I am so excited about this series where I get to teach wedding planners how they can get found for their wedding planning & event planning business. My background is in wedding photography, so let’s just say I know a thing or two about getting found for wedding venues and wedding photos. What I love about the correspondence between Google and SEO is that there are many ways to get found. You can get found through a blog post, photo gallery image, as well as a service page, right on the first page of Google for your desired keyword. When it comes to SEO, wedding planners get stuck because they aren’t aware of how many ways there are to get found online.
Here are 7 easy SEO tips for Wedding Planners.
#1. Location Text. The foundation for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is text, so the text on your website will be vital to your search engine ranking. I see many creative entrepreneurs who do not list their location on their website. I understand if you don’t want to list your address because you work from home, but it is crucial that you list the areas that you service. After all, you are a local business so if you don’t list the location on your website, it will be difficult for the Google bots to know your location, as well as confusing for your viewers.
Action Step. Make sure your location is listed on your about page. If you have a commercial space, make sure it is listed on your contact page with the full address and embed a Google Map widget of your location. If you serve more than one location, you may need dedicated pages for each location so you can target the appropriate geolocation for that page.
#2. Service Pages. One big mistake I see wedding planners make with their websites is that they jumble up all of their services on one single page. Sometimes they don’t even have enough info or text and just have gallery pages. Ideally, you need a page for each main keyword you want to target. Think of this as the services you offer and where you offer them. So let’s say you provide the following:
- Corporate Event Planning
- Wedding Planning
- Event Planning
- Day of Coordination
Now, your Day of Coordination can technically be included in your wedding planning page, but each service needs its own page so you can tackle that specific keyword and add a geolocation. For example, Dallas Corporate Event Planning is an ideal target keyword. If you do a lot of day of coordination then it should have its own page.
Action Step. Make sure each service page has its own page. Grab the Wedding SEO Checklist Freebie Below!
#3. Text. If text is the foundation for you building your home on the web, then text will be very important. You will need a significant amount of text for each service page. This can range from 300 to 1500 words, depending on how competitive your location and keyword is. I have seen 325 words be just enough. One great tool to check how much word count you should have is SEMRush. You can use the SEO content template once with the free account. This will show the top 10 competitors ranking on page one of Google for that city and keyword. Then, it will tell you the minimum word count it should have. This is a huge factor and should not be ignored. If you don’t do anything else from this list, do this pretty please with a cherry on top.
Action Step. Do some research and see what your minimum word count should be. Watch a bonus video to learn how. Add more text to your service pages.
#4. Blog with SEO in mind. There are many blogging SEO tips I can share, heck I created a whole academy on this, but to get started you need to try and blog about 3 angles. #1) Wedding or Event Venues #2) Wedding or Event Colors or Style and #3) What you do + Town. You see, most creatives think they just need to chat about #3 over and over again so Google finally hears them. Well my dear talented creative, Google doesn’t just look at your overall website, Google looks at each page and each blog post. The first thing a potential bride does is search for her wedding venue. Heck, even some single ladies probably fancy the venues where they see themselves getting married at.
Most of them go to Google Images, so don’t skip the next tip. After a wedding, a blog about the wedding while focusing on the name of the venue + wedding photos. For example, Ritz Carlton Pink & Gold Wedding. This would be your main keyword idea for the post. Then, you will sprinkle in more text in regards to planning a wedding there by mentioning style and colors. For your back-end SEO, like editing the Yoast plugin if on WordPress, then you would take that keyword and add the word photos. Here is an example of a Page Title & Description for such a post idea.
Then you do the same with blog posts where you want to focus on color or style. For example NYE Wedding Inspiration.
Action Step. Go back to some of your best blog posts and change the page title and H2 Headings to match your main keyword idea.
#5. Don’t ignore Image SEO. Beautiful photos from photographers, make sure you are optimizing your images. Part of the tip above is to grab the keyword you have decided for the blog post and add it to the image alt text. Technically, every photo should have image SEO and unique keywords, but you want at least one photo from the blog post to have that main keyword you have focused on. If you are brand new to Image SEO, sign up for my free image SEO course.
#6. Create Resource Page or freebie. Think of pages that can help your audience, like a free checklist, so you can grab their email contact info and reach out to them. One freebie I used to have was, “Top 10 NJ Engagement Location Places”. This can be a resource page or a checklist that they have to fill out a form to receive. This way, you have their contact information and you can get them in the door. Think like this: What keeps your potential client up at night? How can you help them? Be a resource. Create a resource page because chances are, they are researching this information online anyways. So why not have your content be found?
#7. Optimize your Google My Business Listing & get reviews. Any wedding and event planning business that wants to get found for a certain local market, needs to be signed up to Google My Business, even if you work from home. There is a feature that allows you to hide your address from the public and state that you service your clients at their location etc. Google still needs to know your address so they can send you a postcard to verify that you live at said location. Once you verify your Google My Business Account, it is time to get Google Reviews. If you want to be found in maps area, one factor is the number of reviews.
Action Step. Get at least 5 Google My Business Reviews to begin with, then get on a schedule to get more reviews consistently. You can use a service like Birdseye, Customer Lobby or Testimonial Engine.
I hope you have enjoyed these quick and easy Wedding Planner tips.
Don’t forget to grab your Wedding Planning SEO 101 Checklist below.
If you need help with SEO for your busines, sign up for an SEO consultation.