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Weekly Advice: How to Climb High in Google's Rankings?

This always seems to be the BIG question for wedding professionals who have a website. This topic is called search engine optimization (SEO), which is the process of improving the volume of natural traffic to a website from search engines. A wedding professional who can master this will get free web traffic. Not only that, the traffic will be of high quality because it will be comprised of users who are looking for that wedding professional's particular service.
It is an absolute must to think through SEO before creating a website. Be sure to ask your web designer to address these rules as they create and/or update your site. As you read through these rules, also know that search engines are always changing their algorithms AND it takes time for search engines to recognize changes that you make to your site. Nonetheless, here are twelve helpful tips that I've learned along the way, which can help your website climb to the top of Google's rankings.

Rule #1: Remember that the search engines' main goal is to present the most relevant and useful information to its users. If someone types 'wedding advice' into Google, then the websites with the most useful information about wedding advice will appear. Therefore, do your best to have a website that presents the most relevant, useful, and fresh content about your specialty.

Rule #2: Choose two to three keywords that you want people to associate your site with. Ask yourself - what are the keywords that you want someone to type in Google in order to find your site? It is helpful to use the Google Keyword Tool to find out what keywords are popular. Be sure not to pick the most popular keywords because other more mature sites will beat you at those rankings. Instead, choose keywords that are less popular or less competitive, so that you will have a better chance of rising to the top of the rankings.

Rule #3: If possible, incorporate these keywords in your url or website address.

Rule #4: Include these keywords in each page's title. The title is written within the page's code and is what you see way up at the top of your screen when you are viewing a web page.

Rule #5: Include these keywords in each page's description. This is written within the page's code and is what appears when your site comes up in a Google listing.

Rule #6: Include these keywords in each page's meta-tags (also within the page's code).

Rule #7: Include these keywords in the body of each page but it is important to remember that you should not over use keywords. A general rule of thumb is that these keywords should only make up about 7% of the page's content.

Rule #8: Do not use a lot of photos or flash (animated pictures) because search engines can not read this. This is usually a challenge for wedding photographers who absolutely need to show off their work. As a solution, make sure that you name each photo file with one to four very descriptive keywords. And if your website has a lot of flash, add a page that is strictly html in order to include important keywords and to let Google know what your site is about.

Rule #9: Partner with other relevant wedding sites to have them point links toward your site. You can go to BridalTweet's Vendor Link Exchange Group to find sites to partner with. You should also add relevant website links to your site, which point outward.

Rule #10: Refresh your site's content on a regular basis. The easiest way to do this is to add a wedding blog to your site.

Rule #11: Add a 'bookmark this site' link to your site. Search engines like sites that are bookmarked.

Rule #12: Have a sitemap. This helps the search engine to understand how your website is organized.

Do you know of any other tips or rules? If so, please comment below and share them with us.

About This Blog: Christine Dyer has an MBA in marketing and shares over ten years of marketing expertise with the wedding community. In this weekly blog called Supercharge Your Wedding Business, you'll find advice on an array of wedding business topics such as how to market to brides, social networking, wedding PR, wedding sales, vendor networking, branding, pricing and much more. .Please pass this news along to your own professional wedding network. To receive this advice in your email inbox each week, Sign Up for a Free BridalTweet Membership.

Comment by Bob Holl Entertainment on November 9, 2009 at 12:49pm: Great article Christine!
I have a new web site and I'm going to re check to make sure we have covered all your rules.
I will also be re-contacting my designer to discuss with her too.
Thanks again!

Comment by Sharon Danley on November 9, 2009 at 5:09pm: Thanks - good pertinent information as always. Content is king they say, but a balance between excellent, relevant content and tagging, keywording etc. seems to be the best formula.

Comment by sarah Bunnett _ Gibson on November 10, 2009 at 3:37pm: Thanksand I also needed this, rigth about now ,! Time for me also to smarten up my tech value of my site ! Thanks for the motivation PUSH --- and also of great value; the simple facts !! For me a low tech person , I can --- NOT KNOW about the importance of all of these fast advanacements in our wedding and Marketing world ! Sarah Bunnett - Gibson Officiant Toronto / Ontario

Comment by trish Thatcher on November 16, 2009 at 8:30pm: Thanks for the insight about the web-sites I will pass this information on to my web person who handles this and hope that it makes a difference.

Thanks

Trish

Comment by My Wedding Favors on November 23, 2009 at 12:29pm: For even more links to your site, write and submit articles about your area of bridal expertise to various article sites like E-zine, Buzzle and American Chronicle. Your articles should be informational rather than promotional. While most article sites won't let you link to your Web site in the body of the article, they will allow a link in the resource box along with your bio. Hubpages, Squidoo and Google Knol are also good spots to write articles and plant links to your site. Be sure to read the do's and don'ts for all these sites, so your articles will always be accepted. Happy Linking and Happy Thanksgiving!

Comment by Florio T. on November 24, 2009 at 8:53am: Very easy to understand SEO tips - thank you very much! Our Long Island brides are already interested in our blog wich helps them to choose their perfect photographer.

Comment by Jim Cliff on December 22, 2009 at 6:25am: Excellent article Christine!

Small point, though, regarding item #6 - Google doesn't use the meta keywords tag in its search rankings. Details at http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020798.html

Comment by Andres Castañeda on January 20, 2010 at 11:49pm: This is such great information on a subject that seems to elude many of us. SEO is a science, but with tips like these, we can increase our web traffic and in our our client base. Thanks again!

Comment by Sharon Danley on February 22, 2010 at 10:16am: OK - I've finally revamped my site keeping this information in mind. Would love your opinion before I publically launch it. Many thanks - much appreciated. http://www.brides-beautiful.com

Comment by Edson Dias on February 23, 2010 at 4:42pm: It's greatly important for your blog address to be part of your main website address to get the benefits of SEO, For example, my website is DiasPhoto.com, my blog is DiasPhoto.com/blog. That tells the search engines that MY website is being updated regularly. My old blog was hosted by Blogspot so my blog address used to be DiasPhoto.Blogspot.com... I didn't get any of the increased traffic benefits.