In a major metropolitan area, there is no shortage of martial art / Jiu-Jitsu gyms; It’s a popular and growing sport. After training Jiu Jitsu for some time in a local gym in Spokane, Washington, an experienced instructor decided to franchise out. A big issue for any new business is marketing. The opportunity arose not only to help but test a hypothesis too. I decided to use my Human Intelligence skills to leverage the Headquarter gym’s (Newborn Cascao) member network, to increase the new satellite gym’s (Infiniti Newborn Cascao) page rank.

The outcome of the experiment was so successful that it forced the new gym’s website with ‘0’ Domain Authority to rank 3rd of 9 local gyms in 6 months. All gyms competing for the same keyword phrases such as: “Jiu Jitsu, Spokane”, “Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Spokane”, “BJJ Spokane”. Even the hyphen between the “Jiu” and “Jitsu” is contentious. Additionally, ranking 2nd for “Bjj Spokane”. Plus, continually maintaining that rank for common misspellings associated with the keywords. A serendipitous biproduct was the solidification of the number one seat for the Headquarters gym.

Stunningly, some of the competition has powerful brands. For example, the # 2 seated gym (in the below photo) produced the UFC Women’s World Champion, whom was on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on January 27, 2022. In which she dropped the name of her gym and a heartfelt story; You can’t buy that kind of marketing! 

Free, fast, and simple.  Get fellow gym members to:

1.     Get a Free Gmail account (needed to leave a Google review).

2.    Find the company in a Google Search and give it a 5 Star review; Commenting at least 8 words (containing at least one competitive keyword).

3.    Task some people to misspell the target keywords.

4.    Hit the Like button on every 5 Star review, including your own.

Being plugged on the most listened to podcast in world means nothing with out good SEO, because Infiniti is outranking for “Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Spokane” and “Bjj Spokane”. Note that Spokane Valley Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has 47 reviews.

How does online marketing for Jiu - Jitsu work in 2022?

Most small business owners have no idea about SEO. In fact, many suffer the illusion that their webpage is winning the keyword phrases because they are not Googling in “Incognito” or “Private” mode; Allowing the user to see the TRUE page rank and not skewed towards individual data. For most local SEO ranking, small businesses have websites with minimal to no backlinks, low Page and Domain Authority. Therefore, the page ranking relies heavily on the Google reviews. A review means that the reviewer is a real person verified by Google. The most important reviews for Google page ranking are Google Reviews. Not Yelp, social media, or any other information system. 

Logically, the data input of a model effects the output and page ranking is no different. Google is also a database which users are constantly uploading new content (data) and its structure is that of a spreadsheet layout with rows and columns. When you start your webpage, your column is empty. Labeled data is better for predictions or classification. Labeled data is helpful, even for Artificial Intelligence that doesn’t need labels. When reviewers plug lucrative key words, they are labeling. Google has been fighting a hard war on artificial content; Therefore, all human generated content is classified higher because it came from a real person who took their time to add prominence with a recommendation. A good Google review adds Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (EAT). 

How to maximize Google reviews in 2022?

Akin to using the law of gravity to roll a ball down a hill, this approach uses both social networks (human and electronic) to capitalize on a naturally occurring law: Metcalfe’s Law.  Which states that, “a network is proportional to the squared number of users connected to it” (Wiki). Essentially, your network is your net worth. For example, if you know only 5 people, then your net worth is 25. Regardless, that’s not an unknown or a particularly interesting fact. What is noteworthy, is the force-multiplication of additional Likes per comment. In other words, 5 people can generate 25 times the ranking power.

Notice the misspelling of “Jiujistsu”.

Simple right? Maybe for a Church or a normal business. Unfortunately, building rapport in Jiu-Jitsu is a HARD hustle. The nightly bruise analysis in the bathroom mirror along with being in the best shape of my life bears testament to the struggle. Getting to know people in that community equals getting you’re a$$ beat. Going through a carwash of sweat as you are contorted in uncompromising joint manipulations. Not for the average Marketer, Data Scientist, or faint of heart. I look forward to it! After receiving a beatdown during “rolling” (Sparring with random training partners), they were very receptive to a suggestion. For the most part, I kept it low-key when telling people and didn’t try to evangelize this tactic. I humbly, especially after a

beat-down, suggested only to the people I rolled with:

“If you really want to help the owner out… (insert steps) and while you are at it, do this for the new gym as well”.

Lastly, the people who listened and acted on it, did so because they genuinely admire their Jiu-Jitsu Professors and want to see them succeed. If anything, this grassroots experiment exposes the meaningfulness of Martial Arts for people’s lives; Demonstrated by members increasing service to a person they already pay money to. This experiment would have never happened without the unselfish actions of the gym’s loving community.

For more information on this experiment, check out: Optimizing Humans to increase page ranking.

The proof is in the comments, check out these two awesome gyms here:

Infiniti Newborn Cascao Newborn Cascao