How a top-seven gym management software company built its plan for the top three in one month

Top seven, aiming for the top three

The client makes gym management software for one specialist type of gym. It handles class bookings, memberships, recurring billing, attendance and member messaging, with apps for members and a kiosk for the front desk. Hundreds of gyms use it, mostly in Europe.

They weren't invisible. The homepage already ranked between positions 3 and 7 for the four category terms that matter most. People searching for this kind of software were already seeing them.

The next step was the top three, and the team wanted to know exactly what would get them there. When a site ranks well but won't move up, the cause is usually a mix: something technical holding it back, and content that answers the wrong question.

Here both were true:

• Old signals from past URL changes. Every site that grows and changes its URLs collects some, and they only show up when you check page by page.
• The comparison content missed the search. Someone searching "[competitor] alternatives" wants a list of options. The site answered with a one-on-one "us vs them" article. Google could see the mismatch.
• The backlinks all looked the same. Nearly every link used the brand's domain as its anchor text, which tells search engines little about what the product does.

A month was the window. So the job was to find what was actually holding the site back, write the plan to fix it, and start the content work straight away.

Part one: the technical audit

We went through the site page by page and logged about 30 findings. Each was sorted into four groups: high priority, easy win, quick fix for the team, and low priority.

The biggest ones:

We also wrote a new robots.txt and an llms.txt file, ready to drop in.

Part two: the strategy

The roadmap was a 90-day plan with seven priorities, each with a target:

1. Rebuild the comparison pages. About ten "vs" pages and nine "alternatives" pages, each matched to what the searcher wants.
2. Push the homepage into the top three for the four category terms.
3. Add structured data across the site.
4. Build landing pages for each type of gym the product serves, rather than one generic page.
5. Publish educational content in two streams: running the gym, and growing it.
6. Show up in AI answers. Get listed in the third-party roundups AI tools cite, answer real questions on Reddit, and check a set of prompts across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI answers each month.
7. Fix the backlink profile. A target mix of anchor text, so links describe the product instead of repeating the domain.

Part three: the content

We didn't wait for the plan to be approved before writing. The keyword research mapped 18 competitors to a keyword each. Every one was marked "update the existing article" or "write a new one".

In four weeks we delivered:

• 8 "alternatives" listicles, each with at least ten real options, not a one-on-one comparison
• 2 growth guides, on lead generation and marketing ideas
• 6 rewrites of existing educational posts: late payments, membership tracking, curriculum, starting a gym, attendance and no-shows
• 3 guest articles for other sites in the niche

The rules that kept it honest

• Only competitors the client approved. They know their market best, and anyone in the niche would notice a wrong name on the list.
• Every product claim checked. Each article was written against a verified product knowledge base, section by section.
• At least five internal links in every article, so the new content helps the pages that sell.

Part four: the landing pages

We built four feature landing pages on a 14-section template: recurring billing, class scheduling, billing for this type of gym, and a CRM. The client reviewed the first draft and gave us rules we then applied to all four:

• Name the payment provider they actually use, not a generic "payments"
• Say migration is free, because switching cost is the main objection
• Never say "gym" generically when the page is about their specific type of gym

What I delivered

• A technical audit with about 30 prioritised findings
• A new robots.txt and llms.txt
• A 90-day roadmap with a 10-step action table
• Keyword research across 18 competitors, plus feature and industry keywords
• 16 articles and 3 guest articles
• 4 feature landing pages
• Reddit thread monitoring, and six helpful answers in owner communities

What changed

This engagement ran for one month, so this isn't a traffic story yet. It's about what got fixed and what got built.

The client's team shipped the core audit fixes. Checked on the live site in September 2026:

• The pricing page now has the H1 we recommended
• The homepage has structured data
• robots.txt points at the right sitemap and no longer blocks rendering
• The feature pages are in the sitemap
• The old comparison URLs now redirect to one clean structure
• One of the two duplicate copies of the site is gone

The content is ready to publish. Sixteen articles and four landing pages are written, checked against the product, and linked to the pages that sell.

Honest caveats

• We don't have results to show yet. A month is enough to fix a site and write the plan, but not enough to measure rankings. We'll add numbers when there's enough data to be fair.
• The second duplicate copy is next to go. Removing it is already on the list.
• Most of the content is written and waiting for its publishing slot. We'll measure rankings once it's live.

Why this is the right order

A site that already ranks top seven needs its technical issues cleared alongside new content, and the right pages rewritten. The audit comes first because new content inherits whatever technical issues the site still has.

Is your site ranking just below the top three? Book a call.