How to move your website up in Google (+ bonus tips for Squarespace users!) - An ultimate guide to SEO for wedding pros
what is SEO and why should I care?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically, it’s the secret language of Google; and if you want to get clients from your website, you need to speak the language.
When your site is properly optimized, Google rewards you! You get bumped higher up in the search results, and that gets more eyes on your website.
Since the wedding industry is ridiculously crowded, having great SEO is an awesome way to get an edge over the competition. What happens to most young businesses is they spend a lot of time building a cool website, only to have it sit there gathering dust. We want your website to actually get you clients!
So let’s talk about all the ways you can improve your website’s Google ranking and increase your traffic! 👇
SETTING UP THE BASICS:
Keep your site secure and loading fast
Activate an SSL Certificate
First and most importantly, you’ll want to make sure your URL has the little padlock symbol next to your website’s URL at the top (and that it’s actually locked). If it’s unlocked or not there, there’s a good chance certain browsers or devices will block the website just to be safe. You can fix this by activating SSL and HSTS.
⇨ Squarespace users: Set this up by going to Settings > Advanced > SSL. Then make sure ‘Secure’ is checked, as well as ‘HSTS’. And save!
Turn on Accelerated Mobile Pages
This will allow blog pages to load faster on some smaller devices in a pinch, by cutting out the unnecessary visual content on the page.
⇨ Squarespace users: Set this up by going to Settings > Blogging. Then scroll to the bottom and check ‘Use AMP’. And save!
Reduce your page size
Keep each of your images under 500 KB, and the overall page size under 5 MB wherever possible.
To check your page size and page speed: enter your web address at tools.pingdom.com.
To compress your gallery files: If you just have a few images to downsize, you can use any free image compression website like imagecompressor.com. If you are uploading full galleries on a regular basis, the fastest solution is to invest in jpegmini.com. It’s lightning fast!
BUILDING OPTIMIZED PAGES:
Use keywords strategically throughout your website’s content
Choose effective keywords
Keywords are basically just search terms (essentially the Instagram hashtag of Google, but sneakier). So think about what your client would be searching for if they are looking to hire someone in your field. That’s typically going to include your job title, location, and then maybe additional specifiers like your niche or specific style.
Here are some examples of what an engaged couple might type into Google:
“Boston luxury wedding planner”
“Geode cakes in Chicago”
“Boho wedding photographer Seattle”
“San Francisco wedding venue in woods”
“Custom large seating arrangement signs in Jacksonville”
So think about the key identifying factors of your business and keep those featured throughout your site. If your location is not well-known, be sure to also include the closest big city in your keywords.
THEN don’t forget to add in your business name and your name! If people only know the name of your business, you want them to be able to successfully Google it. But sometimes if you meet someone at a networking event, they might only know YOUR name. You should consider all of these things as keywords for your business 🙂
A final important note on choosing keywords: DO NOT simply repeat the same words and phrases over and over again throughout your site. Google will consider this spammy and will actually penalize you for it. Instead, think of all the variations of those terms and keep mixing it up.
Don’t do this:
Dallas Wedding Photography
Wedding Photography Dallas
Photography for Weddings in Dallas
Instead, do this:
Dallas Wedding Photographer
North Texas Event Photos
DFW Engagement Portraits
Write keywords in your headings
Be deliberate about spelling out what it is you do in the biggest heading at the top of your page, and reiterate that throughout the website using varied terms. All headings, especially, will be used to inform Google about the main ideas of your website; so you can focus your keywords there and then use the body copy to support them with more detailed information.
Take a look at these businesses who are using keywords effectively right at the top of their home page.
Elegant Events Planning & Design mentions their business name and purpose right up top, followed by their mission and their location. They make it clear that their ideal customer wants a unique and bespoke wedding day. They then go on to name all the areas they service (not pictured here).
Sandalwood Manor repeats their business name throughout the page. They immediately state their purpose and location at the beginning of the first paragraph, followed by the features that makes their venue special, including the term “luxury estate” in their description.
Butler & Badou states front and center that they provide portraits for families that are meant to last generations. Also included up top is their location and the fact that they are a physical studio. Just below the header they elaborate using different keywords, explaining that they fully-finished luxury products instead of just digital files (not pictured here).
Organize your pages for better SEO results
Each page should have it’s own category, so that your content isn’t competing with itself for Google ranking. This is best explained using examples:
Let’s say you are a photographer who offers 3 different Wedding Photography packages. It’d be best to explain all 3 offers on the same sales page, instead of breaking them up (because they’ll all be using the same keywords.)
On the other hand, if you’re a stationer and you offer stand-alone calligraphy as a separate service, it’d be better to dedicate a separate webpage to calligraphy, so that it has a better chance of popping up in a client’s Google search for calligraphy. You can then create another sales page just for your stationary packages.
Create an overall site title and description
You’ll want to come up with a succinct title and description for your overall site; this will show up in the Google listing for your home page. Here’s an example:
As you can see, you don’t have much room for writing here, but it’s super vital. You can title your website with a combination of your business name and other common search terms, like Sugar Me Kissery did here. Then in the description you can add the other most important details that might get someone to click on the link!
⇨ Squarespace users:
If you are using the newest version of SQSP, change your site title by editing the header from any page. In the popup, click Site Title & Logo. Type in your new title and save!
If you’re using an older version of SQSP, change your site title by going to Home > Design > Logo & Title. Type in your new title and save!
For both versions of SQSP, change your site description by going to Home > Marketing > SEO. Scroll down to SEO Site description under the Home tab. Write in your new description and save.
Tag your images with keywords
The hidden keywords (or alt-text) on your images will not only make your content more consumable for visitors using screen-readers, but it will also provide more context for telling Google what you do and who you’d be relevant for. This will also help your photos pop up in Google’s image search - more ways for people to stumble upon your website!
An easy way to set this up is to name your images before adding them to your site. So instead of uploading a photo called “J&G-details (10).jpg”, title it “princess cut diamond ring and zirconium wedding band” - THEN upload it.
How to write successful image tags:
First think about how you’d describe the picture to someone who couldn’t see it, then think how you might throw in a few targeted keywords.
Keep the tags short (12 words or less)
You can skip words such as “picture of a…” or “the”/”a”, etc.
It’s okay to use spaces, no need to separate words with dashes or underscores.
Write a unique description for each page on your site
Again, this will be indexed by Google to help it understand the content of each individual page, and it will also likely show up as the search listing to get people to click in. You can create these for each blog post as well!
How to write successful page descriptions: Make sure it’s specific enough that it only applies to this particular page on your site, using search terms that your audience might use to look for that content. Keep it informative and comprehensible, because it will actually be read by humans. Around 50 characters is probably what will show up in the search listing!
⇨ Squarespace users: Find this setting by going to the Pages panel. Then click the settings gear icon to the right of the page name for which you want to add an SEO description. In the pop-up window, go to the SEO tab. Fill in the new description and save!
GETTING A LITTLE TECHY FOR BEST RESULTS:
Register your site with Google
Create a ‘Google My Business’ Profile
Sign up here to have your business registered in Google! This is incredibly helpful if your site is new or if you have a lot of competition, because even if your website isn’t showing up on the first page of google, your business may still pop up in a little widget!
You can then link the profile to your actual website. But be sure to add all the important information too, because some leads may decide to contact you based only off of what they see in your Google profile. Include your location, phone number, images, and have past clients submit reviews for your business here.
Sign up for Google Search Console
Getting registered with GSC will give you more information and power when it comes to your site’s ranking and performance. (It will allow you to complete the following steps!)
⇨ Squarespace users: You can use your Google Search Console account to see how many people are finding your site, what searches are leading them there, and what pages are most popular! After your site is made public, go to the Home menu > Analytics > Search Keywords. Then in the pop-up, click Connect and log in to your Google Search Console account. Click Allow and let the data roll in after a few days!
Tell Google to index your site
This asks Google's bots to review your site and update the search results with your content. It’s going to eventually get done with or without you submitting the request, but this can speed up the process.
How to submit your sitemap to Google:
On the Google Search Console dashboard, select the site you’d like to index from the property menu in the top left corner and click Sitemaps.
Under Add a new sitemap, enter your sitemap URL. Your sitemap URL is simply the following: https://www.YOURDOMAIN.COM/sitemap.xml
Click Submit to request that Google index your site.
IMPROVING YOUR RANK OVER TIME:
Expand your online reach
Write blog content whenever possible
The BEST way to get more website visitors faster is to create blog posts. The more frequent and consistent the better, but any amount of blog posts will help you get traffic! This is because you are telling Google that your site is up-to-date and active; you’re constantly using keywords and talking about related subjects which helps Google understand what you do; and if you can answer questions that people will be searching for, then you are showing up in way more search results. All of these things give Google reasons to promote your site.
Think about it this way: if you only have the core pages on your site (Home, About, Services, etc.), then you are competing with all the other search results where someone is offering the same services as you in your area. But if you are constantly answering couples’ wedding-related inquiries, then you have A LOT more opportunities for people to find your service.
You can then take it to the next level by adding this content to Pinterest for even more visibility!
How to come up with blog post ideas: Do NOT do what most wedding vendors do and just post the galleries from your weddings. This is not going to help your SEO, unless you add alt text to every single picture (and that’s no fun).
Instead, start by writing out all of your client’s frequently asked questions and start answering them one-by-one in a blog post. Or you can list out all the things that your clients DON’T think about before hiring you, and you always find yourself educating them on those topics.
Then for more ideas, try to find what your dream clients are searching for. Play around with these free websites to get some ideas of questions you could answer:
Get backlinks to your website
You’ll want to start finding ways to link to your website from other places on the internet. This will help Google see your network and acknowledge you as a legitimate business in the industry. The more “backlinks” to your site that are out there, the better!
For starters, you can add your website link to alll your other profiles across the internet.
But more powerfully, try to get featured or mentioned in other online publications, or collab with peers. You can write a guest blog post for another blog, be featured on a podcast, or be interviewed by an industry friend. Get resourceful! 🙂
Do all this, and you should definitely see your website traffic go up. 🙌
Oh, and if you haven’t signed up for Squarespace, feel free to use my code BEJ10 for 10% off.
Was this post helpful for you? Comment below which steps you’re going to implement and be sure to share this with a friend in the wedding industry 🤍
