If You Have Great Content What About Your Design? Don’t Lose Brides Due To A Layout Flub.

Crafting a great article is quite similar to writing any great content online, regardless if it’s used as an article, a website “about” page, or sales copy. Every aspect of both the writing and layout needs to be optimized to draw the reader in. If you can’t draw someone in with interesting content, you aren’t going to land the sale.

But interesting content is just the beginning of the battle. The layout of your wedding business website  is just as critical as it determines how easy the content is to read, and whether the layout enables the ability to interact with the content. For some great layout tips make sure to read Ginny Soskey’s article on the subject.

Another critical part of any website layout is to make sure that it easily points to your contact information or sales page. Without that information easily attainable you will lose brides just because they didn’t take the time to go to your contact page. Remember, everything you write is both being written to tell a bride about your business and to convince her that she needs to contact you, not your competition. Make sure that once she’s convinced she can actually contact you easily. Don’t make her jump through any hoops. 

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

How To Get Links Back To Your Wedding Website

Building links back to your site is not something that most wedding businesses do, but it is something that they should be doing. Getting links that are posted on other sites that point back to your website is crucial to show up higher in Google search results and is just as important as good SEO content and keywords.

There are a lot of different good ways to get links. Bottom line however it comes down to using social media such as a Facebook business page that you’ve added a link back to your site, as well as building relationships with bloggers and other website owners who are willing to write about you and post a link back. There is no super easy way to get backlinks, but it isn’t hard either. For an in-depth look at how to get more links to your wedding business website check out this awesome article by Paddy Moogan. What are some tips you’ve learned to get more backlinks to your site? 

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

Trouble Getting Brides To Read Your Website?

Have you ever wondered if your writing is good enough on your wedding business website? Well so does everyone else and the truth is that everyone makes one mistake or another. The trick is to catch the main mistakes that turn off brides while not becoming such a perfectionist that you kill the emotion of your content.

BloggingTips.com has an awesome article pointing out the top five mistakes made by rookie bloggers. While you may or may not have a blog the truth is that the main tips in blogging count in any type of online writing.

One my big pet peeves when reading online content is when there is no flow to the writing. What is flow you ask? It is writing in a way that ties thoughts together. If all you have is a bunch of thoughts thrown together you’ve lost all possibility of interesting a bride in your website, let alone booking her. If you just can’t get your content to sound right get a friend to help with the editing process. Everything you write directly affects your online success so take the time to find a way to get your site read well and make it interesting at the same time. What do you think?

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

How To Design Your Wedding Business Website To Turn Leads Into Clients

When you go to create or re-design your wedding business website theme you should always remember the main rule to website creation. If there is any potential that a potential lead can get confused by your layout and get lost, they will. A beautiful site is brilliant, but you always have to make sure that it makes sense and is easy to navigate.

If you have a lot of pages to your site pick the main pages that a bride needs to click on, make them the main tabs and add drop down menus for each to lead the bride to any additional pages. The reason this is so important is because clutter, even a semi-long list of pages, leads to confusion and a bride will often give up looking at your site before they know anything about you. Remember, the purpose of your site isn’t primarily to show your business style and overwhelm a bride with facts, but is to turn a potential lead into a customer. That change in perspective changes the layout and design of your site and should lead to better success. To discover more tips in website design make sure to check out the article by Matthew Toren. What do you think?

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

7 Things Brides and Grooms Look For in a Wedding Vendor Website

I recently did a survey of over 30 brides and grooms to ask what they look for in a wedding DJ website so that I could write an article for Mobilebeat magazine based on feedback from real couples.

(Hint: this is a great bit of market research to do for your own business, by the way.)

Much of what they told me applies to ANY wedding business. Here’s what they had to say…

What Brides and Grooms Want

1. Reviews and Testimonials

This was by far the most popular response.

Couples want evidence of your value in the form of reviews and testimonials from your happy clients. Make sure those reviews are recent and that you have lots of them.

2. Prices and Package Information

This request isn’t much of a surprise. When couples visit your website, they want to see how much it costs and what’s included, with as much detail as possible. They also liked the idea that you would “customize” packages for them.

3. Unique Ideas & Inspiration

I was asking about DJ websites specifically, so brides and grooms responded that they wanted to see unusual music and song ideas.

However, this applies to your wedding business, too. Couples like your website to give them ideas they can use for their own weddings.

If you’re a florist, write articles and display pictures of the most unique and unusual arrangements from your weddings. If you’re a wedding planner, talk about the amazing details your couples have pulled off to show their personalities. If you’re a wedding photographer, share images and tips about how to create unique photographs.

Show off your expertise and prove your value by sharing inspiring ideas and photos on your website to attract more clients.

4. Pictures!

Couples want to see lots and lots of pictures. And not just any pictures; they want to see images of happy couples (like them) enjoying your services.

A photo of you and your staff, or of your setup is also desirable so the bride or groom has an idea of what your presentation will be like at the wedding, but don’t overdo it.

5. Video

Brides and grooms love to see video on a wedding vendor website so they have an idea of what you’re like in action. This is especially important for entertainers and officiants.

The bottom line: websites with video attract more visitors who stay longer and turn into more leads.

6. Contact Information

This should be on EVERY wedding professional’s website, but apparently it isn’t because it was mentioned by brides and grooms numerous times.

They want an easy to find Contact button that includes your phone number and a real email address in addition to a contact form. This should be easy to find on every page of your website.

7. Honorable Mentions: Professional Website Design, List of Venues, a Blog, Gender Neutral Language

Brides and grooms expect your website to be easy to navigate and uncluttered. They’re making a first impression based on your site, so make it a good one.

Having a list of venues where you’ve done weddings shows off your experience and gives the bride or groom confidence in your work, especially if you’re familiar with their location.

You can use a blog to give couples what they’re asking for in many of these categories: images, video, testimonials, ideas and inspiration, examples of the wedding venues you’ve worked.

One respondent made a really good point I hadn’t thought of. If you plan to attract same-sex weddings, make sure you use gender neutral language.

Same sex couples are looking for words like “partners” or “bride or groom” instead of “bride and groom.” If they don’t find these on your website, they’re going to assume you only work with “traditional” couples.

This is what real couples had to say about wedding vendor websites. What do brides and grooms respond to most on your website? Leave a comment and share your pearls of wisdom!

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

How To Get Your Wedding Business Website to Show Up In Search Engine Results

 Good SEO is what is required to get your wedding business website to show up in search results. While the first step always has to do with getting your site keyword optimized that is just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s think about this a different way. You know that are a ton of brides getting married every year. You as a wedding business want them to choose you over other local wedding businesses. So you build a website, get the site keyword optimized, and are left sitting with your site on page 10 of search results for your local area.

Why is this? It’s because you need inbound links. These are links leading from other sites back to your website. They can be on social media sites, mentions on blogs, online articles, blogs, other wedding business websites, basically anywhere online. But if you’ve ever started to delve into this you already know that it takes a lot of time, and you have to do it right to get the results. Thankfully Nick from “Shirts That Go” has written a great article explaining the many facets of how to get inbound links. A good starting place is to double check all of your social media sites and make sure that your website url is listed on all of them. Have you worked on getting inbound links and what strategies have you found that work the best for you?

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

The Importance Of Relationship Building Through Your Wedding Website

There has been so much focus on the fact that we live in the information age that many people have forgotten that the internet wasn’t formed to give people information, but rather to connect people. For a great article on the beginnings of the internet make sure to read the awesome article by J. Walker Smith.

Why does this matter to your wedding business you ask? Because when you realize that the internet is set up to connect people and help you build relationships it should change the way you view your website. Yes, people need information about your business, but the focus of your website needs to be to build that initial connection which is the foundation of a business relationship with a bride.

When you read your landing page remember that you are building a relationship with the bride who reads it. Does it have the ability to connect on a personal level, or does it read like an information pamphlet? Think about it. Often if a business has a cover page leading to their home page it will include the word “Welcome” or “Enter Here.” The idea of your home page is that you are welcoming a new person into your home or business. Yes, you need to include information on who you are and what you do, but make sure brides can relate to it. What do you think?

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

How To Boost Your Ranking On Google By Creating Buzz

 

Let’s say you have a great website. It’s been SEO optimized, you’ve included your keywords, it’s submitted to Google, and it has a great layout and content. Then you sit back and start watching the Adword stats waiting for all the visitors to start rolling in. Unfortunately 5 candy bars, or two energy drinks later you are still sitting there waiting for your first visitor.

Should this leave you fearful, or even worse ready to give up on the whole thing? Absolutely not. Once your site has been correctly optimized for SEO and submitted to Google you can change the focus from the technical side of getting your site found, to the more personal side of things with updating content and writing blog posts. If you don’t have a blog connected to your site this is the time to add one. A blog adds a ton of benefits for getting your business found.

Think about it this way. To get brides in your store you have to create buzz through marketing. Your website and blog are the same way. You not only have to create a great site, you have to market it to your friends and family, post your blog updates on Facebook, and include the address on your business cards. Once Google knows you are there and knows how to categorize you it’s up to you to find the way to draw brides in. For more details on getting ranked better by using a blog check out this awesome article by Rahil on Successful Blog. What do you think?

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

How To Get Your Website To Pay For Itself

 

Growing_MoneyDoes your website produce revenue for your business? No, I don’t mean does it bring it brides to your business. I mean do you have products or Ads that generate revenue on the side? With Google Adsense this is exactly what you can do. It probably won’t produce a ton of money, but as business coaches say “if it doesn’t pay for itself you shouldn’t keep doing it, or need to change the way you are doing it.” Obviously you need your website to reach brides so the next step is making it pay for itself.

Google Adsense allows you to put relevant ads on your website and get paid each time someone clicks on them. However for Google Adsense to work you have to have a great wedding business website which ranks high on Google. The more brides who are on your site, the more clicks you’ll get on the ads. Remember however to avoid getting over enthusiastic with the ads. The last thing you want is a scammy looking site. Keep the ads down to a few per page max, and only add them if it makes sense to have an ad on that page. The best place for ads is on your blog or on the side or bottom of a web page. For information on how to make Adsesense work for you wedding business website check out this detailed article by Nick McIntosh.

Picture By: Aaron Patterson, Co-Founder of Noble Creative

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.

Tips To Wedding Business Website Formatting That Brides Love

 

Couple_On_LaptopWhen you create a business website it is the expected norm to compare your site design to everything else that is out there. Remember that you are in a creative field. This means brides are expecting your site to be creative, full of pictures, a bit outside the box, interesting, and full of personality.

What this doesn’t mean is to put music on your website. I abhor any site that auto-plays anything, and apparently I’m not alone according to the article by Alan Berg about what brides want to see in your website. It also doesn’t mean to leave off contact information, or making it hard to navigate. Pictures really are your selling point. The more pictures you have of weddings that you’ve done the more likely a bride is to book you. But remember, keep the site loading time down. The only person willing to wait for your site to load is you. What is some feedback you’ve gotten from brides about your website? They are your audience and are the best ones to listen to in order to make your site better.

Photo Credit

If you'd like to get more free information and strategies like this, join our Wedding Business Tips email list here.