When it comes to effective wedding business marketing, it’s either going to cost you MONEY or TIME.
If you find your wedding business gives you a little more time than money on your hands, start using the free marketing power of these websites. They take a little bit of time to set up and use properly for your wedding business, but they’re well worth the effort.
The Top 14 Websites For Free Marketing
1. Wedding Wire
Create a free Wedding Wire account for your business in the US or Canada and start taking advantage of those powerful client reviews immediately. Brides go to Wedding Wire just to research the experience of other couples.
The marketing benefits don’t stop there. Move on over to the Pro Forums for power networking and marketing advice from your peers. Then check out the Wedding Forums and share your expert advice with real brides. Finally, show off your best work by submitting a real wedding over on the Wedding Wire blog.
2. Wedding Bee and Wedding Bee Pro
Vendors are welcome to comment on bride blog posts, so long as your comments are not blatant promotions. Hop on over to Wedding Bee Pro to read blog posts by other wedding vendors. If you’re ambitious, put in an application to be “Pro.” It’s a great way to demonstrate your expertise and attract brides for free.
3. Bridal Tweet
Set up a free profile and you can join in Vendor Discussions, share our own blog posts and interact with real brides. Check out this awesome article about 7 Ways To Attract More Business With Bridal Tweet for more ideas.
4. Wedding Mapper
If your business has been mentioned in any wedding on Wedding Mapper, claim it to add photos and a description to go along with your wedding reviews.
5. One Wed
Create a free business listing to receive “MatchMake” leads and reviews, answer bride questions in the Ask the Experts forum and participate in the Vendor Chat rooms.
6. Top Wedding Sites
Create a free listing for your business with a link to your website.
7. Facebook
Profiles are great for connecting with other wedding vendors, pages are excellent for promoting your business, gathering reviews and attracting bride traffic both on Facebook and in the search engines. This site is a must.
8. Twitter
75% of the traffic on Twitter DOES NOT come from Twitter users. What does this mean?
Twitter is actually a search engine. Other search engines and aggregating sites pick up those tweets and serve them up for hungry searches. That can equal more website visitors for you.
9. Google Places
Set up or claim your local business listing on Google and it can be an easy way to get onto Page 1. Optimize with targeted local keyword phrases, add images and contact information and you’ve got easy, free marketing.
10. Ezine Articles
Follow the Ezine Articles submission guidelines and write an article including local keywords in your headline and a link to your website in the resource box. You’ll get free traffic and multiple backlinks if your article is published by other sites.
11. Hubpages
Follow the Hubpages submission guidelines and write an informational hub about your topic of expertise. Optimize the name and content with your local keywords and include a link to your website to attract free traffic and benefit from Hubpage’s ranking and authority.
12. Squidoo
Check out the Squidoo guidelines (less strict than Ezine Articles and Hubpages), then write a “lens” on your topic of expertise to receive similar benefits.
13. Myspace
I know, Myspace is sooooo 2005. But it’s still a great way to get traffic and backlinks. It’s worth setting up an account optimized for your targeted keywords.
14. Local Business Directories
Even though #14 isn’t a single website, local business directories can be such an effective form of free marketing that I couldn’t resist mentioning them.
Create free accounts on any or all of the 30 business directories in this article. Then don’t forget to search for local wedding directories and get a free listing wherever possible.
**UPDATES – I’ll be adding more websites as we go…
WARNING: Some wedding directories on this list restrict businesses by country. Please read each site’s Terms of Service for details.
15. Green Bride Guide
Free listings for qualifying green wedding vendors in the US, UK and Canada.
16. Inclusive Wedding Venues
Wedding venues and locations can create a free listing.
17. Guides For Brides
Free listings for UK wedding businesses.
18. Reception Halls
Free listings for US wedding venues.
Did I miss a free marketing site you can use for your wedding business? Leave me a comment and I’ll add it to the list!
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I found a few you missed. Weddingvendor.com and theweddingvendor.com WedDir.com
Thanks so much!
I absolutely loved this thought and immediately had the image of a dance floor strewn with those lovely herb salads that we buy these days.
Imagine the photographs of the Bride and Groom surrounded by Cilantro (Coriander to the UK reader) and Rocket leaves and those pretty little red beet leaves! Ah…. and the scent of the leaves as they tread them under foot. I’m sure there’s a great song to go with it Jeff!
As always this module is full of simple ideas put over very clearly and practically.
Thank you so much for reaffirming some of what I’m doing and pointing out some errors as well. I’m looking forward to implementing this (especially the scene with the salad as a key of my wedding albums!!!
[quote name="Kate Lloyd"]
Imagine the photographs of the Bride and Groom surrounded by Cilantro (Coriander to the UK reader) and Rocket leaves and those pretty little red beet leaves! Ah…. and the scent of the leaves as they tread them under foot. [/quote]
What a lovely, romantic image! My “dance them through the salad” vision was a different: guests hopping up onto the tables, wading through vats of gooey Caesar salad, wilted croutons and dressing dripping off the bride’s dress.
Thanks for sharing this, Kate!
Were this video and Week 4 Part 3 uploaded or encoded differently? I’ve been able to download all the videos successfully except these two.
They’re all MP4 but those two won’t open on Quicktime on my Mac. I’d like to avoid downloading another video player if possible.
Did anybody else have a problem with this?
[quote name="Bob Mackowski"]Were this video and Week 4 Part 3 uploaded or encoded differently? [/quote]
Hi, Bob.
I double-checked the encoding on the Week 4 Part 1 and Part 3 videos, and it’s standard AVC 264, encoded the same as the others.
Are you getting any particular error? Are you using a different computer, or did you have a problem during download? It could be one of those Mac to PC issues, and you might try downloading the problem videos again.
If anyone else is having a problem, please let me know and we’ll look into it further.
It says that I “May need to install additional software to open this type of file.” All of the downloaded videos work fine except for Week 4 Parts 1 & 3. I already tried downloading them twice but maybe I’ll try again.
I can just watch them online if you don’t figure them out. I had hoped to save them all for future reference.
I guess the third time was the charm. They downloaded fine this time. Thanks for your response.
Thank you for giving us great resources! I am going to get busy on posting right now!
Wedding Connections was founded in 1996 as a wedding resource guide. We have been offering free listings to professional wedding vendors as a way to get in front of the engaged couple. Take a moment and stop by, find yourself in the listings or send us a note and we can add your wedding related business.
The site for destination wedding photographers and venues is All destination weddings at http://www.all-destination-weddings.com/
they list established destination wedding professionals on the site for free but needs to be a member.
Great list! Will definitely check these sites.
Excellent list. ReceptionHalls.com has been offering free listings for US venues since 1999. Free listings include venue information, website links, photo galleries, menus, customer testimonials and access to real-time statistics and lead information.
There is no guarantee of back links from publishers for your Ezine Articles submissions, however there is real benefit from Google as a result.The links are followed and helps rank for your keywords.
Google Places is very important if you want page one and you need to encourage clients to leave a review.
Hi Stephanie,
Great Article – Thanks for the tips!
http://www.InclusiveWeddingVenues.com, just launched. It is a searchable directory for Wedding Venues. Wedding venues can sign up online to get listed for Free.
Thanks!
This is awesome! Thank you so much, Stephanie, for this info ~ You ROCK!
I love this article. So many great tips! I have a lot of work to do now…
Pretty thorough list of links. I’ve visited a few in the past but you’ve offered insight to the potential of a few that I had no idea was available. You also motivated me to clean up my Google Places listing. Thanks!
Rocking post, J&S! Thanks for giving so much to me over the past few months. It’s an honor to be on your list (and I don’t say that kind of thing!)
Barry
Great list! What are your impressions on how useful the The Knot is with its forums and businesses connecting with brides through their website?
Hi, Takara!
The short answer: it really depends. The Knot certainly gets a lot of traffic, but you have to have just the right combination of bride, ad and marketing message to get noticed by the paid advertising. This may change because I hear The Knot is adding reviews, which is what makes Wedding Wire so powerful.
The reason The Knot doesn’t make this list is because the advertising there isn’t free. The best FREE marketing on The Knot happens in the chat rooms when brides recommend you, but vendor participation is not allowed.
If you do advertise on The Knot, make sure you carefully track your website visitors with Google Analytics to see how it’s working.
The Green Bride Guide also offers free listings, if your business qualifies. You must offer carbon-neutral, or eco-friendly products and services.