This entry is from our Expert Guest series where wedding and honeymoon professionals share their best tips on creating memories that last a lifetime…

If you are a wedding service provider or a wedding blogger today, you probably understand why it is so important to have a good Google ranking. Unfortunately, achieving a good ranking doesn’t come easy and takes a lot of skill and hard work. If you would like to achieve a high Google ranking, follow the 10 tips below.

10 Tips For Wedding Vendors & Bloggers

1.  Select & Use Keywords Carefully

Google cannot rank your blog or website if it cannot figure out what you do. Keywords are the best tools for helping Google determine what your blog or website is all about. So, choose your keywords carefully to ensure that your website appears among the top results when user enter keywords relating to the wedding industry.

2.  Develop Quality Content

Content is king when it comes to SEO and website rankings because it can be used to position your blog or website as an authority on weddings. It is thus important to create quality, original, and engaging content to achieve this. If your website or blog becomes an authority, Google will reward you with a higher ranking.

3.  Using Backlinks

A link to your blog or website from another website or blog is like a advertisement for the quality of your blog or website. This is why links from other vendors’ blogposts showcasing your work are so important. If done right backlinks can catapult your blog or website to the top of the search engine rankings, but be careful because if it is done poorly, it may result in Google penalties.

4.  Answer Questions Online

On the Internet today, you will find hundreds if not thousands of questions about weddings. Since you are in the wedding niche, you are qualified to provide relevant answers. Answering questions online is an excellent way to position yourself as an authority in your industry. It is also sometimes a great way to link back to your website. Both of these are guaranteed to improve your ranking on Google.

5.  Use Images Properly

Images are a great tool for showing visitors to your blog or website what you have to offer but you can use them for SEO purposes to improve your ranking. Google loves user-friendly websites and images are an excellent way to support your website copy. So, use images whenever possible and ensure that you optimize them properly to boost your rankings on Google.

6.   Increase the Page Load Speed

Google is now using the page load speed as a ranking factor for websites and blogs. It is the reason why faster websites tend to rank better on Google. Google has realized that users often lack the patience to wait for websites to load after they click on search listings. So, the search engine has decided to encourage webmasters and website owners to increase the page load speed by rewarding those with the highest speeds with higher rankings.

7.  Mobile Friendliness

Google now focuses on the usability of websites and it currently uses a similar layout for both mobile and desktop searches, which is why it wants your website to be suitable for both. If your website is not mobile friendly, chances are high that your blog or website will perform poorly in Google’s ranking. Fortunately, Google has a provided a free tool to help you see how your website or blog ranks and will even offer tips on how to improve the mobile-friendliness of your website or blog.

8.  Use Social Media

Social media is an excellent platform for driving traffic to your website and widening your reach. Today, it is widely considered to be a ranking factor in SEO. If your content is shared, linked to, and commented on, and liked on social media, Google determines that it is interesting to users and rewards it with a top ranking. So, if you are not active on social media platforms, make it an effort to do so today.

9.  Use Google My Business

Google My Business is not only a ranking factor but a great way to control how your business is listed on Google. It ensures that when people search for your brand on Google, your business displays on the right-hand side of searches along with the search results. All local businesses should take advantage of this powerful dashboard that Google provides if they desire better rankings.

10. Create Simple Videos

The ranking power of simple videos is often ignored in the wedding industry. Take advantage of the situation by creating simple videos to promote your business and expertise in the wedding industry. Instead of writing blog posts, you can create short videos on the same topics and use the video transcript as the wording for the page.

The Bottom Line

The 10 tips for getting higher rankings on Google can be implemented immediately. All the tips are very effective and are guaranteed to work if used the right way. If you are unable to implement any of the tips, you can get in touch with a trusted, reputable professional to help you out.

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Bio: Marketing specialist Tom Johnston offers advice to wedding bloggers and event planners about how to rank high on Google and more effectively promote their services. The blog was written by Epic Events of New Jersey, which offers full-service event planning to make your event stand out.