“Don’t Go for cute, pick something that will sell!”

Naming you book should be super easy, but so often we make out we need to come out with something cool, sexy or cute. The same goes for our fitness businesses, we try to name it something cute.  Zenith Training, Apex Performance, etc etc…

This generally means nothing to your passing traffic. What’s wrong with just calling it what it is.

“London Personal Training Studios”

“New York Personal Trainer”

The problem really comes when you buy a domain name… we all try to think of something cute, rather than thinking about the obvious stuff, the stuff people search on. For example, if you have a personal training studio in london, why not buy londonpersonaltrainingstudio.com (don’t worry, my mentor and good friend Dax Moy already has this)

One of the big benefits of claiming these type of domains and USING them, is you get the benefit of easy ranking on google.

For about the last 3 years I have pretty much dominated the search rankings for the search personal “Luxembourg Personal Training”. Go check it out right now if you want… I am the ONLY choice up there. However the one site I couldn’t beat for total domination on those listings was “www.personaltraining.lu”.

Why? because it had the major keywords in the domain name itself.

The sad part is I created that site for a previous business JV I had with another trainer in Luxembourg, but even when I cut lose from the JV, the website was so well set up by me… it kept on beating my other sites in the rankings!

Even with slightly defective Search Engine Optimisation, zero updates to the site for literally 3 years or more, no new links created back to the site from authority sites… the site still beat my well set up sites, with MORE backlinks from authority sites, better SEO and regularly updated content.

It did all this from just having the stronger keywords in the domain.

Take this as a MASSIVE clue!

Don’t go for cute, go for what people are searching for.

Tell me what your website URL is, and backlink within the comments section…if anything it’ll help you with a simple backlink.

Seriously, if you are not using this at the very least for your BLOGGING then you are truly missing out. And as I will present in the next week or so the next step (which is NOW by the way) is creating full blown websites based upon Wordpress, without ever knowing a word of code!

In fact our woes with developers and designers may be over, as for the large part there usefulness is now redundant.

But for now I want to show you my evolution of Wordpress, this is important because I want to show you that its functionality has evolved massively in just a few short years in to something EVERYONE needs to sit up and listen to, because it really is the platform for creating your own websites right now!

1.I built a BLOG using wordpress.com, the interface was a bit clunky 3 years ago, and it was for the more geeky type of person like me, blogger.com was king in the blogging world as it was really easy to use. What’s interesting blogger.com has not moved on that much, where as Wordpress has moved from geek to something much more user friendly.

2. Someone built a website for me, actually it was my first e-book: The Corporate Athlete Conditioning Handbook. They used wordpress to develop it… I hated it, I hated the interface, I couldn’t change stuff, I was annoyed cos I wasted lots of money. So I rebuilt the website myself using HTML code.

3. However much I hated Wordpress at that time, it peaked my interest in setting it up on my own web servers to play with… SPOT THE NERD!

4. Started finding custom BLOG themes for Wordpress that could make my blogs look a little more appealing from the standard boring themes.

5. Discover the plugin function on Wordpress, which suddenly expanded the functionality of wordpress ten fold, and more importantly was helping to boost the search engine rankings for the sites.

6. Now early in 2009 I really got in to Wordpress and started building BLOGs for myself and custom blogs for myfitgeek clients. EasyFitnessBlogs proved extremely popular and has shown many new people the WordPress way is a better way.

7. Started building websites using WordPress (rather than just BLOGS), more themes started appearing that improved the functionality and ease of set up and changing the look and feel of the site.

8. Autumn 2009, I am now ONLY building websites using Wordpress, everything from BLOGs, Sales Pages(this one here took me just 15 minutes to build!), Product Launch sites, full blown websites for your business , and now…

9. …Membership sites using an incredible piece of software that is a plugin for WordPress.

10. What’s more, the barrier of entry to building these sites has reduced MASSIVELY. For 90% of sites you don’t need to know code or get your head in to FTP. In fact most of the time the most technical bit I do is get someone to build a custom header to fit my site and bingo site is ready to roll!

So why am I tell you all this?

Well, in the next week or so I am going to release a couple of “how to” videos that will show you step by step of how to start your own WordPress based site, and then on Jan 1st I will be launching a new site aimed at helping you get the very best from using Wordpress, Search Engine Optimisation, List Building, Video editing, editing HTML code (if you really want to learn that stuff), where to get the plugins and themes that I use, as well as a step by step process to building your own personal trainer website, WITHOUT EVER NEEDING A DEVELOPER.

To me this is a BIG game changer, and a welcome one too for many fitness professionals who have been bitten by dodgy developers, who waste your time and money.

I’ll also be taking a select few through a special coaching program to get all this stuff done super quick, and get your professional looking site done, ranking high in google, and collecting new leads every day.

The next few weeks are gonna be super exciting, hopefully you are ready for the ride.

Speak soon

Tim

Stay on top of this thread… and get the videos when they are released.. enter your name and email address below:

I scrubbed all the other stuff off my board earlier this evening and placed the following…

Just click on the image to make it bigger.

So what is on the board, besides the reminder of why I work my butt off every day, my favorite quote and a 101 dollar bill, the diagram is simple but outlines my overall system for getting new people to my websites EVERY DAY.

1. Pay For Them… This includes Pay Per Click advertising through Facebook, Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing etc etc. Or even paid for online advertising on local websites to capture local leads.

2. SEO… Improving the on site optimisation of my sites so that they rank well for my main keywords and to ensure I am getting more links back to my site.

3. Offline… Offline adverts in local media, flyers, doing public speaking as well as getting involved in local events and becoming more visible in my local community.

4. CSS… This is my content syndication system. A step by step process of creating high quality content such as articles and videos for my BLOGs, distributing throughout the internet using various resources such as ezinearticles, submityourarticle, youtube, blip.tv and then finally a system of social bookmarking to spread the word about my content.

Each element drives people back to a page on my site to opt in to my autoresponder list using aweber.

I work on this daily… it is not by accident that my web site, my videos and my content DOMINATE google for my primary keywords.

SEO is NOT a one shot deal, it is a daily process.

Content Syndication is also not a one shot deal, it is a daily process.

Paid ads is an on going process of updating, testing, updating testing… it is a daily process

Offline promotion is not just one speaking engagement, flyering campaign, or mail shot… it is a daily process

Have a system for lead generation, and get new leads EVERY DAY.

Drop your comments below… I appreciate that FTP is not the most sexy of topics, but hey anything can look sexy if it saves you some cash )

So out comes the video camera, white board and my cool red t-shirt!

Make sure that once you’ve watched the video, give me your comments below.

This video explains probably one of the most important elements of my website that ensures that my bootcamp is full EVERY month.

Honestly send me an email with your comments

Get the single most important tool you need for this here

Some of you have got this Twitter thing down to a fine art.

But everything else is a bit haphazard?

Problem is whilst using the BIG social media sites is well worth your effort, it is very easy to get lost in the ‘noise’ especially if you have more than a couple of hundred friends on Facebook and more than a few thousand Twitter followers. There are plenty of other sites that probably could do with your attention and you’ll probably get to more people because of the lower noise levels.

1. Facebook is the current king of social media currently the 3rd most visited site on the internet. Keep at this building your friend network as well as developing a Fan Page, and you’ll certainly be able to take advantage of this media.

However I am increasingly worried by a lot of the posts on Facebook from certain individuals being purely promotional. ONLY having links frankly makes you look like a jerk and only out to entice us to your marketing messages.

I have started blocking these people from my feeds. Facebook is a relationship tool, its a cool place to hang out, from time to time you might want to throw in a link, but not every post.

2. Twitter… Hmm second only to Facebook right now, but sure to topple the giant in double quick time. I am frankly amazed by Twitter, and still trying to fathom any thing of sense comes from it.

I’ve stopped using the automatic follower tools, because you are not getting followers naturally. Instead I am seeking out people who are like minded and have something interesting to say! Serial linkers get ditched double quick now.

So now we’ve got the BIG TWO out the way, what other sites do you need to be using?

3. TubeMogul If you create videos, yes you do need a YouTube account, but there are lots of other video sites on the internet that can further your reach. I currently use Blip.tv as my main host of videos, I can put both private and public videos on there, which serves some of my products.

However you do need to be using TubeMogul.com to release you’re video content to about a dozen other sites. Tube Mogul is free to use, you’ll need to set up accounts initially on all the other video sites but you only need to do it once.

4. iTunes Podcasting has been around or years now, but it is a media that I often forget about. Even I have succumbed to the iPhone, something I swore I would never do. However, the plus side is I can listen to podcasts walking down the street and driving in the car. Set up an account to upload your interviews and podcasts on to itunes and it becomes searchable in their catalogue.

5. LinkedIn Professional networking sites like LinkedIn are really important too. Setting up an account with them will mean that you have a professional looking online resume that can be found by potential JV partners, people from the media, as well as potential new clients.

6. Ping.fm Managing it all can be a nightmare… which is why tools such as TubeMogul invaluable, there is also the killer site that will deal with your status updates in just one button. Ping.fm is a site I’ve been using for about 6 months or so, and it saves me a bucket load of time and means I can reach all my sites in one go. You can even download the browser plugin so you can instantly update your status without even leaving the site you are on.

7. OnlyWire Finally the biggest revelation in the world of social media and the power it has on your search engine optimisation is a site called OnlyWire.com. This service will enable you to ‘bookmark’ your blog posts as well as those articles and BLOG posts you find and like around the internet. Setting up an account is free so long as you have a special link on your site, spend the 40 minutes or so getting all your accounts set up on all the different social bookmarking sites will be well worth it. Also add the browser button to your browser to make bookmarking quick and easy.

So yes, you might think you’ve got this social media stuff covered with Facebook and Twitter, but you can exponentially increase its effectiveness with just a little extra set up and work.

Get on it now.

Nameservers are the way a domain is pointed to your web host. So when someone types in your domain http://www.yourdomain.com it will look to your web host (where your web site will live) so that it can appear on the web browser.

Watch the video of how to set the nameservers.

Don’t forget to comment on the video here on this BLOG

In this video I show you how to get set up with a host. I use my highly recommended hosting service, StartLogic. If you are in the market for getting a hosting account, watch the video, then click the link below to get set up with StartLogic.

Register With StartLogic Pro Logic Account NOW!

Yes it is an affiliate link and yes I will make a little bit of cash from me recommending you to them, however I use these guys for some of my own hosting and they ROCK! So I have no worries about recommending them and getting a kick back because of it!

Don’t forget to leave your lovely comments below… i really appreciate the feedback on this stuff

“I don’t know the first thing about setting up a web site”

So I’ve put together some really simple videos to get you heading in the right direction.

The first video is for getting a domain name registered for your site… this is the www.yourdomainname.com bit.

Make sure you tell me EXACTLY what you think of this video, by posting your comments below.