Hey there!
We here at Friendors Consultancy are firm believers in soaking up knowledge and making learning fun. ? When there’s a conference in Las Vegas for our industry, there’s a pretty high chance you’re gonna find us there. Naturally.
We recently made our way from Atlanta, GA out to Las Vegas, Nevada for the annual Wedding MBA (Merchants Business Academy) conference.
Chocked full of big names and speakers like Wedding Wire, The Knot, Perfect Wedding Guide, Alan Berg, Jason Hennessey, and more, we’re reporting back to say this may be our new favorite conference. Don’t tell the others. ?
We returned with bazillions of notes we took on our iPhones (we’re paperless!) and are here to share just 3 topics we learned about and who we learned em from so you can give the topic a closer look yourself.
1⃣ SEO
Even if you don’t know everything about it, we’ve all heard of SEO, the magical Internet concept we’re all dying to conquer. (Google, Google, I want you to notice me as bad as I wanted my 7th grade crush to.) SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is pretty much the key to the future and your success. ??
So, here are a few things we learned:
? The longer your blog posts, the better.
Now, you’re probably thinking ‘but who even reads long articles on the internet anymore?
Google, that’s who. And your mom. Seriously, probably a lot of people. ? The more content you have related to your field (florals, wedding planning, etc), not some off topic shizz, the more content the Bots have available to pick up and recognize you as someone who should be on their search query pages, someone who knows what they’re talking about and is credible.
We hear around 1,500 words per post should do the trick. No bullshit, just raw helpful content. Rack your brains for quality, Friendors!
If you need help coming up with blogging ideas, we’re here to help you!
Email us at Hello @ Friendors . com
? Use Page Speed Insights to see how your website is performing.
You’re not the only one that hates slow sites. Google and your client do too. PageSpeed Insights will show you exactly what’s wrong with your page that’s preventing it from performing properly. You just copy and paste your sites url for the review.
We probably won’t know how to fix the issues, and you probably won’t know how to either, so you should probably find a coder to help you after you run the site. Send them over the list – you’ll know whether they fixed it correctly or not after you run your site again and see if the list gets shorter or disappears.
We learned these tips from Jason Hennessey. To learn more about SEO, we can help you, but he’s probably the go to guy.
? OUR TIP for this section:
Remember that you can do all this poolside!
2⃣ Website Viewing + Tracking
? Do you know how people’s eyes view your website and so you can properly design your first impression?
Meghan of OFD Consulting reports that we view pages on the Internet in the shape of an uppercase F and Z. Shape your site this way – sidebars, blog titles, image placement, etc. Places important information or image in the right place means user interaction is sure to increase due to the easiness on the eyes.
Before some tips from Wedding Wire, here’s a video clip of us at their annual party at the conference.
According to Wedding Wire, around 60% of potential clients are viewing your website on their mobile device before, if ever, on a desktop.
You should have a mobile friendly website. Don’t know if you’re mobile friendly? Go to Google.com on your mobile device and search for your company. Before the site description will be ‘Mobile Friendly’ in a lighter shade of gray if your site is mobile. Photo example below.
If you’re not mobile friendly, Google is taking the liberty of dis-including you from all mobile searches. That’s most of your market. Get a mobile site! Most themes have mobile settings built in, or you can custom code one. However you do it, do it soon. Like, right now. New tab. Immediately.
? Do you know how to track your site visits?
You can find out the specifics of how people are viewing your site by using Google Analytics. It’s super easy and if you’re not using it, get to it. Not only can you view what type of device most of your users are visiting your site on, you can also see where they are coming from – what websites are leading them to you, your top site referrers, how long they spend on each page, and more.
3⃣ Reviews
Now, more than ever, consumers are trusting online reviews to make their purchase decisions. Sometimes they trust these reviews more than personal referrals. According to Wedding Wire, 95% of couples are using online reviews when shopping.
A few websites you can get reviews on are as follows:
? The Knot
? Wedding Wire
? Perfect Wedding Guide
? Google
? Facebook
and more.
All of these sites are free and if you don’t have a company listing for each one, you’re doing this whole wedding thing wrong.
Reviews should be in the double digits. Eleven or more. Wedding Wire reports that your traffic will increase 123% when you have double digit reviews.
How do you get reviews? Ask! You’ll be surprised how willing your adoring clients are. An alternative form is moral bribery – offer gift cards for completing 5 review sites. However you do it, online reviews are becoming increasingly important to have.
Anyways, those are our 3 topics we’ve brought back for ya… in this post 😉 Now just enjoy some of our photos!
xoxo