Last Updated on January 5, 2018 by Adam Henige
Over the past few years weddings continue to become more extravagant. Brides are looking for the “next best” wedding venue that outdoes everything else. With a big sea of competitors, wedding venues are being challenged to establish an online visibility. The wedding industry is huge, so it is important to use the right keywords for your business so brides can find what they want quickly and easily. So how can wedding venues compete to outrank their competitors? Below are a few simple tips on how to improve your wedding venue’s rankings in local search results.
Find the Right Keywords
Choosing the right keywords and phrases for your wedding venue is one of the most important tactics to help your website’s SEO. Broad keyword terms such as “wedding venue” or “wedding reception venue” are good starting points, but you’ll need more than that to get the results you want. Broad keywords simply don’t provide enough information to users. To help get your site ranked better, the next step is to incorporate the city name or state into your keywords. You could also target geographical locations into keywords as well. For example:
- “Traverse City wedding venue”
- “Traverse City MI wedding reception venue”
- “Wedding venues in Northern Michigan”
The next step is to go after long-tail keywords for your website. Usually, couples know the type of venue they are looking for, so long-tail keywords can help provide better results for companies. The best way to find long-tail keywords is to create a list of everything that is unique about your venue. Are you located on the beach, vineyard, or in a downtown area? Is your venue a barn, distillery, or in a tent? Is the venue large or small? Are you a bed and breakfast or hotel that offers lodging for wedding guests? These are all unique things that brides search for when planning their wedding. For example:
- “Traverse City large barn wedding venue”
- “Downtown Traverse City wedding venue on the beach”
- “Northern Michigan vineyard wedding reception venue”
- “Bed and Breakfast wedding venues in Northern Michigan with lodging”
When you have picked your keywords, you will then want to make sure you aren’t targeting more than three on each page. Make sure to place your keywords into page titles, meta descriptions and in the body copy in a natural way to avoid keyword stuffing.
Business NAP Information & Schema
Since all wedding venues are a local business, it is important to have consistency with your company name, address, and phone number (NAP) across the web. This means that all your NAP information needs to be up-to-date on your website and on your company’s online citations. If you own a wedding venue in Traverse City but have a phone number with a Detroit area code, it won’t benefit you in local search. Adding schema to your website can also aid in helping your website rank better locally and in map listings. Schema includes all the important information for your business such as the NAP information, Geo coordinates, type of business, price range, and more.
Optimize Photos on Website
If you are a wedding venue, you should probably have a variety of pictures of the venue on your website. Brides looking for venues are looking to see pictures, so make sure you have them throughout your site. Optimizing your images is another way you can get your website ranking in search results. To do this, make sure all your images include an “ALT text description” and use a keyword in the description. Also, make sure the images you upload to your website have appropriate file names and not a bunch of numbers or letters. For example: “Traverse-city-barn-wedding-venue.jpg”. Lastly, make sure your images aren’t too large, as this can slow down your website.
Social Media Accounts
Social media is a great way to connect your business with clients. In addition to making sure your NAP information is consistent on directories, make sure it is also correct on all social media platforms. One of the biggest social accounts for wedding venues is Pinterest because it provides visuals for brides, so definitely make sure your venue has a Pinterest account. You can also optimize your Pinterest for SEO to help bring even more traffic and potential clients to your website. Also, be sure to create a Google My Business account, as this can help your wedding venue show up in map results. Make sure you include “wedding venue” as the main category, but you can also include other services your venue features such as wedding chapel, banquet hall, or wedding service. Lastly, it is important to obtain good reviews from past clients to not only stand out from competitors, but it can also help with rankings.
Link Building & Local Directories
Gaining high-quality links is another important aspect when it comes to rankings. For wedding venues, a great place to seek link opportunities is to search for wedding vendors in the area. Look for wedding photographers, caterers, bakeries, DJs, hair stylists, and wedding planners who might have a list of “preferred vendors” on their website where you can link to your site. It is also a good idea to have this list on your website as well, just in case the business wants a link too. Websites like The Knot and WeddingWire are also great opportunities to list your wedding venue and services you offer. Your city’s visitors bureau is another great link opportunity.
It is also beneficial to submit your website to online directories such as MapQuest, YellowPages, and WhitePages. This is a great way to get your NAP information on the web and gain links to your site. Many cities also have their own local online directories you can submit your website to as well.
Getting your website to rank well in search engines takes work, but by taking the steps above your wedding venue can be headed in the right direction. Results don’t happen overnight, but with consistent work you should begin to see improvement in rankings and traffic to your website.
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