that should be your call to action. So when people land on my website nearly always they want to do one of two things, so they want to see the pricing or they've heard about me and they want to join the plan, they're my two call to actions, so start learning or just change it to a website order...And then the website order leads into the start learning.

So it's pricing or start learning, see how much the website costs or start learning, those are the two things that I know people want to do cause I use Heatmax so I can see where people want to go and I ask every single person I speak to by email or what they want to do when they land on my website. So it depends on what people want to do, so if they want to figure out what people want to do and where the traffic's coming from and where their next logical step is, you invite them to take that next logical step with you cause then it means they're spending more time on your website by getting to know you.

Jodi: Right. So probably most people are going to want to either know your pricing or they're going to want to see you, talk to you somehow about your programs and how everything works right? Those are probably your two things.

Dan: Yeah when I'm building websites the two main one is See Our Services or Start Here, I don't know for anybody else but Start Here which takes them to the Services page, and next to that is or Get in Touch. So Start Here, Get In Touch are the two main ones.

Should you add a discounted rate pop up on your website?

Jodi: So in terms of like an opt in box then, or like a pop up or something like that would you say that putting in something where they can either get a discounted rate for sessions or they can get a free assessment or something like that is usually something that works well?

Dan: With pop ups, sign and consent and things like that, it depends on the page. So on the home page you don't need any pop ups so you could argue that if you get tons and tons of traffic you could pull up a pop up that comes up when someone tries to leave the website to offer them something, which in my experience it kind of just looks like a desperate attempt to get them to do something so I don't, like I'm not desperate, and even if I seem desperate...I was not desperate, just the opposite.

So the home page I don't think it needs a pop up, it doesn't need anything like that, it should be completely blank and it should just have call to action on the main page that invite them into the different sections of the website so everybody will know what they want to do next.
If it's your service page and you have an offer on right now, you can place the offer in a pop up or it can come up in a corner to say "We have an offer on right now." That's fine cause someone on the services page they're more than likely looking at your services page. All the people you want to be looking at the services page are people who are going to be buying services from you, and it's that's small and low-barrier offer increases the amount of people that come in then put it on the website.

But then when it comes to your blog page those people they're not looking to buy your services, they're looking... they found, they found a link somewhere that pointed to your blog post, you don't need to sell them anything, like these guys don't want to buy anything, if they do want to buy something they've got to navigate themselves to your services page where you can give them the offer that pertains to their particular state of mind at the time on the blog page, give them something specific to the blog. If you've got 12 fat-loss lies then give them that fat loss cheat sheet, so that'll get their email, that's like the best thing to get their email, like "Download these 12 fat loss lies and a quick and easy cheat sheet."

"I want that, I just made... I don't want it back."

It's just like you give them like give them what they want like where they are, like every blog should be specific to that. If you don't have a call to action and you don't have the cheat sheet or you don't have a sign-up incentive for that particular blog post, just ask them to sign up for a ...like keep it nice and simple, nice and like low pressure, like want an email, yes; if not...

Jodi: Yeah I think this is a really big missed opportunity for people is in their blog post often people aren't giving their visitors an opportunity to opt in somehow. So when you put up your blog post make sure there is some kind of call to action to get the free check list or cheat sheet or recipe book, or whatever it is, I think that's a missed opportunity for a lot of people.

So that's a really great one to bring up for sure.

In terms of offering like the free sessions on the services page, I think that's really good advice as well. I guess my question for you that I think other people will ask is, if I'm on the home page and I've got my little image for the services for them to click through if that's what they want, would you tell them on the home page that there is... they can get a free session right there on the home page?

Should I offer free sessions on my home page?

Dan: You can, yeah, that's absolutely fine because let's say some people are coming to your website and they're looking to take action. And for these people who are looking to take action, that's the perfect thing that's going to help them; and then if you think of the other visitors who come to your site, they're not looking to take action but are looking for live information, that offer isn't just going to disrupt their journey on that website, so that's fine. So because you're putting something in place that serves a certain group where it just put off another group of people, so that's kind of how you're working with it.

Is it better to offer a free product or service?

Jodi: Okay, this is great, good stuff. Okay. So I'm just going to do a quick link back here to questions to make sure I've got everything. So one of the questions while we're sort of on this topic is one of my clients asked is it better to offer a free product or to offer a service, or does it matter?

Dan: It depends on what you're selling. So if you're selling products and offer a low-bar product, if you're selling services then offer a low-brand service I mean if you're running a PT service and you offer them a water bottle, how is that going to help them buy a PT service? It all comes back to the end goal, what's the end goal? Like if the end goal is to get more PT clients then you need to be looking for if you do want to go down the low-barrier offer route which you don't have to, you need to look for a low-barrier offer if you do PT service.

So a low-barrier offer is fine, I mean I know we just talked about knowing how much you're worth but coming in and saying you can get the first session or the first ten sessions at a discounted rate for a low-bar offer, that's absolutely fine; or come in for a free consultation, some people say "Oh you shouldn't be giving your time away for free," the same way they let you drive that hundred and $20,000 car in a test drive for free, like you can give away a $50 PT session like it's absolutely fine and get over it. So isn't it? So one $50 PT session, put it down as a marketing expense, it is a marketing expense, that hour that you spend with that person that goes on your tax deductibles so you haven't lost any money. So this is how people look at it like they're losing their time therefore they're losing their money so it's not all true, so that's a tax deductible and it goes as a marketing expense, like you spend time marketing to a person face to face, like that's the thing, so that's absolutely fine.

Should I use long form or short form sales copy?

Jodi: Okay, got it. Okay, and then the last two questions are a little bit more about the email marketing type stuff and they are...the first one is, when you're doing sales copy do you...and probably there isn't a hard and fast answer to this one, but do you recommend long page or short page sales copy and which one have you found works best?

Dan: Just had a conversation about this one...so it depends on what you're selling. So I think for services you present services, so you present them as they are. So this is who they're for, and this is the benefit...this is the features and this is how much it costs. So list your services you know like your three columns and you've got your three services and you put three tiers of services. So that's ... like if you're selling a product, then a product is a little bit different because you're trying to tip the ...to normally make a one-time purchase and usually an emotional purchase and that's where a long form sales copy comes in. So I'm not a fan of it but that's because I'm emotionally dead inside, so...

Jodi: I don't believe that.

Dan: ...when I look at the long form sales copy I'm just like I just shrug at it, like it doesn't do anything for me. So maybe because I'm in it and I know what people are trying to do...and I appreciate looking at it, and I appreciate reading good copy but that's what I'm doing, I'm not thinking about what I'm buying, so if I'm buying it's because I've already done some research elsewhere, I'm not buying it because of what the person who's selling has said about it.

So, but it does work, like you can't...long form sales copy works but I've seen it work best when it comes to selling products, not services, so Jon Goodman is the best example. So he uses long sales copy for his Online Trainer Academy and it works so well because it hit all the right buttons, all the questions you'd have the answers them as you're having them like that's how well the pages are written.

Jodi: Yeah. I think there are some things that you need to do differently on those pages as well whether you are selling the product or the service, regardless of that product or service, but if you're giving them the price and you're telling them everything about it without ever having to actually speak to them then you're going to have way more information on the sales page.

If you're going for booking them into a call or into a call where you're actually going to see them and you're going to get to talk about all that stuff you can make it shorter because you don't have to cover all of those things. You can cover the details of the program and you can cover the FAQs, you can cover a bunch of those things when you're actually talking to them, right?

Dan: Yeah.

Jodi: And then...I think like as a whole the long pages are getting shorter but they're still a long, but I think it also depends like what your call to action is right, like if you're getting something to buy, your whatever program, even if it's a one-time deal, if they're buying that one program you've got to tell them everything if you don't plan on talking to them before they buy, if your buy-now buttons are on your page. If they're not and you're actually getting the call to action to be "Call me, let's talk," then you can make your sales page a lot shorter because you can answer all those questions when you talk to them.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. I think that's a good point especially when it comes to what you're selling in particular. If you're about selling something that requires you to sell it, especially... So a personal trainer it comes down to the PT then the short sales page is ideal. If you're selling a little more product or one-time thing and you don't necessarily want to have lots of conversation, the long form...

Jodi: Yeah, but you can have lots of volume right, like you don't need to be getting on the phone with everybody. But you know like if you are just starting out I would recommend that your call to action is for people to call you and that's my thing. You can you let me know what you think, but I would put together something where the intention is for that person's to get on the phone with me because if I'm just starting out the more practice you can have the more value you can have of having those sales conversations which you're going to have to have if you want to sell personal training the better it is no matter how they go.

The more practice you can get the better you're going to get at having those sales conversations. So to me when you're just starting out you probably want your call to action to be "Call me and let's get on the phone... call me let's book an assessment," and doing something where you're actually speaking to them whether it's on the phone or in person.

Dan: Yeah yeah. I think you can also depend on the type of PT as well. So for example and I mean I'm like a little bit of a like introvert hermit like I said, I mean I'm a little bit more animated when I'm talking about marketing because it's exciting ...

Jodi: You say that but I don't really believe you.

Dan: Yeah, so...but I generally don't like getting on the phone with people and that's because it takes time, like it's not that you have to book in a time, although that does frustrate me a little bit because I'm literally going to have appointments, it's more that you have to go through lots and lots of steps before you get to the meat...and it's not that I'm incredibly unsociable but it's just a big fat waste of time, "Hi how are you? How's the weather? How's the family? Yes I do live in Thailand. Yes it is hot..." Like the same conversation happens all the time and that's like six minutes gone when we could have been talking about really important stuff.

So what I do when I do have any coaching calls with my clients is unspecified time and not because I want to be an asshole, it's because I know that if I get on a call and I say "Okay we've got 16 minutes till the next call," then they're like "Okay I'll get straight into it."

Jodi: Get to the point, yeah.

Dan: We just skipped it all and gone straight into it, and it works that way. Then for that reason I don't have any call buttons on my website. I don't say "Call us now." And I've loads of call apps which makes it really easy for people to call me but I would prefer people to send stuff by email because the fault lane in email is normally only one or two sentences so...but in the email the fault like really short so you can just get straight to it and people on the... email list normally go straight to the point.

That's exactly how I like to be and it's how I like to coach people as well like when I send an email back to someone. I've applied to them point-by-point...how they do it to me because I can reply to them how they're processing the information rather than delivering the information in a different way. So I believe the way we're delivering information now suits a certain type of person, people who watch the...and stuff, doesn't it? But just...so it's...yeah I normally can put both so...on or fill out a contact form yeah, so.

Should you write long emails or short emails, with images or just text?

Jodi: Okay good. That's good. And the last one...well maybe it's kind of two-fold, then it's a similar question, in your emails, like in your newsletter blogs that you're sending to your email list on a regular basis, and I'd recommend that everyone who's trying to send once a week if you can handle it, but twice a week...so you have twice a month so you get started for sure, the question here is if those emails should be short or long and also if they should look pretty or just be text?

Dan: I'd go for just text, I'm not a reading ...and I don't like the sources where I read it cause it was all like marketing gurus and stuff, but they did make very good points, and the points were how would you receive an email from a friend, so which...and I think ordinarily for my bigger clients outside of the fitness industry, bigger companies frown on emails that looking pretty and lots of pictures and stuff, that's absolutely fine but for PTs where personal is the first word in that service.

I think we're talking as mates because you become mates with your clients, like I'm still friends with all my clients and I'm like we check in with each other and I'm not even training them anymore, so I think it's important to keep it personal, super-duper simple. All my emails are straight and trim like I said and at the bottom is just my name, my company and my website and that's it. I keep it really easy, almost the...

Jodi: Yeah, and then long versus short in here as well.

Dan: As much as is needed to get to the goal of the email.

Jodi: Right. Yeah that's great, I agree with that. I think the option whether you go long or short can really be...you know if you want people to be driven back to your website you can certainly write a short email with a link to your blog on the website so that you're continuing to drive people kind of back and forth.

That might be one reason for having a shorter email with a link to the blog, and then that will also tell you a bit more about who you're talking to you and who's actually reading because when you go into your email marketing and you go back into your software you can see not only who opened, where you don't know how much they read or how much they didn't but you can actually see who and how many people are clicking to that blog with that type of information. So depending on what you're trying to learn or what you're trying to do for your people might help you make that decision of are you going to do a lot of email right in the e-mail or are you going to do a short one.

Maybe because you can get the point across in a short email and that's fine, or because you're doing a short email I find that sometimes when there is a really long blog people purposely do the short email to send to the blog to make sure it's people who really want that stuff are getting it.

Dan: I think going off of what you just said there, I think you basically said if you need to go traffic to your website, short, if you don't get traffic to your website long is fine.

Jodi: Yeah.

Dan: That was your answer.

Jodi: I guess in a nutshell that is my answer. I mean it's not to say that you can't write a solid short email that's all in your e-mail as well, like you can and if that's your point and that's all you need to do, that's fine too, I'm not saying not to do that.

I'm just saying typically what would I do and what I've seen is that's what's happening right, if you're writing something that's quite a bit longer you're probably sending the link to the blog post so that you're really getting the right people in there to spend that time reading that type of content, so.

Dan: Yeah.

Jodi: Okay.

Dan: ...so everyone is client-based and different, and you can always mix and match, and people react by differently, depending on how you've done...depending on how you've marketed your business previously to that person and have them on your list in the first place will dictate kind of what they're going to be more responsive to.

So I usually use a system called...it tells me exactly what people do on my website as well so I kind of have a whole journey and ...tells me the day that they signed up, it tells me the main pages that they visited and it also tells...once they've signed up it tells me the previous pages that they visited before they signed up too.

So it's super geeky, and then it goes into...and then let's say they started the Fitness Marketing Fundamentals course it knows that they started that course and it sends them an email, inviting them on to the course and congratulating them for starting that course, and those emails get opened because that person is expecting to see it, although most people say, "How did you know I started the course?" So I get, "How did you know I started the course?".

Jodi: Yeah it's the secret Internet spiders, they know.

Dan: Yeah,...but yeah it depends where they came from and what they signed up for I think they'll respond differently. So it's important to have your different lists, so I have 30 something lists for different things...

Should you segment your list?

Jodi: Okay so now you're talking about segmenting your list and knowing what kind of people opt in for what type of information so you can send them the right things?

Dan: Exactly, yeah.

Jodi: That's a whole other level.

Dan: Yeah yeah, but the segmenting is quite important because if you're going to have...I always advice PTs to segment three times so don't over complicate it. So you got awareness, consideration, decision, those three people want different types of information, and move people from one list to another depending on the actions that they take within your marketing forums.

Summing Up: 51:50

Jodi: Okay. Well that, I mean there is so much more information I know that we could like get out of you, but I think this is really great for today, we've been going about an hour now and I want to make sure that everybody takes away the SEO stuff and some of the tips for how to run a really great website. I think the biggest takeaway that I heard over and over today was just making sure that you're thinking about what your clients want to do next and thinking about what you want to get out of whatever you're doing, whether it's creating a page, whether it's creating a specific blog post, and just always kind of thinking that one step ahead, and I think that's a really important piece for people to go through and really think about.

You know the other place to start is really think about the pain points of the type of client that you're looking for and I think that will help people figure out what am I writing about? What call to action is there going to be? What do I want them to do with this piece? And really help people have some kind of structure, even if they're going to do it on their own or try to do it on their own, just a little bit of structure for how things are getting put together. So I think that was really a huge sort of theme that went through the entire hour. So that was great. Do you have any last thoughts or ideas or tips that people should take away before we go today?

Dan: I think that's the biggest one is marketing with purpose, definitely. So people kind of do things just cause, and it's so tempting, it's so easy to do it and it's such a big massive time waster. One of the issues that I have with clients when we were just building a websites that were similar to marketing coaching, was how we build websites and we give the...and we go into the website three months later and the website looks like crap. So the person has gone in and either moved things around and moved things up and .down and changed the copy, and they're not designers so the whole thing looks like crap, and I'm like

"Dude what happened to the website?"

"Oh I was just trying this...I was just trying this...and I was just doing that."

And I'm just like, "Stop just doing things because you didn't have anything. It's been three months I mean you didn't have anything implemented long enough to see whether it would work."

Jodi: I was just going to say that.

Dan: Yeah you've written one blog post in the whole three months and looking at your traffic you've got like a hundred and 10 visitors, like that's probably some of those are your mates, some of those are your people on your Facebook page, and a lot of them at...to be you, like that's just...it's just not how to market, you're doing it just cause you felt like it or it's because you read this one thing from this one guy who's it totally totally works. So it doesn't matter how many totallys there are, you've got to...you have to decide on your own why you're doing things and just stick to your purpose like, and use the people around you, that's the really really big thing.

Some of my guys I have to prompt them to use my service, like they're paying me money monthly and I have to say to them, "You need to be asking me more questions, like you've only asked a couple of questions and you're paying for this service. You need to ask me more things like what you're...there's experts anywhere, like people know what you call...like talk to them. So talk, especially when you're paying them to do it, you don't even have to feel guilty about it. So just crack on, yeah ask them questions. And I love talking about it, especially in email, so it's absolutely fine, so it's just a...yeah just using people around you but make sure that everything has a purpose, you're not doing it just because you've heard this one thing that happened before.

Jodi: Yeah. Okay, that's a great one, I love that. Thank you so much. Well this has been awesome, I think you got some really great info out there, I think a lot of great takeaways in here. We'll be posting them like I said in both of our groups so as many people as we can reach and help will get access to this awesome topic and lots of information that you are able to get today. So thank you so much Dan, and yeah if you guys have any questions, definitely jump in to either of our groups and throw in the comments underneath the recording and let us know what your questions are and we will try to answer them as best as we can.

Dan: Cool.

Jodi: And we finish with a ring that's telling us to tap out.

Dan: Yeah, like I said this is the first time my group would have seen me on camera. I'm never on camera for anything. So you'd like a special mention...

Jodi: What?

Dan: So I'd like a special mention to my group like.

Jodi: Alright gang we're signing off. Let us know if you have any questions and we'll see you in the group.

Dan: Okay.

Dan Salcumbe
Founder & CEO

I've been in the fitness industry for over 17 years, having built my own successful personal training company, My Personal Trainer Website, the Institute of Personal Trainers and more recently, a thriving online personal training company.

5 Star Website Design & Marketing Reviews

See our reviews

Trusted Partners

We work closely with some of the best service providers in the fitness industry.