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A Wedding Business Podcast - Tips and tricks to, grow and sustain a amazingly successful wedding business in a way that's is fun and gives you tons of freedom.
Everyone to the Wedding Pro Academy Podcast. I'm Nicole, your host. I'm an expert in the wedding industry and I've personally built two 6 figure businesses from the ground up. I am obsessed with building businesses that make lots of money but do so in a way that also create luxurious amounts of freedom. So, if you're looking to build, grow, or scale a wedding business in a way that doesn't burn you out, and you'd love some guidance from someone who has done just that, this podcast is for you.
Nicole:Each week I'll cover strategies, ideas, tips, and tricks that will give you your dream wedding business too. Thanks so much for tuning in today. Now let's dive podcast recording after doing it consistently for a whole year and the reason why I took a little break is because I had to fly a dog over to New York. I've been fostering this dog it belonged to a neighbor of mine and it was so crazy because we met at the dog park and I was watching her dog when she was on vacation on her way back from vacation she got this crazy headache turns out she had brain cancer it was like a whole thing but she ended up passing so during this time while she was dealing with you know having cancer and going through all these treatments I was watching the dog and then when she passed I ended up fostering the dog. So I've had this dog her name is Charlie I've had her for like a whole year now and I was not thinking that was going to happen when we traded off you know caring for each other's dogs over vacation but that is what happened and then I just felt totally like indebted to my neighbor because I didn't want her dog to just go to anyone and her husband couldn't handle keeping the dog so anyway I found her this perfect owner who was my sister's best friend who lives in New York and I had to fly this dog over to New York and as you know there was that crazy crazy snowstorm blizzard biggest blizzard in ten years that happened in New York City so I got stuck there.
Nicole:But I did it! I flew the dog over she is in a great home and I'm so happy I did it even though it was super stressful. And I have a good one for you today and today we're going to be talking about website SEO and what is going on with SEO in 2026 and this is like something I've been dealing with personally and since I've been working on it for myself I thought I would share with you some of the insights I've gained and give you a few tips on things you can do to get your wedding website ranked in the first spot on Google which is really the goal right and if your website gets ranked in that top spot your inquiries brides and grooms reaching out to you is going to increase significantly which is going make it way more easier to book weddings So the goal in working on SEO or search engine optimization is to bring more brides and grooms to you so you can book more weddings, can make more money so your business can become more successful. Today we will spend a little bit of time talking about five things that you need to get your website ranked on page one of Google in 2026.
Nicole:Here's what happened with me. I spent a ton of hours like hundreds of hours on SEO I know a lot about SEO I got my wedding website ranked on spot number one on Google and it has stayed there for years I've been in spot one, two and three for like a decade like I've been up there I kind of let it go and stopped paying attention to it for a while because it was just staying there and then all of a sudden I stopped having brides and grooms reaching out to me. I checked out my ranking. I had dropped to spot 11. And I was like, holy shit.
Nicole:Like, how did that happen? And I just went all in on SEO which is what I've been doing for the last week and I learned that SEO has changed a lot since I was last fully engulfed in it. It's not that it's broken it's just that the rules have evolved. There's AI now, things are different. If your website isn't booking or ranking, you're not showing up on Google at all, you're not alone.
Nicole:I'm in it too. We're going to figure this out together. I learned is that in 2026 Google cares about a few different things and most wedding pros are just missing them because we don't know what they are, it's confusing, you think you just need to keyword stuff and focus on your headers, your titles but it's so much more than that so today we're going to talk about five things that Google needs in order to get your page ranked on page one of Google. One. Clarity You need to be insanely clear with Google on what you do, who you serve, and where you're located.
Nicole:Google cannot rank what it doesn't understand if you're not stating clearly what you do, who you serve, and where you are how are they going to know? Let me give you an example of vague versus clear. Vague would be I'm a wedding photographer capturing timeless love stories. Clear would be I'm a luxury wedding planner in Scottsdale for modern couples. You want to very clearly state what you do, who you help, where you're located.
Nicole:If your homepage isn't clearly stating this and that statement isn't marked as H1 or a header one, Google will not know that's what you do. They can't just figure it out. You have to clearly state it and it needs to be very specific where you're located, what city, what is the niche, what exactly do you do if you're a wedding planner, what type of wedding planner, if you're a photographer what type of photographer, what are your people your ideal customer searching for in Google? Those are the words that you need in your header. If you don't have them you are confusing both Google and your couples.
Nicole:So the common mistake here is that you are trying to serve everyone. You're trying to come up with some like cute, you know, headline that's gonna I don't know move couples or like make them feel something but it's not being clear with Google so people can't find you and you're probably trying to come up with a clever show stopping header that has nothing to do with who you help or where you're based or what niche you're in And if you're not being clear about what niche you're in then Google has no idea what to tell people. So event planning services is very very different from an all inclusive destination wedding package for couples with 50 or less guests looking for an intimate oceanfront beautiful Hawaii wedding. That's what I do. That's how clear you have to be.
Nicole:Like no fucking around it needs to be super clear you also have to be very very specific on your location so if you want to rank for a Hawaii wedding planner on Oahu I need to use the words Hawaii and Oahu if you want to rank as a wedding photographer in Los Angeles or LA you need to use those words in your header And, as I've learned over the past week, you need to only have one h1 header. You can't have multiple. Google will get confused. And if you're not sure what that means, I have a whole section on SEO in my wedding business master class that can help with that or you can use chat GPT and be like here's where I am how do I rank for this what does an h1 header mean that can give you some idea Okay, number two: Authority Google rewards businesses that have authority and the way that they decide if you have authority is they need proof that you are legit. So they want proof that you are established and trusted.
Nicole:What this looks like is other websites who have authority are linking to you so you need backlinks from other websites that link to you. It looks like vendor features online features that link to you, venue collaborations that are posted online that link back to you. It may be other wedding industry mentions, maybe you belong to the local wedding industry, your name is on there it links back to you. That shows Google that you are trustworthy, that you're an authority. So you want to find ways to get links to your website from places of authority from places that Google sees as you know real trusted businesses.
Nicole:Backlinks are like referrals. Common mistakes that I see some of my clients making is that they're just building the website they're not thinking about building authority they're not thinking about backlinks they don't have any outreach they don't have any collaboration strategy with other vendors in the same boat as them. They're not exchanging backlinks. You're not connected to other vendors or other venues. Maybe you're also not creating credible listings that will link back to your website.
Nicole:You need a lot of these in order for Google to see you as trustworthy so you want to begin building these backlinks even if they're just through online listings for now. You want to do this as soon as possible. Okay number three helpful specific content. No fluff. One of the things that Google is really valuing right now is very helpful specific content.
Nicole:No fluffy stuff! Google rewards depth they want to recommend businesses that give people exactly what they need. No fluffy BS that just looks pretty. They don't care about that. They don't care about generic blog posts copy so if you use chat gpt to come up with your whole website copy that isn't going to fare well with Google.
Nicole:They want it to sound like you right? They're going to reward a website that is reflective of you and they can tell when AI wrote it. So if you have like articles that AI wrote and they don't have any humanness behind them Google can tell. What they're actually looking for is location specific guides, real wedding breakdowns, detailed answers that couples are actually searching for. Google used to, when I first started, this is a long time ago now like ten years ago, I first started they used to reward articles, blog articles that had a lot of keywords in them so I would write these articles and use Hawaii wedding planner over and over and over and over again that would help me get ranked for Google but since AI has come into play, SEO has changed and they are no longer rewarding keyword stuffed pages.
Nicole:Google wants your website to be clear, build connection, and actually help the client and not sound cheesy and fake and like know AI generated or keyword stuff. You actually need to provide information that people are looking for It needs to be valuable. Helpful, specific content that would be helpful to your ideal client. That's what you want to build in your website. One of the common mistakes I've seen is just blogging.
Nicole:I'm going to blog every day and that's going help my SEO. Well, no it's not if you're blogging about random topics. It needs to be very very specific to your ideal bride. And then on your home page, on your about page, on your services page are you very very clearly explaining what you do and exactly who you help. This can be done in a paragraph, can be done in a sentence or two but you want to try to steer away from saying things like wedding photographer in love with beauty who captures love stories that's super vague doesn't tell anybody you know what types of brides you work with doesn't tell anybody where you are doesn't tell anybody really what you do except that you do photography and instead maybe you could say something that is much more specific like wedding photographer for adventurous Colorado couples now that is insanely specific right it's saying I'm a wedding photographer I work in Colorado I like to do adventure shoots' there's a specific bride that's looking for that exact thing that's what you want to rank for and Google ranks clarity they want to connect you with the people that you're looking for the people that are looking for exactly what you have to offer but you need to be really really clear about what that is and it needs to be stated on your website.
Nicole:Four. The user experience needs to be super easy, simple and fast. If someone clicks on your website you want them to stick around for a while. If they leave quickly Google will assume that your website sucks and that you're not relevant and that they shouldn't show it to more people so you don't want people coming onto your website and being like what do they do? Wait what how do how does this where are there services what I'm confused like if people get confused within five ten seconds they're out they're not coming back you lost them forever so you immediately need to tell them who you are, what you do, how you help them, where you're located.
Nicole:It needs to be specifically connecting to them so they feel seen, understood, and valued. You get them you know more than anyone else and they need to be able to navigate through your website very very quickly your website needs to be fast loading mobile friendly like the majority of my brides right now when I check you know the back end of my website they're all coming through their phones like not a lot of people are using website anymore so even if you're design designing your website on a computer make sure the mobile version works well. There's not too much stuff on it. Can figure out how to get to your main pages right away. They know who you are right away.
Nicole:They feel connected right away. You need to have very clear call to actions all over the place. They're never wondering how do I reach out to this person? What do they even offer? How do I connect with them?
Nicole:They should see that over and over and over again so at any point within two seconds they can connect with you. They know what you have to offer. They know what you do. Common mistake that I see that is basically messing up the user experience is that you have these images that are just too big. They're slowing down the loading speed if people have to wait for your website to load they are out do not you have to your images need to be you know downsized and web friendly or maybe you have too many videos too many animations that are slowing things down remember they're viewing it on their phone they they don't need a full video they just need simple beautiful photography that is sized down so it loads quickly Another mistake is not having a connect with me or inquire button.
Nicole:They don't know how to reach out to you. They can't figure out how to get in touch or they don't know what your services are or what things are going to cost. A lot of brides nowadays in 2026 they're not fucking around. Want to know how much it costs. They don't want to go back and forth 10 times before you give them an estimate.
Nicole:They just want to know how much it costs right off the bat. If you can provide that they're going to be more likely to reach out to you. Also, mistake is not having a clear flow on your website. Couples should see your page, they should immediately know it's for them. They should get intrigued, they should spend ten minutes or so poking around like, Oh, what about this?
Nicole:Oh, this looks like this could be me. Oh, let me check out this! They should get excited when they see your website. They're like, oh my god. This this is me.
Nicole:This is exactly for me. That's how you want them to feel. And if this happens, the couple, the bride, groom, whatever spends like ten minutes on your page, Google is gonna reward you by bringing up your rankings because they're now being told that your website is helpful. Brides and grooms are getting what they need out of it so they're going to reward you by giving you a higher ranking. Remember your website is not just a portfolio it's not just a place to talk about yourself and your achievements and what you've done and how long you've been doing it for.
Nicole:Brides don't care! It's a conversion tool it's there to help your couples and answer all of their questions. Okay, the last one is search intent. Is your website matching exactly what people are searching for? For example, if someone searches wedding photographer in Dallas, Google wants a Dallas specific page.
Nicole:Not a generic homepage they are not going to rank you if your website is generic. Every main service and location should have its own optimized page. So a common mistake is that you have this very broad but beautiful homepage and you're trying to rank for everything. You're trying to rank for Texas wedding photographer. You know, like instead of just being very specific, very clear trying to rank for Dallas wedding photographer, you want that whole website homepage to just be about that one thing you're ranking for.
Nicole:You want your keyword, the one you're trying to rank for, to be your H1. As I was saying, you want to have text specific language elaborating on why you are the best photographer in Dallas. And you want all of this to connect back to help help brides and grooms know that you are the best fit for them. You do not need to try to rank for a thousand things you want to rank for just one specific keyword on each page. A mistake that I was making is I was trying to rank for the same grouping of keywords.
Nicole:I was trying to rank for Hawaii wedding planner on multiple pages of my website which is what when I was first building my website used to work so the more that I talked about Hawaii Wedding Planner that would boost my ranking but now in 2026 Google isn't rewarding that anymore. It just confuses them. If you want to rank for Hawaii wedding planner those keywords right there need to be connected to just one page. In this case this would just be my home page. My secondary page which would be Hawaii wedding packages would want to rank for Hawaii wedding packages.
Nicole:Does that make sense? Then the third one, say my About page, I wouldn't want to rank that for Hawaii wedding planner because that would confuse Google. I can't have two pages on my website ranking for the same keyword set. I may even have another page, maybe one that couples go to often, one of my specific packages rank for Hawaii wedding elopement and then I would focus everything on that specific page on Hawaii wedding elopement. I would talk a little bit about Hawaii elopements and why this package is perfect for couples who want to elope in Hawaii but that keyword would be specific for that page.
Nicole:I'm not sure if this is all sounding very confusing to you but if you are in the depths of trying to build up your SEO your search engine optimization for your website and you need help you definitely need to get my wedding business program it's called the Wedding Pro Academy Wedding Masterclass because I have a whole section on SEO that helps explain all this in a lot more detail and makes it a lot simpler to understand and gives you a step by step on what to work on including all of stuff. Ranking on Google is one of those things that is so helpful and is going to make all the difference in you getting more wedding bookings. At least it did for me. Even when I drop off the first page I can tell, I can feel the difference of the amount of brides and grooms that reach out to me and it affects my overall income which sucks you don't you want a wedding business that feels stable that brings a steady amount of bride and grooms that feels that supports you. That is what my wedding business masterclass sets you up for.
Nicole:A wedding business that brings you consistent income and stable consistent new inquiries new brides and grooms that are always reaching out and then it shows you how to book them how to close them what exactly you need to do to make brides and grooms see you as an authority and as a no brainer they have to work with you. Going back, this was a lot today but the five things you need to get your website ranked on page one of Google. Number one clarity what you do, who you serve, and where. Be very clear about that on the homepage. No more vague statements even if they're catchy, even if they're cute.
Nicole:You need to be very clear about what you do, who you serve and where exactly which city or which state whichever one you're trying to rank for. Two. You need to show and prove to Google that you are an authority you need proof that they're legit and the main way you're going to do this is through backlinks from legit sources not just fake paid backlinks. You want to have real backlinks from other websites that Google sees as an authority. Three.
Nicole:You need helpful specific content not BS fluff. So, no more generic blog posts, more AI made copy write from your heart be yourself and give people very specific content on things that they're actually looking for you want to provide couples with information that they need, stuff that they are searching for, stuff that is going to help them. Four. The user experience of your website needs to be simple and quick. Fast loading, mobile friendly, easy navigation, simple call to action, access to contact you.
Nicole:Five. Search Intent You need to match on each page exactly what people are searching for. You better know what you want to rank for and that should be a priority of each page. If you want to rank for a Dallas wedding planner, then that should be the priority for one page and one page only. And each page can have a different priority so you can rank for different things on each page.
Nicole:Okay so now that we understand what Google is looking for how Google is deciding whether they're going to rank you on page one or page 47. I want to give you three simple action steps. First of all, step one want you to rewrite your homepage headline to clearly state three things: what you do, who you serve, and where you're located. So your headline, your main header text which should be like one sentence needs to state what you do, who you serve, and where you're located or where you serve. Step number two: want you to reach out to one venue or one vendor this month connect with them and ask for a backlink.
Nicole:You guys can trade backlinks. It's really really helpful to connect with other vendors who are in the same starting place as you. Maybe you guys started at the same time, You can become friends, can work together, you can build your businesses together exchange backlinks. Step three: Here's what I mean by exchange backlinks: you want them to link to your website with whatever keyword you're trying to rank for. So if you want to rank for Dallas wedding planner, you want them to have something on their website that says Dallas wedding planner that links to your website.
Nicole:Use those keywords to have it linked directly to your website if possible. That would be the best way but if they just have your name and your business name and link to your website that's great too. You can also do a listing a free listing if you can't find someone who will give you a backlink. Step three: want you to create one highly very specific piece of content like a blog post. For example best wedding outdoor venues in Vegas or how much does a wedding photographer cost in San Francisco something like that something that your ideal bride and groom are really curious about that would love to know more about.
Nicole:That's it! So three things very simple you can do this in one week or less. Rewrite your homepage to one headline that clearly states what you do, who you serve, where you are. Two. Reach out to a vendor, get a backlink, or get a listing online that links back to your website.
Nicole:You want that backlink. Three. Create one highly very specific piece of content that gives brides and grooms some information that they find insanely valuable. So this way you're just going to start small I don't want you to try to figure out everything all at once I just want you to do something that's going to create momentum that is going to help your wedding website rank on Google and this is going to help! If you've been having trouble booking brides and grooms and you've been trying everything and you're not ranked on page one or two of Google that's probably your problem right there you need to get ranked on page one you need people to be able to find you if you're not doing Google Ads you're not doing paid advertising people need to find you.
Nicole:The way they do that is through Google and there's only so many spots on page one like 10 spots or something. Not even 10, I think there's like now with all that AI stuff there's like five spots so you got to be the best of the best and if you are stuck with any of this or you're feeling like you don't know where to start with getting your website ranking up, with getting your wedding business in a place where people can find you, where brides and grooms will pay you money, where you can just do what you love to do you love taking photos you're fucking the best at it. But people can't find you and they're not reaching out to you. So how do you create a business when you have no clients? You can't.
Nicole:You need the people to find you. They need to trust you. They need to be willing to pay you money. There's a whole business side that is totally separate from your talent. Like, of course, you're talented.
Nicole:You wouldn't be in it otherwise but if you don't have the business side down you're never going to make it and this is the stuff that I teach in Wedding Pro Academy Masterclass. There's a section on SEO that's just a bonus and a bunch of other really important foundational things that you need to implement in order to get your wedding business off the ground. You know not just being a side business but being a full time thing that makes you enough money that can be extremely satisfying that feels like a dream business that's what I want for you guys so you can check it out at weddingproacademy.com and I only open up this program a few times a year You have to get in before April 15 and it's going to close and you'll have to wait for the next round but if you sign up for this round before March 22 you're going get early access to all the modules get started early you can start getting some traction now, booking weddings now because I guarantee if you buy this program you're going to start booking weddings. You can't not. It gives you so much information, it's going to make you feel so much more confident, you're going have a much clearer understanding of what brides are looking for and how to connect with them how to make yourself a non negotiable like they have to work with you and only you and if you book if you get in before March 22 you're going to get early access and five hundred bucks off so again you can find that at wedding pro academy get in before March 22 get $500 off which is a huge savings and don't forget implement those three steps if you're not ranked on page one of Google just start by doing those three steps that I gave you and you will become a match to getting on page one but that is just where you need to start don't try to go too big just do something simple I'm going recap those three action steps for you real quick because I think they're so helpful three steps to improve or help your SEO in 2026 Step number one rewrite your homepage headline to clearly state what you do who you serve where you're located Step two reach out to one venue or one vendor this month for a backlink opportunity and if you can't or are too scared to do that just get a backlink through a online listing.
Nicole:Three: create one highly specific very very helpful very valuable piece of content you can do this through a blog post that helps your ideal client with something that they're struggling with. That's it! Those are the three things I want you to do start small don't try to do everything at once just do this this is a great place to start to help your SEO in 2026 and if you want more check out weddingproacademy.com alright guys that's all I have for you today have a great weekend I will see you guys next week. Bye for now