Easy Things You Can Do to Boost Your Website Traffic & SEO

by Brian Lawrence

During my meetings with our clients, I often suggest additional ideas, enabling business owners to take further action steps to enhance and expand the work we were hired to do. Please review this list over time and consider enlisting support from your team or even hiring an intern.

If you are not a client, I want to clarify that this assumes you are having the type of work done by a professional, such as building backlinks, optimizing and maintaining your Google Business Profile, continuing to improve your site performance, curating content using keyword research, and continuing to refine your website’s metadata. If you are not a client and want to set up a time to discuss these vital services we provide, please pick a time here.

Submit Your Real Wedding Photos and Content to Leading National Wedding Blogs

Two Bright Lights

Two Bright Lights is a tool for photographers and vendors to get work featured in hundreds of blogs, websites, and magazines. Once you sign up, simply create image albums filled with your work and information about your business. Publishers can search through image albums to find your photos, or you can submit them to publishers directly. Utilize the platform’s matching tool to set you up with the best matches. Two Bright Lights is free of charge to use.

Aisle Society Matchology

Created by the Aisle Society editors, Aisle Society Matchology pairs your blog submissions with publications that are the perfect fit. Matchology will save you time and get your work published more often in some of the world’s most popular wedding blogs. Currently, the annual subscription is $79.

Blog Effectively

Google loves fresh content. Fresh, regularly updated content improves your SEO and drives website traffic. A blog that provides helpful information and establishes your industry credibility can turn prospects into clients. It is also the easiest way to add fresh content to your site, which Google values as a ranking factor. That also includes going back to existing blogs and refreshing the content.

Blogging is an important part of any SEO strategy, but coming up with new ideas can prove challenging. When we write blog posts for our clients, we focus more on bringing new visitors to the website than educating existing visitors. For example, if you are a DJ, we might create a blog post that is a directory of wedding venues in the same geographical area trying to rank for a keyword term like “wedding venues in (your area)

We believe the most important type of blog post you can create to help convert more site visitors is to showcase your actual weddings in real wedding posts. If you are not a venue, showcase your work, list other vendors, and particularly focus on the venue. One advantage of doing a blog post on a wedding is asking the client to share it on their social media with their friends and family to get some free exposure. If you are an SEO client, we would be glad to create a form like this one that would make it easy for you to get feedback from your client to create a blog post.

Doing reciprocal blog posts with other vendors means you can each get backlink opportunities and more exposure to potential clients in a way that demonstrates trust – doing this with venues could be particularly valuable.

If you love blogging and want to be an educational resource on your blog, Evolve Your Wedding Business provides 37 practical blog ideas, like answering frequently asked questions and writing comprehensive guides.

Other Content Ideas

This resource sheet will give you many ideas for adding additional content to your existing web pages and helping you create new pages and blog posts that can also improve your SEO.

Proactive Review Practices to Help Improve Your Ranking

Too many wedding vendors take a laid-back approach to generating reviews. Also, they may have many reviews on Wedding Wire and the Knot, but hardly any on Google.

Check what your competitors are doing

It makes your site more clickable when you have more reviews than your competitors. If you have more reviews on Google that outdo your competitors or at least are on par with them, it has a profound effect on SEO and actual business. You can improve your ranking and get more couples who see your listing to click on it.

Here are some practices to help with your review request:

• Expand your ask to other vendors, parents, and people in the bridal party. Start by reviewing other vendors, and you can gain some free exposure and SEO juice by signing off with your business name, a wedding DJ in Chicago.
• Reach out to your recently booked clients. A follow-up “thank you for choosing us” is a good practice and can have a positive impact on your business. Use it to include a couple of questions to give you greater insight into why people are booking you. The answers can also help you create some good “benefit-driven” website content to woo more potential clients. If you are relatively new in the business, ask for a review at this stage to compete better with other area businesses. Send a simple email like this:
  

  “Dear _______, Thank you for choosing XYZ DJs for your wedding. We value your business and are trying to be efficient with our marketing budget. Since you booked with us, clearly something worked! I was wondering how you first heard of us and the main reasons you booked us. We look forward to providing an outstanding entertainment experience on your special day. Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.”

• You can also guide the most grateful couples you know will support you by providing a keyword phrase to include in the review.
  The trick is for the keyword phrase to be naturally included in the review, like the following: “Out of all the wedding DJs in Santa Clara we researched, Silver Tunes looked the most reputable. And once we spoke to Graham, we trusted him.”
• In addition, you can ask clients to upload their favorite wedding images or even provide one. Google loves it when visitors engage with your platform.
• Ask couples who have already reviewed you to use the same review and review you on Google. Provide the review for them to paste into Google. Tweak it a little so it is different.
• Regardless of whether the reviews are positive or negative, it’s important to respond to reviews quickly. This shows Google that you are encouraging customer interaction.

Join Relevant Facebook and LinkedIn Groups in Your Area

Participating actively in industry-focused social media groups provides visibility to your website’s content and drives traffic. You can generate direct business from couples who may be members. If you post informative content, it creates the potential for others to share it, generating backlinks. Most importantly, these groups are a forum for you to learn more about industry trends and get free advice on challenges in your own business. It’s also good to develop relationships with competitors and reciprocally refer each other when receiving inquiries with dates that are not open.

Offsite Strategies to Help Your Local SEO on Google Maps

In previous years, businesses chose physical locations based on being easy to find, strong foot traffic, and drive-by traffic, as well as anchor stores that could attract potential clients. Businesses also chose names beginning with an early letter in the alphabet to appear higher in the yellow page directories. The digital age has new strategies with similar logic.

Sub-let Physical Space to Help Online Real Estate

Trying to rank for a major city you’re close to but not physically in could seem impossible and be very costly. Establish a physical location by sub-renting space in a bridal shop or a location space. Even if it’s a satellite location, it could be effective and cheaper. If the business you rent space from is at an earlier planning process stage than yours, it may even generate leads.

Changing your business location can help optimize for local SEO. Try Sub-renting physical space in satellite locations. When you update your Google Business Profile (GBA) with a new address, search engines will see your business is located in a different area, potentially attracting customers looking for new products or services in your new vicinity. Find a location with city-center positioning.

Google establishes a center point and a general radius around it. Cross-reference a search for your city name and the three-pack map results for your main keyword(s). Use this to help you determine the core area Google is working with and then establish your location within that zone.

Change Your Business Name

I am not suggesting you rebrand, but having a keyword in your name can help you rank higher. However, if you add it falsely, you may be penalized by Google for spam and lower your ranking. You can change your name to include that keyword term, and it could dramatically help your SEO. To do this, you’d need to file a new business name or DBA (Doing Business As). Then, ensure that you update every instance of your business name on your website and wherever else you are listed.

For example, change your name from XYZ Productions to XYZ DJ Entertainment or add a wedding venue to your name.

Enhancing your website’s traffic and SEO is a multifaceted endeavor that requires ongoing effort and strategic action. Implementing these DIY strategies can boost your online visibility and attract more clients. These tactics complement our professional SEO work, creating a collaborative environment that amplifies your results.

Let’s Boost Your SEO Strategy

If you’re a client, we are here to support and guide you through these additional steps. For those who are not yet clients, reach out to discuss how our services can integrate with these strategies to maximize your SEO efforts. Let’s take the next step in your SEO journey together. Schedule a time to chat with me and explore how we can elevate your business.