Wedding Blog 101: How to Get Real Leads and Make Money

By Leave a Comment

blog 2

Question: Does blogging really work to get more wedding business?

“Good afternoon, Stephanie. Thanks for all your help thus far. The advice on your site is AWESOME! It’s actually working!

“I downloaded The Price Shopper Email Formula. Since implementing this email, I have tripled my callbacks. This is great! You gave me gold! For FREE! Thank you so much.

“I have always wanted to start a blog and now that I have started out in the wedding business, I thought maybe this would be a good topic to write on. What do you think? Do you think it would help me… um… you know… ‘Book More Brides’?”

Laysha

Answer:

Hi, Laysha.

I’m so happy to hear about your success with the email template!  That’s awesome news.

Yes, starting a wedding blog is a GREAT idea.  The benefits include:

  •     Attracting free, targeted website visitors and leads.
  •     Networking with other pros to build relationships.
  •     Proving your expertise and value.
  •     Qualifying and pre-selling leads.

However, it’s not enough just to BLOG.  In fact, what most wedding pros are doing doesn’t use even half the power you get with a real money-making, bride-booking blog strategy.

To make sure you get maximum results out of your blogging activities:

  •  Blog EVERY week consistently, 2-3 times per week.

 If you write one post and then abandon your blog for months at a time, this
strategy won’t work.  Posts don’t have to be long; even 400 words is
perfect.

  • Use local keywords naturally in the title and content of your articles.

 “Local keywords” are the phrases couples type in to find your service,
usually the name of your area or region followed by your type of service.
For example: Boston wedding photographer, Orange County wedding
officiant.

  •  Take the time to add a description, tags and keywords to all your images.

Search engines can’t read your images (yet!), so they depend on text descriptions to identify the content you add.  Use descriptive words and include the name of locations and towns in your images descriptions when relevant to get more local website visitors.

  • Add social share buttons to your blog so that couples can easily share with one click.

Your WordPress blog or website makes it a snap to add them with one of these social share plugins.  These buttons can be added to ANY website, and it’s a must.  If you want people to share what you’re doing, make easy for them!

  • Share and promote on social media, especially Facebook.

You can use Facebook apps such as Networked Blogs or RSS Graffiti to automatically share your new blog posts on Facebook.  Your articles and resources need to be easy to find in the social media world.

  • Take the opportunity to include the wedding vendors and couples you work with in your blog posts, then send them an email with your thanks and a link.

This is an easy way to get other people to brag about your post, link to it and share it with everyone they know!

  • Above all, write about topics that are valuable and interesting for your target clients.  If you want people to read and share, it’s got to be good.

Learn how to avoid these common blogging mistakes and write one or more of these 4 Money Making Blog Posts to optimize your success with blogging.

What do YOU think about blogging?  Does it work or is it overrated?

Photo Credit

​

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

Filed Under: Home Page, Website Tagged With: , , , , ,

How to Recover From a Negative SEO Attack On Your Website

By 3 Comments

SEO

A couple weeks ago we discovered that some unknown party has launched a negative SEO campaign pointing nonsense backlinks from poor quality sites at our domain.  The intention is to make it appear to Google as if we’re creating these “unnatural” links ourselves, so that Google will punish us by removing us from the rankings.

In non-geek speak, these “bad backlinks” mean that fewer people are finding us when searching for wedding marketing and wedding business related topics.

The reason we discovered this attack is because it worked, at least temporarily.  We noticed our rank slipping, launched an investigation and uncovered the reason why.

Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to protect yourself if a competitor tries to poison your wedding business like this.  It’s unlikely, but not impossible, that this might happen to you.  Just in case, here’s how to recover.

Fighting Back Against Negative SEO

1. Diagnose the problem carefully.

You can find out if someone is trying to use negative SEO against you by running a backlink report from Majestic SEO or by searching your backlinks displayed in Google Webmaster Tools for strange anchor text and suspicious websites.

It’s normal to find a few of these spammy backlinks pointing to your site, and it takes hundreds to do some real damage.  However, if you notice an unexplained increase in backlinks with anchor text that doesn’t make sense or hundreds websites that have nothing to do with weddings linking to you, you may have a negative SEO problem.

2. Get as many of these links removed as you can.

We found over 500 of these “bad links” pointing to our website.  The only way to get them removed is to contact each website owner and request that they be taken down.

Oh, the pain!

Fortunately, there are a few tools you can use to make this job easier.  Rmoov, SEO Gadget’s Link Clean Up and Remove’em allow you to identify spammy backlinks, contact website owners and track your removal progress.

If you’re not able to find contact information for the website administrator, turn to a Whois Lookup.

3. Submit any links you can’t get removed to Google and Bing using the disavow tool.

If you aren’t able to get these links removed within a couple weeks, which is likely, you can submit any remaining backlinks you don’t want counted to the Google disavow tool and the Bing disavow tool.

Note: there’s quite a bit of controversy about the disavow tool in the SEO world, with many paranoid SEO experts wondering exactly what Google is doing with this information.  Even Google suggests that it be used only as a last resort.

After taking all of these actions, there’s no guarantee that your website will return to its former ranking, but you should see improvements within a month or two.

How to Protect Yourself

Which leads me to the Big Lesson learned from this whole adventure…

Don’t depend on any one source for all of your leads.  Ever.

Not Google searches.  Not your favorite wedding vendor.  Not your advertising.

Each lead source your business has is like a leg holding up the stool that is your business.

Imagine that your stool has three legs.  If you kick one leg out, it falls over.  Goodbye stool, goodbye business.

But if your stool has four, seven or ten legs, knocking one leg out still sucks, but the stool remains standing.

The more diverse your lead sources and the more places where brides and grooms can find you, the less vulnerable you are to disaster.

If a competitor tries to attack your website in Google, but couples can still find you on Facebook and you still get referrals from several other wedding businesses, it won’t kill your business.

Fortunately for us, Book More Brides gets lots of visitors from Facebook and LinkedIn.  So even if our Google traffic tanks, people can still find us.

Do the same thing for your business.  Be prepared for the unexpected as much as you can and keep flourishing no matter what comes your way.

Have you ever had trouble with competition?  Leave a comment and share your story.

Photo Credit

​

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

Filed Under: Home Page, Website Tagged With: , , ,

6 Sneaky Tactics to Get Your Wedding Business on Page 1 of Google

By 3 Comments

Getting in front of more qualified brides and grooms is the #1 challenge of wedding vendors. In this video, we’re going to show you 6 sneaky ways to get more leads for your wedding business the cheap, fast way.

It’s true that when you’re running a wedding business, it’s going to cost you either time or money to get leads. Most of us don’t have much of a marketing budget to work with, so we’ve got to work like a “bootstrapper.”

A bootstrapper uses marketing strategies geared towards making the most money, with the least amount of time and money invested. Because as bootstrappers, we can’t afford to waste a penny!

One of the most efficient and effective ways to get more leads is using your website and the internet. Why? Because 86% of couples use the internet to plan their weddings. They’re actively searching for you already; you just need to make sure they find you.

It’s also incredibly efficient because if you set it up right, it requires only a little maintenance and it works for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Here’s the challenge; most couples are using Google to search for you. So if you want to be found, you need to be on Page 1 of Google.

There is a lot of competition for Page 1, which means that it can be hard work, and it takes time. If you really hit it hard, you can do it in a few months when you know what to do.

What if you don’t have a lot of time or money to invest?

That’s where we come in! In this video we show you…

6 Sneaky Tactics to Get Your Wedding Business On Page 1 of Google

  • How to do it FAST. Sometimes even overnight!
  • How to do it cheap.

Watch This Video to Learn 6 Sneaky Tactics to Get Your Business On Page 1

CLICK HERE to get the Holiday Triple Play Special at 78% OFF the regular price! and collect today’s “Mystery Bonus” revealed in the video.

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

Filed Under: Attracting Ideal Clients, Bridal Marketing, Home Page, Leads & Traffic, Website, Website Tools & Tips, Wedding Websites Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Do Bridal Lead Lists Actually Work?

By 2 Comments

Question:

HI Stephanie & Jeff,

Still benefiting from your Book More Brides videos, excellent value for money.

You raised an interesting point about having leads stopped, one of the biggest providers I have been using for years has just stopped his business. I know you are on the other side of the pond but do you know of any good firms that sell bridal leads over here in the UK?

Bye for now

Terry

Answer:

Hi, Terry.

Most paid sources of bridal lead lists are not worth the money. The leads aren’t targeted for your specific business by type of client, budget, style, etc., making them very poor quality. It typically takes a lot of work following up for very little return.

Our clients have reported getting a response from only 1 out of 100 bridal leads of this type! Apparently, they sell them cheap for a reason. :)

A better investment would be to put that money into turning your website into a real money-making machine, or possibly running some Facebook ads. They are much more targeted demographically and you can test your results. More ideas for effective wedding marketing at a reasonable cost here.

In other words, rather than purchasing leads, build your own bridal lead list! When you send targeted traffic to your website and then get those brides and grooms to enter their name and email to get a cool freebie (what we call a “Bride Bribe”), like a free report, video or valuable checklist, you’re creating a list of very warm, qualified leads you can now follow up with.

If you DO decide to purchase bridal leads, investigate their quality first. Ask your wedding vendor friends about their experiences, and grill the company for statistics and references.

You’ll want to ask:

  • How many unique visitors do you get?
  • How do you qualify your leads?
  • Do you provide stats on my ad views and click throughs?
  • What exactly these brides think they’ll be receiving when they sign up? If the bride hasn’t contacted you directly, she often considers your emails to be spam, no matter what she agreed to upon sign up.

With any bridal lead list, start out with a monthly trial if possible to measure your results before committing to something long term.

I was very impressed with the advertising experiment with the UK site, Wedding Chaos, done by Claire Gould over at English Wedding. They offer great metrics for tracking and you can learn a lot from her results and test them out for yourself, which I highly recommend.

Good luck with everything!

Stephanie

What do YOU think about bridal lead lists? Have they worked for you?

Got a wedding business question you want answered? Email Stephanie & Jeff and you could be the next Question of the Week! All personal details about your identity will be removed unless you specify otherwise.

Photo Credit

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

Filed Under: Attracting Ideal Clients, Bridal Marketing, Home Page, Leads & Traffic, Website, Website Tools & Tips, Wedding Business, Wedding Business Income, Wedding Websites Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Why A Bad Wedding Business Tactic Might Not Be Bad

By 1 Comment

How many times have you tried some new marketing tactic and it’s either failed, or just not turned out as planned? I would guess it’s happened multiple times. Everyone has things that just don’t work for them. However, as Les McKeown points out in his article, the problem might not be in the idea itself so much as something else connected to the execution of the idea.

Before you stop using a new wedding business tactic that you’ve been trying, take the time to figure out why it failed. Was it that your new website was a bad idea, or was the actual problem in the layout of the new website? When you are learning to ride a horse you don’t give up the first time you fall of. You get up and try it again and again until you master riding. New business tactics are the same. When a store re-brands itself it can either do wonders for the store, or kill it. The only reason re-branding kills a business is because it was done poorly, not because they shouldn’t have tried to update themselves.

While there are some horrible business ideas out there, most of them are actually good ideas. Think about the advertisements you see on TV. Some are great, others are terrible. You don’t stop advertising because one ad didn’t work out. You just come up with a new idea, hire new people, and keep going. 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.

Filed Under: Attracting Ideal Clients, Bridal Marketing, Leads & Traffic, Personal Development, Website, Wedding Business, Wedding Business Income Tagged With: , , , ,

Why You Need To Find Your Voice Now To Boost Interest and Sales!

By Leave a Comment

A mistake that a lot of businesses make is that their content sounds the same as everyone else’s content. Now I don’t mean they are all writing the same thing. Instead they are all writing in the same professional voice. While being professional is important, so is making sure that your content has its own sound.

Think about when you meet someone for the first time. While there are a lot of factors that go into your analysis of who they are, their voice is what will stand out the most. No one sounds the same, or talks the same way and your unique voice is what should help you stand out online. Try to find a way to get your writing to mimic how you talk, even if it’s just a small change in the pattern of writing, or including more exclamation points.

As a wedding business you are automatically a part of a very intense competition for getting a brides business. If you sound like everyone else not only will she have trouble figuring out whom to go with, she will also keep searching for a wedding vendor that stands out. Do what it takes to make your business the one that stands out and boost your wedding business sales. Find your voice and use it!

For more tips on writing in a way that makes you stand out make sure to check out this awesome article on ProBlogger.

Photo Credit

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

Filed Under: Attracting Ideal Clients, Bridal Marketing, Other Businesses, Personal Development, Website, Wedding Business, Wedding Business Income, Wedding Websites Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Whether They Follow You Or Not, Brides Expect To See You On Facebook

By Leave a Comment

Over the last few years the look of marketing has drastically changed. People have gone from using phone books and listening to radio and TV ads and have switched to checking out websites and looking up companies on Facebook. It’s not that TV, radio ads and phone book listings are irrelevant, the actual issue is that the majority of consumers expect your business to be active online, and if you aren’t it can be a huge red flag to potential customers.

The movement behind the switch in expectations: The truth is that once Amazon really caught on people got used to finding out in-depth information and reviews in an easy to find format. They want to know what you are about, and what other people think of you. They can’t find this out in an ad directly from you. On top of that, reviews and information online tends to be written in a much more interesting format. People don’t want to just take your word for it; they want to know they are making the best decision possible.

So why do brides expect to see you on Facebook? In part it’s because in the last year wedding businesses have started to get the picture that people want to see actual images of their products. Facebook is a no pressure, easy to navigate place where brides can check out your work while they are catching up on the news with friends and family. Essentially you are putting your wedding business on Facebook in the same place where brides hang out. To find out more about current stats on consumers on Facebook check out this interesting article by Sarah Love. 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.

Filed Under: Bridal Marketing, Social Media Tips, Website, Website Tools & Tips, Wedding Business Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How You Can Use Pictures To Boost Your SEO

By 1 Comment

Did you know that your image on your wedding business website can actually help boost your SEO on your website? Yep, it’s true. You’ve seen people who do this if you ever did a Google Image search and got results. If you are a photographer and don’t want your image available to the public to copy there are ways to do that and still show up in the Google Image search results.

How does this help your business you ask? First of all, anything that you can do to rank well on a Google search boosts your overall ranking with Google. From a strictly consumer viewpoint however images hold power. In fact right now there really isn’t anything much more powerful to sell a bride on your business than pictures. Pictures tell a bride more in less space than you could write on many pages of your website. They tell her exactly what your style is, the quality of your work, and give her a clue of how comfortable she will be with you. Brides aren’t super thrilled at picking up the phone and calling a business unless they have a stronger indication that they might actually like what you have to offer. Pictures speak volumes. For tips on how to optimize your images for Google check out this article by Lawrence on his website tofurious.

Photo Credit

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

Filed Under: Attracting Ideal Clients, Bridal Marketing, Leads & Traffic, Website, Website Tools & Tips, Wedding Websites Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How To Creatively Share Information and Testimonials Online

By Leave a Comment

Videos are fun to watch. People like to watch them because they are interesting, fun, and distracting. As Kathy DalPra points out in her article on Bride Appeal however, many business owners have avoided using wedding marketing videos on their websites because they just don’t want to be on video, or don’t have anyone to help them with it.

The good news is that you don’t have to be on video. You can have brides and grooms do video testimonials to share on your website as a way to make your testimonial area more interesting. If you really want to do an information video you can always do a screen capture of a slide show while talking in the background. The bottom line is that if you want to capitalize on people’s fascination with videos you can do it while avoiding doing whatever it is you hate most about being on video. 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.

Filed Under: Bridal Marketing, Personal Development, Website, Website Tools & Tips, Wedding Websites Tagged With: , , , , , ,

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

By Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under: Attracting Ideal Clients, Bridal Marketing, Website, Website Tools & Tips, Wedding Business Income, Wedding Websites Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
«Older Posts