#105: SEO Secrets Wedding Pros should be using in 2025! (with Sara Dunn)

Hey guys, Mike here, letting you know that the legal page has their mid-year sale going on right now. So if you're a wedding vendor looking to get the absolute best contracts, now is the time to buy. You can save 40% off everything in the shop. And a special bonus to TVT listeners is use code TVT10 and save an extra 10 bucks. This sale goes until May 22nd, so don't miss your chance to save big. Check out the link in the show notes for all the info. Welcome back to the vendor table presented by AfterShoot. Do you want to elevate your post-processing workflow? AfterShoot, AI will help speed up and simplify every step of the process from importing, colliding, editing, and exporting. Get your time back and use it to focus on the important things. What's up, Lauren? Hi. We're back. Hi. We have a guest. We have another guest. So many guests this month. I love having guests on the show. That just means I don't have to talk to you all the time. Wow, welcome back Lauren. Welcome back. We haven't seen each other in a month. Yeah, we haven't seen each other in a couple of weeks now. Yeah, something like that, but we're excited to have Sarah Dunn here. It's from Sarah does SEO, not Sarah docio. No, not my name. Sarah Dunn of Sarah does SEO. So is the go-to wedding SEO expert for wedding planners, photographers, venues, and other industry professionals who want to rank higher on Google without the tech overwhelm. Sarah has been featured by Honeybook, Special Events, the NACE, NACE, and has presented to audiences including wedding MBA, wedding pro, and whippa. Damn, Sarah, you got a resume girl. The amount of people who like know who Sarah is is kind of like mind blowing, so I feel like I'm in the presence of royalty. Oh, SEO royalty. Yeah, so you're a wedding pro SEO person. I mean, you specialize really for the wedding industry, which is really cool, because I think a lot of people will turn to an SEO expert, type in Google, I need an SEO expert, but I don't think a lot of people even know what SEO is. Yeah, so we're gonna talk about that. I love this so much. This is great. Mike's nerding out. I'm so nerding out, because Sarah messages us and we're talking, and we actually have a mutual acquaintance, Dana Arnold, who is a moderator for our group, used your service and everything like that. And like, oh my god, get up Sarah on the show. Get up Sarah on the show. That was even before you reached out to us. Yes. Or before Ashley put us in touch with you as well. She was like, you have to have Sarah on the show. She's incredible. And we were like, okay. I love it. So you got a lot of expectations to live up to now. Well, I appreciate that. I'm excited to be here. And yes, we can totally nerd out. But I should, I feel like we should put up a disclaimer before we go further. Like, I know this is not a boring education podcast. Correct. So we should probably say, this is not going to be boring SEO talk today. Fuck yeah. We're gonna keep it fun. I had to, I had to curse to put the explicit labels. Yeah. Okay. This won't be a snooze fest. Okay. But like, because a lot of people will think like, Oh, yeah. That's all fucking SEO. But what I sat down with you, we had a phone call prior to this. And like during the phone call, I was just like, my eyes were like, opening. Like, like, I was just like, holy shit. Like the the knowledge she has and we're going to get into get all this shit. Okay. We're really excited. I just started drinking my coffee and hyped up. Sorry. Okay. He's got the zoomies. That's too. That's great. All right. So let's kick it off though. So what made you get into doing SEO or wedding pros? Yeah. Fair question. And my question back is, have you ever realized that you're actually really good at something everyone else hates? Because that was my SEO story. Okay. Yeah. So I am kind of like a strange service provider for the wedding industry because I don't come from the wedding industry. I actually ran a digital digital marketing agency for like five years and I had my first wedding planner client. She was amazing. I met her at a conference and she came up to me and she was like, oh, you do digital marketing. Does that mean you do SEO? I was like, yeah, that's like one of many things that I do. Because at the time, it was like, okay, if you need something marketed and you have a checkbook, I will do it. Like I'll figure it out. And she was like, hey, I just had my website redesigned and it tanked my rankings. I was like, I can fix that. Let's work together. Let's make it happen. And so I worked with this wedding planner for six months and took her from page seven to page one and bless her. She was like, can I tell everyone I know about you? And I was like, absolutely. I mean, it was the most fun project I ever did because prior to this, it was like law firms and dentists and I mean, terrible. So she really held my hand, taught me about the wedding industry connected me. And this was all the way back in 2017. And by 2019, I was like, this is all I want to do anymore. And so shut down my digital agency and started doing SEO full time for wedding professionals. And it's my favorite. I still love it. That's awesome. Good. I love them. People love the thing that they do. You know, yeah, you do many stories about people who are like, I hate my fucking job, right? And I know people who are like, I fucking love this. It's like people that go to school for accounting. Okay, I get it. You went to school for accounting. But every account I know like hates their job. And I'm like, why do you go to school? Why are you? Why are you? Why are you doing this? So I always equate that like you love something that a lot of people don't love. And so how many how many vendors have you like worked with? Like do you have like a number? Like, you know, I've had over 2,500 SEO students. We work with about 150 clients a year. Damn. I love this. Yeah. Add to cart. Yeah. Now, all right. Like I like I knew about the nuances of SEO. Like I'm kind of, I want to say old school because I'm going to be 40 next year. Just turn 39. Okay. Orange. Yeah. Yeah, still young. But like we come from the age where I came from the age where I started my business prior to really social media coming up. Right? Like now every day everybody uses social media to market things like that. But I knew the importance of SEO. Like trying to be ranked number one on Google. Trying to like, you know, that's where people would find you. That was the current, that was current day window shopping in the 20 2008 to 2012. I guess like that was how people, you weren't going to brick and mortar stores. You were looking on Google. So I knew the importance of it. There's a lot of vendors though nowadays that will argue they could do it all on social media. Do you have an argument that like why vendors should have a website in 20, especially in 2025? I can't believe we're asking this. So SEO doesn't work unless you have a website. And so what I say to people that are considering not having a website is that future you will thank you for setting one up because if you're running your business now, you're building up authority, you're getting links, you know, people want to give you credit in different places. If you don't have a website for them to link back to, then they're probably linking your social accounts. And that doesn't actually help you build a authority as a business with search engines. As a search engine uses your website is like your hub. This is the place that's about you. And so you've got to have that main place everyone's linking to if you want a search engine like Google or Chatchy BT or any other search engine to understand your business. You got to use the website as the place where hey, this is my business and this is what I do. So I wouldn't say everyone has to do SEO, but I really think everyone should have a website. And if you choose to do SEO later, it'll pay off. I mean, we, we yell at people all the time. They're like, I'd like Carlo. Carlo is here. He's like, I don't have a website. He's like one of the biggest planners in Toronto. And I was like, looking at him. How do you not have a website? And like, we love him. Sassy gay planner, right? Like everybody's great. But like, he would probably be elevated a lot more with the website. So I just, I think nowadays wedding vendors, especially it also adds a sense of credibility, like having a website and everything like that. And then if somebody searches you and you're on page one, two, or even two to start, or like you are, you do have that credibility behind you. So yeah, I think it's super important. It's now a lot of vendors will ask, what website platform should I use? And like, you know, there's so many out there, right? Like you have Squarespace WordPress. Show it. Show it. Yeah. You have so many. Is there one? Like we're talking wedding vendors overall. Like us being photographers were both on pixie set. But do you have like a good recommendation for a website that like maybe a wedding vendor who is listening to this is like, oh, shit, I should get a website. Like maybe like that's the platform they should really take a step and look into. I want wedding pros to know that it doesn't matter what platform your website is on. There's so many SEO people that'll be like, you got to be on WordPress to rank. And I think it's because they don't understand the nuances of the wedding industry. Like they don't understand that this is not, you know, trying to rank for car insurance. This is a lower competition industry. And you can put the right things in the right places no matter what platform you use. So it's not something where I'm like really into one platform over the other because the last thing I want to do is have someone pick a platform and go, well, this is the one Sarah said I should use because everybody uses a platform differently. So I always tell people they should go and do a free trial of any website platform they're considering. And then they can figure out what makes sense to them because just because one person loves show it doesn't mean that you're going to love and understand show it. So we've ranked sites on show it, square space, WordPress, Wix, Weebly, Pixie set, Webflow. They all can work if you put the right things in the right places. So don't choose based on SEO. Well, that's good. Yeah. Good to know. It's great to know. Because you hear all the time, Mike and I, we just said that we use Pixie set. And there's so many people that are like, Pixie set sucks for SEO. And it's like, all right, well, Sarah said no. Yeah. No. Also, also, I'm just saying, just saying. Okay, she did a little search on my website and I'm on page one. You're like number one. I'm like number one for the area. Just say with Pixie set. I'm obsessed with it. I mean, I am going to be looking through that site. Listen, there's a, every time I listen to this podcast, it's Mike over there talking so highly of himself. And then there's me absolutely self-deprecating. You're doing great. Thank you. I'm just very, I'm very confident in my SEO ability, arrogant. Well, listen, you could call it arrogance. You know what? If I'm arrogant about my website being listed number one, then yes, I'm the most arrogance on of a bitch. I mean, you should feel really good. I'm very happy. I'm very proud of your self. I'm very proud. Especially with it yourself. I've had that, I've had my domain for God, I want to say 14, 15 years now. I think I took it out and like, yeah, it's gotta be two thousand. Why you put up a website and you buy your domain name and everything on it early. I've changed platforms. Like I went from 22 slides, which was like a portfolio site to Pixie set, when Pixie set integrated the websites with everything else. And like I knew, like I remember when Pixie set form everyone was saying the SEO wasn't good, the SEO wasn't good. Like I would just really plug away at like the keywords and the features and really trying to make the website rich in text and things like that. I have a marketing background. So I did marketing for nine years. I was marketing communication manager. I understood like websites and how they work. So it's really, it was really cool for you to like do a dive and be like, you know, you're like listed like number one for wedding photographers on the island. And I'm like, so speaking of that, like you have a background in marketing and we're going off topic a little bit here. But so one of the things we didn't even touch on is there probably are like a lot of newbies in the industry that are listening to this right now and going, what the fuck is SEO? Ooh, yes, we should start there. So why don't we talk about that a little bit? Because I know that when I first started shooting weddings in 2016, I had no fucking idea what that was at all. Like none. Yeah. I had like a, I didn't even have a portfolio. I still had a flicker back in the flicker days. That's all I had, which I don't even know my password you guys. I can't take it down. Oh, no. I can't. I don't know my login in my flicker. They won't even let me. I tried. So they're like, your last name isn't the same anymore. So I sent them like a photo ID and they were like, yeah, no. Wow. It still exists for the world. Okay. Great. But I guess it's stuck here forever. But yeah. So for anyone who is listening that has no idea what SEO is, can you please let them know? Yes. I'm so glad you asked because I do want to not make anyone feel stupid as we talk about SEO. So SEO stands for search engine optimization. And basically that means anything we can do as business owners and website owners to help your business show up higher in search results. Now I've been doing this since 2017. So I've always talked about Google. But as we move into 2025, we're talking a lot more about other search engines to chat GPT AI search. So there's a lot of different places you can get found in search. And that's what SEO is is making sure that your business is connected to the right keywords. So when people are searching, these search robots go, oh, you know, someone's looking for Long Island wedding photographer. Here's Mike. He's been doing this for a long time. His website is clearly aligned around that keyword. He's the best one for us to put at the top. That's what SEO is. That's very it's it's very simple when you when it comes down to it. It's it's and a lot of a lot of vendors will be like, you know, how do I get ranked? How do I do this stuff? Right? Like, you know, like, I've been in it a lot longer than Lauren. So I kind of understood it. I did take an SEO class. Like, it was a YouTube class. But I took it SEO YouTube class. Just to like kind of understand it where to put keywords and things like that. Like what you should be doing. And like, so I kind of understood that one of the one of the things that a lot of people say when the SEO world is like, you should blog and you should blog on your website. Now is blogging still important today for wedding vendors? It is. But not the way most wedding vendors think about it. Go on. So most wedding pros are just like, okay, Sarah tells me I have to blog. So that means every single week, I need to post something on my blog. And it needs to have a bunch of images in it. And my goal is just to get something published. That's not the way it works anymore. It's not about, like, let's publish something and have it be often and publish as much as we can. It's what can we create that's really high quality that brings extra resources to the website. So for most of my clients and students, I'm like, you're ahead of the game. If you blog once a month, most of your competitors aren't doing that. And I want you to be doing it thinking about what are my couples before they choose to hire me? What are some other things they're looking for online? So we're not just blogging like endlessly repeating long Island wedding photographer or creating resources that your ideal couples would want to find and then be like, ooh, Lauren knows what she's talking about. I love her work in this blog post. I'm going to keep her on my radar or inquire right now. So that is what we're doing with blogging. It's quality over quantity now. It's not about who can blog the most or publish something really short every day or every week. So really thinking about creating resources and making your website more helpful. I love that. I love that. So we're super excited to announce a partnership with Aftershoot. Aftershoot AI is designed to speed up and simplify every step of the process from importing, calling, editing and exporting. Aftershoot truly changed the game for us as wedding photographers. I love Aftershoot. It's so great. Yeah, calling is super easy. Editing is super easy. You train your own profile based on the way that you edit. It's so good. You know what my favorite part is? What is it? Unlimited edits. Isn't that great? It's just you pay one price per month or per year. You're locked in, amazing. Edit as much as you want. On the go. You could be on an aeroplane and it works. Okay, I changed my mind. That's the best part. Love that. You be on the go. You don't need internet to work the program. It is so simple, so easy to use and it's incredible. And I think you guys should try it out. You can call thousands of photos and minutes with AI that helps identify the best selections. Build an editing profile based on the way that you edit or you can even select one from top industry pros. Export right into Lightroom, Capture One, or Bridge for fast and accurate results. So with an Aftershoot subscription, you get an all-in-one AI assistant that can call edit, crop, straighten, export. And now you could also retouch using it as well. No paying in extra, it's all included. You can try it for free for 30 days using the link in the show notes and use code TVT15 for 15% off a subscription purchase. 2025 is already showing rough trends in the wedding industry. With the economic shifts we're seeing cancellations, reschedules, and downgrades from clients are all on the rise. And if you don't have a contract, they'll specifically protect you from these situations. You're the one eating the costs. The legal page contracts are built for exactly what's happening right now. Clear cancellation terms, strong rescheduling language, no downgrade policies, force major updates, and more. So when a client tries to change everything last minute, you're not scrambling. Your contract already has it covered. A huge bonus to us as wedding vendors is that all legal page contracts also include free future updates as the industry keeps evolving. This week only through Thursday, May 22nd, you can get 40% off all contracts. Plus, use our code TVT10 to check out for an extra $10 off the already discounted price. It's the perfect time to lock down the legal protections you need for the rest of 2025. Future you and your sanity will thank you. You ever just feel like you're playing catch-up with inquiries? No. Why not? Because I have honey books. Isn't honey books like the absolute best? Yeah, it's been game changing for my business. It is like the biggest game changer for wedding creatives, for wedding vendors. You don't understand it until you're in it. Everything is fully automated. You can have the AI, like pretty much take care of everything for you and only just personalize everything as you go. Exactly. So like now the second someone inquires, they get automated personalized messages without like lifting a finger. That's like the biggest thing for me. I'm getting back to my clients quicker. I'm giving them like personalized responses. You can't beat that with a CRM platform. No. My workflow on the backend has been so much more streamlined since signing up with honey book. I think four years ago. It's like having a business partner that just makes you look super professional. And follow-ups handled. You don't even have to think about it. Honey book keeps everything running behind the scenes. Which means more book clients without the stress. Honestly, if you're still manually chasing leads, it's time to switch to honey book. Do it. Get your tie-back. Grow your business. Start your free trial today with the link in our description. I always think of blogging too. From the perspective of what you're searching for. As a wedding photographer, I'm always searching like, okay, where's the best spot in Brooklyn to take engagement photos? Yes. When I'm thinking about that, I'm blogging from that aspect. It used to be, I used to have my old website had a little bit more blogging where it was like, Brooklyn engagement shoot, Dumbo, the keyword. So now I feel like the thing to do is instead of just showcasing that one session you didn't Dumbo is you do an overall blog of like maybe like great spots in Dumbo to take engagement photos. Didn't you just do one recently on engagement session spots on Long Island? I did one for venues. So I did one for I think I titled it like, you know, the best wedding venues for photography. Yeah. Okay. So like that was just something that like I just I put at the title. And I chose the eight venues that I love to work with. Yeah. Like I love working at I should say. So that was like, you know, like they're they're all places that one are my favorite spots. Like they're repeat like gorgeous photos. And it's the truth. And then I made it very keyword heavy. And I've noticed a huge spike in traffic. Yes, because venues are one of the most searched topics on Google. Yeah. Which is awesome. And when people are searching for a venue, they probably haven't made a decision to hire their photographer. Correct. Yeah. Like they're early in their planning process. And this is one of the things that I've discovered through specializing in wedding industry SEO is that you all have a really short time to get found by the right people who could actually hire you. Yeah. So there's a lot of things you could write about on your blog. Like, you know, what to have in your wedding day emergency kit. I see a lot of wedding planners write that one. I love that. If somebody's thinking about their wedding day emergency kit, though, it's probably way too late for them to hire a wedding planner. So it's helpful, but it's not something that's actually going to bring in clients who are going to hire you. Yeah. So if you're going to spend your time in the best way possible, which I want everyone to do, thinking about those things that are actually early in the planning process, those decisions that people need to make before they actually hire for your service, those are the best blog topics. So the venue list, like you talked about, we're hustling writing a ton of venue spotlights right now. So actually taking one particular venue that you love to work on, you've worked there before, maybe multiple times, you know, all the best spots there, you know some insider tips about that venue, and just writing a blog post that spotlights that venue specifically, because it shows you're an expert there. I mean, your clients love when you've worked at their venue already. Yeah. Like, so showing that you've been there, you know, all the best spots, maybe giving a little hint, like, I know some additional photo locations on the property I would love to take my couples to, you know, really showing that you're an expert in that place. Yeah. Super effective as a blog strategy. We're doing a ton of those right now. Yeah. You're, you're also like pushing us to blog more, which Lauren and I always like, I literally don't like like, we like, I do not have a blog. We owe it. We owe it each other. Every day, you know, it's almost like, I need to blog. Yeah. No, I need to blog. Yeah. I need to do it. I mean, are you stopping because you're like, I don't want to write about this couple's love. No, I just never did. Yeah. Ever. She's never really blogged. I'll be honest. A lot. I use Chatchee BT to help write my blog. Good. And, you know, I, I, for me, like, I had like a good idea. These were the venues that I want. I, like, prompted it really nice. And then I was like, I trained it to, to kind of write, like, in my voice. So it did help. Like, so if you're, I think a lot of people who are struggling to write, maybe you could use Chatchee BT to help them assist in writing. And just to get started, even, like, I mean, it like, really, I think a lot of people get intimidated with blogs. Photographers kind of have it easy because you could fill it with imagery. Right. You have the actual visual content to put it in. Yeah. Now, like, a lot of people are like, well, with the imagery, you know, like, that's, there's no keywords there. A lot of people don't understand alt text. Like, can you tell us a little bit like, how would a photographer, okay, who wants to do a blog post or, or make their image heavy website more searchable or easier to find or, you know, rank higher in SEO? Like, what's, what's some tips there? Yeah. Well, first of all, photographers, don't keep posting blog posts that only have fixtures in them. Like, Google doesn't love it. We want to see posts that actually have some written text along with the images. So we're going to talk about alt text, but I don't think it's a substitute for actually having some written content on the page. As a search engine wants to read through something that gives the images some context. Okay. So you're going to post that blog post to make sure it's got some paragraphs of text with it. We've worked with a lot of photographer clients over the years that spent years doing blogging, but it's just posts with 100 images and a vendor credit section and no words other than that. So that's not what we're looking for. It's not what I think of what I think of a blog. What do you think of? Like a story. You know, like you're like a catalog of the day if you're talking about a specific person's wedding or, you know, a description of certain things that you like at certain places. And I don't know. I can't imagine like making that a blog post when you could easily just like, it's a gallery. It's a gallery. That's what it is. Well, it's funny that you say you think about the story of the day because so many wedding pros say to me, I don't want to blog like I don't want to write another couple's story. I don't remember or, you know, I don't think that's interesting. And so I want everyone to know, we're not really writing real weddings anymore for our clients. Like I still think it has some value because I think your potential clients might want to see a full day start to finish and hear you kind of talk about your process through the day. But for SEO, real weddings aren't ranking that well anymore. Okay. So we've really shifted toward venue lists, venue spotlights because Google just prefers that kind of content. And I really think the searcher does to like imagine you're typing in a venue, you're an engaged person, you're considering a venue, green crest manner, you're going to type in green crest manner into Google. And you want to see images of that place. You don't really want to read Joanne and Bob's wedding story. Yeah. I want to find out about the venue. Even like for me, when I'm trying to find new locations to do my sessions, the first thing that I do is I'll Google it and then look at blog posts and like see if there's like a list of someone's favorite. And then I'm sure couples are doing the same exact thing. Yeah. When they're yeah. So like it's it's almost like putting your your brain in the mind of the searcher, the searcher. That's what we're trying to do with SEO. And I think that's a lot of what people don't realize is we're not just trying to game the system and get to the top. When you do good long term SEO, you're actually trying to figure out what does the searcher want when they're searching for this thing? And how do I deliver them the best of what they want? So when someone's searching for a venue, they want to find out more about the venue. They want to see all of the ceremony locations. They want to see the getting ready space because they want to imagine themselves there. They want to see what the dance floor looks like. They want to see their options for the core. You don't want to read about one person's story. So I think that's my theory on why venue spotlights are working so much better. And I think that kind of post actually sells your services as a wedding professional way better because it's not just focused on the couple. It's actually focused on your expertise instead. I love photos here, ceremonies here. Here's an insider tip about the reception. Here's why you'll love the getting ready space. Great light. Really convenient. Super private. So you're giving them the information. They can't find anywhere else. I love this. This is such great information. The knowledge that look people, we have smart people on this show. We're learning education podcast. We're just going to be the next big and educational podcast and not talk. No, please talk. We're all going to talk smoke here. All right. So we're talking about like, but it's not all doom and gloom. No, never. Yeah, just I didn't answer your alt text question. Oh, yeah. Do you want me to answer your alt text? I think no, you kind of like did in a way. Like I just think like there's there's just so much here. There's like a time and a place for alt. Yeah, like there's like I just think you you can like alt text imagery and it does help. But at the end of the day, like having like a short description works, I think 20 times over. And and that's the thing is like, I just always try to have a description. And I always try to visualize it from if I'm the searcher, the client, like, okay, best engagement spots on Long Island. But like best places to propose on Long Island. Like I'm thinking of that like from the the searcher. So I think that's what people need to do and just add that into your blog and add that into your into your website. Yes. And make sure that you're not in your alt text, just endlessly repeating the keyword blog post. Yeah. So alt text was originally intended. If an image didn't load, this was the text that was going to show instead and tell the visitor what that image was supposed to be. So a good idea with alt text is to actually describe what's shown in the image. You can do it creatively so that it also includes a version of the keyword. So if we're talking best places to propose, maybe the alt text of an image is proposal at blah blah park on Long Island. So you're still describing the image but making it really clear to Google, this image is relevant to the topic you want to found for. That's I love that. Now we talked about like do's and don'ts. You know, is there what is like really the most common SEO mistake you see wedding vendors making? Not putting their location on their website. Oh my god. Wow, really. Oh, yes. So many wedding pros are like, I want to do more destination. I don't want to be tied down to one location. I don't want to put my location on my homepage. I get it. But the problem is that searchers are searching by location. There's actually more searches every single month for Chicago wedding photographer than destination wedding photographer. So think about that. Like more people want to get found for destination. It's more competitive and it's less searched. So if people won't put their location on their website, they're missing out on tons of opportunities. It drives me crazy. So if you want to succeed with SEO, the best strategy is to put your location on your website. You know, it's really funny. Like similar to this is this is just like on Instagram that I'm knowing is that people have like put their location in their like business name title. Yeah, the profile. But nowhere does it list their name. And they're realizing that like as you know, like, it's their handle is they they think their handle will be enough. And it'll say like the business name or something like that. But it never says who they're actually speaking to. And then when you go to their website, it doesn't actually say their name either. Yeah. It'll say like it's a like Madison Lee photography, but it will say like Kansas wedding photographer. Yes. And you're like, what's what's your name? Because even me, I'm like, I'll look and I'll be like, what's their name? Oh, Madison Lee. And then you go to their website and it's like destination wedding photographer traveling all over next stops. Scotland, you know, surely that. I'm all for keywords in the Instagram profile name, though, because we're actually seeing Instagram handles show up more in Google search results. Okay. See this a ton for makeup artists. You search any makeup artist keyword. You're probably going to find an Instagram account showing up on page one. Mine says Lauren O'Brien, like a line and then it says Long Island wedding photographer or something like that. I love what I swear. I swear. I put the keyword first. Okay. Done. Yeah. There you go. Done. But I still like that. It has your name in it. But I would put the keyword first. There you go. That could actually help it show. Thank you. I'll do that. Say immediately. There it is. I'll go home and do everything. I swear. Sarah. You have homework now. I do. Now, you just you just mentioned like makeup artists and stuff like that. Do SEO strategies defer depending on the type of wedding vendor like photographers versus DJs, makeup artists, planners, things like that. Like what's a strategy? What's a strategy for vendors in general. But like, I think I know this question is probably different because you could obviously Long Island makeup artists. But a lot of people would be like, is there different strategies for different vendors? So overall, the SEO process is the same. Okay. No matter what kind of service you offer. In fact, I've even had students of my course be like, I did this for my website. Then I did it for my husband's construction company. I'm like, great. It's the same process. Find keywords, put them on your website where Google's looking for it, build some content, build some authority. Same process. There are certain strategies though that do work better for some categories versus others because the search engines have figured out there's certain things that people are looking for. So makeup artists optimizing their Instagram profile, very important right now. And there are certain blog post strategies that different types of pros can't do. I mean, photographers, you have the easiest time. You have the visual content. You are really involved in that part of the process. I think Flores and DJs sometimes have a little bit harder time with blogging strategies and where they get the images from. But overall, there's a lot of strategies that work across all of the different categories. And I think the most important thing is for wedding pros to think about what are those things that your ideal client is looking for before they make the decision to hire you? Because that's that moment where you need to get found. And everybody has expertise in their topic. They just have to sit down and really think about that. So proposal ideas, engagement photo locations, best venues. These are great things for photographers. I love that. And a lot of hair styles, makeup artists, things like that. We have conversations with them. And it's always about their social presence. And they think like they're like their follower count matters for their ranking and their SEO and stuff like that. Does that matter though? Does like like a higher social presence or a larger follower count matter in terms of like how you're going to rank or list on Google? So it doesn't matter how many followers you have for your rankings on Google. But this is where SEO gets like a little bit nerdy and nuanced because one thing Google has really started to look at recently is how many people are searching for your actual business name. So if tons of people are coming in to Google and they're typing in Lauren O'Brien photo, that can actually help your website to rank higher without you doing anything else. So if you have cloud beyond your own website and people are specifically looking for you, search engines are like you must be good. People must want to find you. And I've actually seen a lot of wedding pros who have big followings on TikTok. I've been seeing them move up in the search results because TikTok does not have a great like click this link and go to someone's website. So if you get viral on TikTok, a lot of people are going to go to Google and search for your business name and they're actually compositively impact your rankings. Got you. Does that make sense? Yeah. It does make sense. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, Michael Casera is number one for a long time. I'm letting her back. Come on. Sarah. Head is this big right now. Head is this big. I'm just going to hold this over Lauren for a little bit until she she's I grew up together. I grew for her. I like listen, I'm her biggest fan. No, you are not. You don't even fucking lie. Oh, fuck you. I pick you up all the time. I tell you how great your work is. Shut the fuck up. Okay. Tell me I'm wrong. You never leave me comments anymore. Oh my god. I just did. You liked something. I literally she posted a real and I wrote the best is yet to come and it was like the most out of that. Okay, because it was emotional and we were at WPBI and then whatever. I never comment anymore. That's a comment. Is that not a comment? I think that's a comment. Thank you. Actually, I'm not talking Sarah. I love having somebody on my side in this podcast. She's great. I'm just my name Lauren for the rest. You might honestly be the first one. No, I'll give him this. Like when God, who is never mind, never mind. Actually, okay. So going going back, we have talked just a little bit about chat GPT. And a couple of times, I think very recently, people have posted to our group like that somebody has put in their contact form like, how did you find me? And it said chat GPT and people think that this is a joke. Or it's not real. Or they're like, well, that's interesting. And they don't get it. Like they don't understand that chat GPT is not just like asking or like getting information from a robot, but it's actually a serious compilation of data. Yes. Yeah. Chat GPT is a search engine. Yes. I was just going to say that. I was like, chat GPT is a search engine. Yes. And couples are finding their vendors through chat GPT. Yes. This is something that's brand new that I've been studying a ton. So nerding out again. But this is a new place that couples are searching. And what I think is really interesting is that people are going to use chat GPT to search in a more detailed and nuanced way. So I actually had a photographer student. And she posted in our Facebook group and she said, hey, a bride just found me on chat GPT. I asked her what she entered. And it was like a list of criteria. It wasn't just location plus service. It was like, I want a wedding photographer who has this kind of style, who helps people who are awkward in front of the camera, who works in this location. And so it was really detailed. And I guess chat GPT spit out my student's name and that person booked her. Unreal. So I think it's really, really cool that you might be able to get found by someone who has a more specific need or style that really aligns with yours, because they're going to ask chat GPT for something more nuanced. That's unreal. When you think about that, that somebody, because it's a new generation getting married, right? So Gen Z is getting married there. They are at the forefront of chat GPT. And they're using it for everything. They're using it for recipes and this and that, but a lot of people are probably I just used it to design a room in my house. Yeah. I'm using it too. Like the same thing. I like literally use it for inspo. It's crazy to me to see this, but you have these these couples that are searching on chat GPT for like you set specific styles and things like that. But it's not just Gen Z either. So one of my photographer clients sent me a screenshot of it. Inquiry, it was a mother of the bride. Where did you find me? Chat GPT included you in the recommendations. So I think it's interesting the way that people of all ages are using this as a tool now. Side note, did you know that you can customize your chat GPT's personality to what? Like to be like you can have them swear at you. You can have them be like sarcastic and have like an actual funny personality. I just found this out on TikTok from somebody who was like trained their chat GPT person. They have a name. I don't remember what it was, but it's very good. I'm so in I would train mine to be like Samuel Jackson and just say motherfucker every two months. Yeah. I want mine to curse at me and like be you know, like I kind of want it to be like a slutty book. I was going to say you want it to degrade you. I want it to be like Zander. Yeah. Chandler or Zaden. Chandler. What's his name? Zaden. Zaden Ryerson. Yeah, okay. Are you a fourth-wing reader? No. Because I hear the smudge shit all the time. It's because he called him Zander and I was like it's Zaden Ryerson. We're not derailing this. Oh, can we? That's after the episode. They could talk about that. I've infiltrated Sarah. That super excited to announce a partnership with blacksmith print co look at this big bitch. Oh, God. Yo, she's spicy. Yeah. So blacksmiths brings quality simplicity and a boutique customer service to photographers looking to upgrade their album experience. They are these things are fucking good. Beautiful. I mean, just we picked them up like we got Brady the owner sent us these sample albums with our photos in them. One they look gorgeous. Color was fantastic. Spot fucking on. Beautiful, beautiful albums. Super thick, super heavy. He also walked us through the like design process and onboarding personally. Yeah. And he does that for every single client that he books. Yeah. And I love that. That personalized experience. So the albums included like what he offers eight by eight, 10 by 10, 12 by 12 sizes available. So it included with an album purchases premium packaging, free shipping, any cover material. They have leather linen, embossed names, raised letters, cameo window option and embossing foil. So you could like, you know, see your names and everything like that. 90% of orders ship within seven business days and ordering is super easy right through the website. Blacksmith only takes 30 to 50 new photographers a year who are looking to order 15 albums a year or more. A special offer for vendor table listeners who qualify will get $500 of album credits towards your first sample when you mention the vendor table in the how did you hear about a section when applying on blacksmith's website. So check them out for yourself at blacksmithprinco.com. If you're a wedding pro looking to scale your business, you have got to check out the abundance group mastermind. Yeah, this isn't just like any other program. It's an experience like nothing else in the wedding world. So I work with Ashley. She's amazing and let me tell you she's one of the like really the most generous genuine people I've ever met. She's built a million dollar a year wedding planning company and shares her knowledge and time in a way that's truly unmatched. In the mastermind, you get unlimited daily voice coaching with Ashley. Yes, really. Access to every course she's ever created and two incredible live in person events each year plus the group itself is filled with wedding vendors who are scaling many who are over the $100,000 mark some even hitting half a million plus. Cheese. That's a lot. Yes. That's pretty damn good. This isn't just about learning. It's about being part of a community that gets it and pushes you to grow really. So if you're serious about scaling your business, all right, you want to take it to the next level. You got to check this out. What's great for TVT listeners is that we have a special link that allows you to skip the wait list. So check out the link in the show notes for more info. We just want to give a special shout out to Maru, one of our sponsors. Maru is a modern payment experience for the weddings and events industry. Maru has added some incredible new features, including the ability to send contracts, create itemize invoices, and our personal favorite, the ability to pay contract. Love this. Yeah, like that makes me so happy to have a platform that if I need to pay like an associate or a second shooter, I'll pay an item right through Maru. It just goes right to their bank account, makes things so nice and easy. It's also so neat and organized. Yes. You can find anything. Super organized. Like I love it because I'm just like, Hey, I got to print it out at the end of the year, send my account over for tax purposes and all that stuff. Perfect. Keeps things so nice and neat. Maru is a community of 10,000 plus wedding and event professionals and it's growing. They offer seamless transactions and a hassle-free payment experience. They make it easy for you to focus on what you do best, creating memorable experiences. So we went over about with Maru. You could create and share your contracts, accept and make payments without processing fees, offer clients a simpler experience, no need to sign up and just pay and go and pay your contractors, something we both love. So keep it also keeps all your payments nearly organized in the central hub. You could sign up for free at maru.us/tbt. But all right, so chat gbt super, it's super important today for vendors, really like to relevant. Relevant. How as a vendor though, can you rank higher in chat gbt? Is that SEO dependent? How does that work? Yeah, I love this. We've been studying it. So anybody can do this. Like you can go to chat gbt and just ask who are the best whatever in my location. And it'll give you a list of recommendations. So we've been doing tons of test searches like that. And one of the things we found is a lot of the same SEO best practices still apply. with chat gbt. Like these are just both internet systems trying to figure out who is the best at something. And so having keywords on your website, you're not going to get included in chat gbt if you never mentioned you're a Nashville wedding planner and then you're going chat gbt who are the best Nashville wedding planners, chat gbt is not going to return you unless you've used that phrase before. So very basic SEO best practices still totally help. Here's the other thing that's crazy though is if you're doing this kind of test search and you're not included, you can actually ask chat gbt why. Okay. You know, Michael Cicera was not included in the search results. Why not? And chat gbt will give you an answer. Wow. Which is something we've never been able to do with Google. We just like guests in experiment and test chat gbt will tell you why. Now the first thing it'll probably do is go, oh, you're right. Michael Cicera is excellent. And we should have included him. So if you get kind of a fluffy answer, you can actually push harder and say, okay, great. Well, why did you choose these businesses instead of Michael Cicera first? And again, it will tell you what those other businesses had. So it kind of gives you more of a plan for what you need to do to get included. Which is super cool. Be nice to the robots. Yeah. And this should be a paid episode just saying people but unlocking so much information. This is great. So chat gbt, you want to sponsor us? There we go. This is so useful and there's so much information. There's so much that like we could talk about here. Now, one of the things that I think a lot of vendors have really tried to push for, they try to push for reviews. Yeah. So a couple reviews and things like that. Our reviews important for SEO. Like should vendors be pushing like a Google review versus like say, wedding wire or the not or like a third party service? Overall, are they important? Are like our reviews important? Do they help with SEO search? Do they help with listing? But should they be pushing Google reviews over third party? You are talking to a Google gal. Okay. So I mean, yes, to Google reviews over reviews on other platforms unless you are advertising on other platforms and you want to get more visibility there, then you might want to ask for more reviews. But Google reviews are the best if you want to show up in map rankings at the top of the search results and really stand out at the very top of search. I think a lot of people also forget that Google reviews show up really prominently when people are searching for your business name. Like we type in Lauren O'Brien photo and your Google business profile probably pops up on the side and it's the Google reviews that have those visual yellow stars that people want to click on. So they are the most visible reviews and we found as far as ranking on the map that having recent reviews is really important. So not just your review count but also when was your last one? Was it fairly recent? Are you getting them on a regular basis? All of these can be really helpful in your visibility. So yes to Google reviews as much as possible and don't forget unlike other platforms on Google, anyone who's had a genuine experience with your business can review you there. So it doesn't have to be an actual paying client could be a mother of your couple. It could be another vendor. I mean, what a great way to support your vendor network and leave them Google reviews about how great they are. Yeah. So it doesn't have to be someone who's actually paid you money. They just had to have an experience with your business. So bring on those Google reviews from your whole network. The good ones. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's great because as somebody that didn't push Google reviews like I'm starting to push Google reviews this year especially with all the drama that surrounded the not wedding wire. I know Lauren has pushed for Google reviews. She didn't have that many until like this past year. I still don't have that many and it's like pulling teeth to get people to the reviews for some reason. But but but when they do leave you one it looks really great on your listing and things like that. So that that I was wondering how important that was and if that was really important. It's all important. I mean chat with you BT2. We'll see it actually quote the number of Google reviews you have and what people are saying about you. So even in AI search, Google reviews come into play. Well, this is such great info. I mean to have seen people like, they'll take a screenshot of their portfolio or their website or their Instagram feed and they'll put it into chat GPT and be like, how would you describe my work? Because sometimes I know with myself, I don't necessarily know the words to put together how I shoot or what people think when they look at what I shoot. And then chat GPT will describe it. And then it's like, holy shit, I didn't know that that's what that's a great way to describe it. Yeah, you know how do you use to describe your work for the wild? No, that's gone now. The wild and can't free. Oh yeah, I'm done with that because everybody is now. So I think it's also a great idea to ask your ideal clients how they would describe your work or what you do or even ask them directly if you were to search for exactly what I do. What would you type in? It's such a great thing to do in like a post-wedding like follow-up emails like thank you for trusting me with the experience of shooting your wedding. It's just like a general like kind of like how would you describe my shooting style? Your experience with me a lot of lot. That's probably the best way to be able to describe your work. Yeah, I mean using your ideal clients words is the most important thing we can do. And because we're in the wedding industry every day, we all know jargon and lingo that the average engaged person has never heard of like full-service wedding planning and fine art wedding photography. Like we come up with these terms because we know the nuances between different services or styles. But we find that most couples search for something really generic because they don't have the words. So you know maybe it's just you know photographer who makes me feel good in front of the camera as opposed to a certain style. They don't know how to describe it. Yeah. So ask them how they would describe what you do. So great. It's so great. You're so smart. Yeah. So smart. Thank you. We've had a lot of smart guests on the show. You might be the smartest. Damn. Yes. Now we're coming up towards the end of the. No, I want to keep going. I know it's crazy, right? 45 minutes went really quick. All right. So let's all right. We got a lot of people listening in. They're probably like holy shit. This is really great. Okay. What's one quick SEO when that vendors can implement this week that can actually make an impact? You're going to expect I'm going to say something about your website. And I'm not because I want everyone to go update their Google business profile. It is a free listing from Google. Most of y'all have not touched it for seven years. Guilty. And it is the first thing that people see when they search for your business name. They get a like great referral from a past client or a vendor. They search your business name. And here's your cover photo on Google business profile. The first image they're going to see of your work or your portfolio. Don't laugh, Matt. It's like this old photo and your old editing style. But you're like, Oh, where did that come from? This. This happened to me. I was auditing profiles at a recent event. And the and the person was like, Is that photo showing up there? I was like, because you put it there like seven years ago. So don't touch your website. If you haven't touched Google business profile in years and years. Are you guilty on that too? Yeah. Okay. I thought that was going to be another moment where Mike was like, Bing. And Lauren just goes, no, no, no. Okay. I do, I do update. I try to update my imagery every so often. But I haven't done it in probably like two years. So like, that's, you know, it was better than it was two years ago. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's slightly changed. You know, like, editing style slightly change. I probably still have images like the images still hold up. But at the same point, you're right when somebody searches like, All right, Michael is our photography. And you see that listing on the right side. You do see the imagery pop up and some of the, I think one of the old images I had was popping up up until like two years ago. And that image was like eight years old prior to that. So and you can go through if you uploaded the images, you can delete them. Yeah. Like if it doesn't represent your business anymore, hit the trash can. It does not need to be on your Google business because people are going to see it and be like, I don't really like his work. Yeah, that's. Okay. Another reason why our podcast is great because we don't try to pretend we're perfect. Now we, we, oh god. I regularly talk about all my stuff is talking a lot of things. Okay. I might feel like I have a big e like people would be like, who's going to me? Go with shit. Listen, when somebody says like your website's rank number one. Okay. And she didn't audit or you know, kind of brief audit and looked at my shit. It makes you feel good. You should feel good. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You're hard for that. Thank you. I did. I really did. Okay. So we're at the point of the podcast now where we like to do rapid fire. This are that questions. Okay. So this is fun. We want to kick it off. And like we might have you explain some of these things. Okay. So I'm going to have Lauren kick it off first and then we'll kind of get into. I think we already know the answer to this one, but I'll ask it anyway. Would you rather be ranked number one in Google search for a top category or have 100,000 followers on social media? Number one on Google. And it's because of the wedding industry and the fact that you do have that really short time frame to actually book a couple. So when you're number one on Google for exactly what you do, you know that person wants that at that exact moment. You 100,000 followers. They could be 100,000 people that will never hire you. That's the thing. And we've talked about this so many times before. It's like a lot of people they like really focus so heavily on a high number of followers. But are those converting to leads? Yes. The answer is genuinely no. No. In other industries, maybe 100,000 followers is really monetizable. But like wedding industries are a little different. Yeah. And you know, we both gained a high number of followers in the past years in swandering the podcast and everything like that. Those are people who follow me or wedding photographers. Right. Right. And like not to say like I don't appreciate it that they're following along. But they're not the clientele I'm searching for on social media. So it's a great accomplishment. And I'm very like, Hey, like I'm blown away with that. At the same point, I'm targeting couples. Exactly. So that's the part that I 100% agree. All right. Now getting into more kind of social as well. Would this or that blog post or Instagram reel? Blog post. Lives on your website forever. You can use that content to make 10 Instagram reels. But that blog post in a chat GPT and ask it what Instagram reels you should make. Oh my God. I'm not using chat GPT the way I need to. Not at all. None of us are not willing to know everything. Why did I never think to ask my robot internet boyfriend where what reels to make? Yeah. Zane and Ryerson will help you out. Yes. I have to go home right now. I have to get to work. She can't make you have nothing else to do. Forget making food or like hygiene. I'm going to be stuck at my blog post. Yeah. There it is. There it is. Wow. Lauren, you got the next one. Pixie set or show it. Either any all of the above. They can all rank. Okay. Okay. All right. A one page website or multiple pages. Always multiple pages. Okay. Who will does not love a one-page website. Okay. Look at that. A lot of people say like one page website. Well, make it easy. Stuff like that. So there it is. I like it. A page website. Like, you know, like a big long super long. You click the menu and it descrolls down the page. I don't like that. Yeah. I don't. Yeah. I don't. Yeah. That's I remember that. I don't like any of that. Yeah. Um, optimize old blog posts or just write new ones. I like to optimize old blog posts. You strike me as somebody who would like to go through your stuff and like revamp it. Clean it up. Google already knows about those posts. So if you just improve them, add keywords in the right places, they can rank way faster than a new post. You know what I love about you? Um, anytime I ask a question or have or like talking about something that like you can I can see on your face how much it excites you to talk about. I can't help myself. No, that's amazing. And I feel like more people should be as passionate and like, enjoy what they do as much as you do because I think anybody who's watching this on Spotify, YouTube, whatever, they can look at you and see immediately the like the fire that you have about what you do. So it's actually so fun. Um, and most people don't love it, but it really can be fun when you know what to do and you can watch the stats and watch yourself improve. You are the Marie Kondo of the wedding industry. Oh my god. Yeah. That is like, can I, can I give you like a tagline? Like that is like you are cleaning up people's lives and making it so much like. What does she say about like, um, if it doesn't bring you joy. Ah, yes, it doesn't bring you. Doesn't bring you joy. Right. No, it's out. Does that eight year old photo and Google business profile bring you joy? No, the Marie Kondo. Oh my god. Right. This is awesome. This is such a great conversation. I love this. We talked to you for another hour. Like what's awesome about this? I don't have been taking money. Um, now Sarah, where we want people that like, where can people find you social media website? You have courses like plug yourself. Go ahead. Thank you. Um, I'm at Sarah does SEO on every single platform. Sarah does SEO.com is where you'll find me post tons of tips on Instagram, TikTok, and I do a monthly SEO lunch and learn for anyone who just wants to learn something simple and actionable about SEO. We'd love to have anyone there. What's this? This is great. Lauren's. Yes. Okay. We all know. Okay. Yeah. Oh my god. Lauren, where can they find you? Find me at learnabrinephoto.com and learnabrinephoto and the pharaohphoto tag on Instagram and TikTok. Mike, where can they find you? At Michael, because I were a photo on Instagram, TikTok as well as my website. And you could find us at the vendor table pod on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube as well as Facebook group, which is 10,000 followers or members members. Yes. Yeah. Guys, it's been fun. Catch you next time. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]