Let Your Work Work for You {Getting Published}

This post is for my planners.  The florists.  The photographers.  The videographers.  All you wedding pros out there.  Let your work work for you.  You have all this beautiful content to share – let your work, your real weddings, your engagement sessions, live beyond your own blog.  I want to help you get published, if not only so that you’ll keep sharing the beautiful content that you have beyond your sneak peeks.  Getting published can mean so much more than just the clout – it can give you the edge over your competition.  Let me explain.

Why would you want to get published?  What are the advantages?  First and foremost, you’d want to get published for the purpose of having beautiful SEO.  Part of SEO (search engine optimization) is having a steady stream of relevant inbound and outbound links to your website.  This is where blogging and getting published really work hard for you and your relevance in search engines.

I want you to do me a favor.  Google your business name. If you aren’t already doing this semi-regularly (and I’m talking once a month or every other month), you should be.  Know where to invest your time and energy.

Here’s what I find when I google Misty Saves the Day in the Top 10 results:

1. My website (well, that’s good).
2. Facebook (this is the reason that I think and will continue to think that Facebook is extraodrinarily relevant).
3. YouTube (where the world is going in terms of social and search engines, but that’s a talk for another day).
4. Images (see below, because we’re going there in a minute).
5. SnapQube’s website (with a shoot I did with them).
6. LinkedIn
7. Vimeo & My Promo Video
8. Borrowed & Blue
9. Let’s Wed Hampton Roads
10. ISO:ALT

Here’s where I want you to REALLY pay attention.

When I search Google Images (and in a visual society, that happens a lot), here’s the order that I find things (besides my own website):

1. Misty Saves the Day
2. Let’s Wed Hampton Roads
3. LinkedIn
4. Pinterest
5. ISO:ALT
6. Twitter
7. Coastal Virginia Magazine
8. Tidewater & Tulle
9. Capitol Romance
10. Dragon Studio

How are you extending your footprint on the internet? In a digital age, where couples are choosing their vendors based on how accessible you are and how easy it is to find you and your work, are you working to make sure that you’re easily found? When they’re doing their due diligence (and so many more clients are doing just this) – can they find your reviews?  Can they see where you’ve been published?  When they Google your business, are they seeing page after page of your work? They should be!  Are they finding the venues that you’ve worked at? They should be.  Are you letting those pages that come up lay dormant, or are you focusing on them so that when potential clients find them, they can see that you’re paying attention to all your social channels?

What did I learn from this test?  I’m going to start a YouTube channel.  Not even kidding – and I can’t promise that the videos will be fantastic, but they’ll be informative.  They’ll be something that I’ll be excited for clients to see.

Talk to me more about getting published and SEO, blogging and more.  I’d love to help you get seen.  Your work should live far beyond that first sneak peek – it should be a testament to how much your clients love you.