Does your wedding business SEO suck? Are you struggling to be found be your ideal clients? Chances are, you’re making at least 1 of these common SEO mistakes.
 

1. You don’t have an active blog

 
I don’t talk about blogging all the time because it’s fun. I talk about blogging all the time because your blog is an incredibly powerful tool for marketing and sales. Your blog helps you be found by your ideal client.

Let’s say for instance your ideal client is search for “wedding planning step by step guide”. If you have a blog post called “The Step By Step Guide To Wedding Planning” your chances of showing up for that search are MUCH better than if you just wrote about things that your ideal client wasn’t searching for.

On the SEO front, Google LOVES blogs. More blog posts means that your site will have more pages indexed with Google which helps your SEO. When you create new content Google comes back to your website more often and that really helps your search rankings.

Google loves fresh content, in fact you are actually penalized for not creating new content and updating your site. If you want more people to find you via Google search, blogging is the way to go.
 

2. You’re not optimizing your images

 
Think of Google like your image-blind friend. It doesn’t see all of those beautiful images on your site and it doesn’t know what is in them. The file name, alt text and description for each image on your site tells Google what it is. If you aren’t optimizing these with your keywords, it’s going to hurt your SEO. Making just this change, one photographer I interviewed got himself to page 1 on Google. It really does matter!
 

3. Your images are HUUUUUUGE

 
I get it, you want your photos to look good on your site. But you do not need to use high res photos. In fact, using high res photos slow your website down. When your website is slow (and in Google’s mind, slow isn’t totally sluggish. We’re talking seconds, sometimes less) Google prioritizes faster sites over yours and you drop down the search ranks.

On the SEO podcast with Maddy she cited this stat: Amazon found that if their pages slow down by 1 second, they lose $1.6 billion a year. 1 second! Your website speed matters and by simply decreasing the file size of your images you can improve it.
 

4. Your website isn’t mobile friendly

 
If you use Flash for your wedding business website, stop and read to this. You are killing your SEO. You’re straight up murdering it horror movie style.

Smartphones will not display Flash but even if you don’t use Flash and your website optimized for mobile use, it’s going to hurt you.

An ever increasing number of engaged couples are using their phones to visit sites like yours as they plan their wedding. Are you really willing to miss out on that? If your website isn’t mobile friendly you won’t miss out on just them, you’ll miss out on a whole lot more because Google is going to penalize you. I interviewed a photographer who got knocked clear off Google for this exact reason and he had to climb the ranks all over again.
 

5. You’re not getting links back to your site

 
The sites that link to yours have an impact on your SEO and a great way to get these links and get your work featured is to actively. That means submitting styled shoots to wedding blogs or writing guest posts or features for other blogs (we’ll be covering this on the podcast soon!).

Social media counts too for this. Are you sharing links to your blog posts and your site on social media? Pinterest is a great source of traffic for wedding professionals and it’s a great way to build up those links.
 

6. You don’t know what keywords you’re trying to rank for

 
It’s pretty hard to hit a target if you don’t know what the target is. Maddy Jones and I are going to show you exactly how to find your keywords in our upcoming SEO workshop (and a whole lot more) but you can get started by thinking about what people are searching for to find you. Maybe they’re searching for “wedding photographer Atlanta”. That’s important to include in your keywords so that you can be found when people search for that.

Once you know what keywords you’re trying to rank for, use them in your blog post titles, in your copy (first paragraph) and in your meta data (the title and description that shows up in Google). In order to add that to you meta data on WordPress, just use the super easy to use Yoast SEO plugin.

SEO can be intimidating and confusing and frustrating which is why Madeleine Jones and I are hosting this SEO for Wedding Professionals Workshop on October 26th!

After attending this in-depth workshop you’ll be able to…

• Avoid the common mistakes most wedding professionals (including your competitors) make that sabotage their SEO
• Cut through the uncertainty & frustration of knowing that you need to improve your SEO but you have no idea how
• Find the right keywords for your business and use them to create client-attracting blog posts
• Power through the confusing technical parts because you’ll have a step-by-step walkthrough
• Make changes on your website and social media right away to improve your SEO
• Access a recording of the workshop so you can refer back to it again and again
• Get answers to all of your questions in a Q&A with Heidi Thompson & Madeleine Jones (SEO expert)

Sound like something that would help you? Click here to get all the details and save your spot!