Wedding directories should feature in any balanced marketing plan, in my professional opinion, and despite getting the majority of my booking via SEO, I have typically invested between £500-£1k ish per year on wedding directories. But often when I suggest creating listings in wedding directories to clients, I’m met with statements like ‘wedding directories are a waste of time’, or, ‘I’ve never had a booking from a wedding directory’, or, ‘wedding directories don’t have any organic traffic’ or ‘no-one uses wedding directories anymore’ and so on.
I encourage my SEO clients to actively work on content distribution and raising brand awareness across multiple channels. Which brings us to the Marketing rule of 7.
The marketing rule of 7 is a marketing principle that states a potential customer must see a message at least 7 times before they’ll be provoked to take an action.
MARKETING ILLUMINATION
The Rule of 7 was developed back in the 1930’s for the movie industry, but since then, there are significantly more marketing channels and noise to stand out from. Marketing company Hubspot refer to their modern take on the rule of 7 as integrated marketing, and they have an awesome article on it: Integrated Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them. These complimentary marketing activities can really make or break an SEO project. Your potential clients should be able to build familiarity with your brand name in the weddingy places where they’re doing their wedding research. If you’re not actively marketing your business or showing up amongst competitors, both potential clients and Google are not going to wonder why you’re absent, they’re going to place more trust in your competitors instead.
It also seems like new wedding directories are popping up all the time, and then there’s the questionable ethics of some, one of which has been so bad it has an entire Facebook group dedicated to supporting victims and, at time of writing, there’s an ongoing court case.
I’ve put this guide together (using data from Ahrefs SEO software) to dispel some myths and encourage any wedding photographer who cares about their business to include wedding directories in their marketing strategy. As well as sharing data, I’m also sharing my personal experience (where possible) of being listed on various directories.
Disclaimer/A note on the data: Traffic shown is organic traffic from Google Search and does not include traffic from other channels, like social media or email marketing. The data source is Ahrefs, and may not be 100% accurate, so should be used as a guide only. The estimated monthly traffic snapshots are from May 2024, and therefore may fall or rise in future.
Wedding Directory Popularity
Wedding directories are still really popular in 2024. They provide resources for couples planning a wedding and are seen as a trusted source of information. They do differ in terms of audience, content quality, and ethics though, so business owners should exercise caution when making an investment.
I’d highly recommend doing due diligence before signing up to any directory, and I do often see wedding photographers asking for advice on this in online groups. It can be hard to figure out the potential ROI (return on investment) though, so hopefully the data below will help you make an informed decision.
Wedding Directories I Love
I typically have listings in:
- Hitched
- Guides for Brides
- Your Perfect Wedding Photographer
- Previously the ‘Find a wedding Photographer’ site, which has now closed/changed.
- Fearless (although I paused that after the pandemic)
I feel things like Domain Authority (DA) is less important than the quality of the website, and whether your ideal clients are likely to find you.
UK Wedding Directory Data
Hitched
At time of writing, the best performing UK wedding directory is Hitched, and I would highly encourage every wedding photographer to have a listing with Hitched.
Data from Ahrefs shows that hitched has nearly 1 million organic visitors per month. The website ranks in more than one country, so some of these visitors are from outside the UK.
Overall Search Traffic
UK Search Traffic
If we filter the organic traffic to Hitched for ‘UK only’, we can see monthly visitors are over 500k per month.
Historical Search Traffic
If we look at how this has changed over time, the organic traffic to the Hitched website has grown substantially since 2015.
My Experience of Hitched
I’ve had a listing in Hitched for my photography business for as long as I can remember (and I’m in year 19 of my photography business). I’ve had both the free and paid for listings (both premium and silver), both before and after it was bought out by the knot. Historically, I’ve typically had a handful of bookings per year from Hitched, regardless of whether my listing was paid or not. There has definitely been a change since the knot took over. What has improved is the organic traffic and volume of enquiries. The knot has introduced a way to make it easier for couples to contact multiple photographers at once. The downside of this? A high volume of unqualified enquiries from people who have never seen your listing, let alone your website. When I experienced this first hand, I did not understand what was going on. Previously when paying for Hitched, my conversion rate from enquiry to booking was pretty decent, but all of a sudden the volume of enquiries went sky high and I was ghosted for most of them. I did not renew my plan with them, because it was depressingly demoralising individually writing out replies just to be ignored. Personally, I’d rather have a lower volume of enquiries from people genuinely interested in my services than a high volume of leads that I may not be a fit for. Since cancelling, I’ve since sneakily signed up as a bride, and now have a better understanding of the changes. I do intend to take out a paid listing in future. However, now that I know a bride will likely have never heard of me, my strategy to replying would be quite different. My approach will be to use templates for first contact replies, and only treat replies to those as leads. The price has increased significantly since the knot took over, so this would influence my decision on any future investment.
Guides for Brides
Guides for brides is one of the longest established wedding directories in the UK, and I’ve had a listing with them for more than a decade. The site was founded by bride Alison Hargreaves back in 1995 as she saw a gap in the market for wedding specific suppliers, and it’s been a trusted resource within the wedding industry since. Founder Alison and her team were part of the UK wedding taskforce during the pandemic. Their ethics and passion for the wedding industry are why Guides for Brides has stood the test of time whilst other wedding directories come and go. This is the reason I strongly recommend my clients create at least a free listing, and consider a paid for listing with the Guides for Brides directory.
Overall Search Traffic
UK Search Traffic
Guides for Brides is very focussed on the UK, and their traffic is mainly UK based. This is good for photographers who are based in the UK and want to be found by UK based couples.
Historical Search Traffic
Organic traffic at Guides for Brides has varied a little over the years, but has always had enough organic traffic to make it worthwhile and is one I recommend to my SEO clients.
My Experience of Guides for brides
I’ve always liked dealing with Guides for Brides over the years. There’s never been any hard sell. They’ve always been lovely to deal with, and I get the occasional booking from my free listing. During writing this guide, I discovered my free listing had expired during their website relaunch in July 2022 though, so if you’ve had a listing with them in the past, maybe go check that it’s still live! I have paid for a listing in the past, but at that time I had not set up detailed measurement of conversions, and organic traffic was higher on other wedding directories, so I switched back to the free listing. I have had bookings via the Guides for Brides directory though, so would definitely consider a paid listing in future.
Love my Dress
Love my dress is an established wedding website with directory founded by Annabel Beeforth back in 2009.
Overall Search Traffic
Ahrefs data shows overall organic traffic for the Love my Dress website at around 13.6k visitors per month.
UK Search Traffic
Around 4k of the monthly traffic is from the US, so the UK based traffic is a lower 7.9k.
Historical Search Traffic
There have been some ups and downs with organic traffic over the years, with the website seeing recent organic growth.
My Experience of Love my Dress
I’ve never had a listing with Love my Dress. The reason for this is that when I used SEO tools to analyse their organic traffic, it seemed lower than other wedding directory websites. I’m not aware of any free listing option with the Love my Dress website.
Bridebook
Bridebook is a relatively new wedding directory, and differs from other successful UK wedding directories in that it was founded by an entrepreneur rather than a bride. Bridebook state they cover 185 countries, so for the purposes of comparison, we’ll be looking specifically at the data on the UK site.
Overall Search Traffic
Bridebook UK ahrefs data shows it has approx 146k total visitors per month.
UK Search Traffic
The bridebook UK site does have quite a few visitors from other countries though, including around 10k visitors per month from the US. If you look at traffic only from the UK, we can see the monthly visitors are around 127k.
Historic Search Traffic
Launching in April 2021, Bridebook quickly grew their organic traffic with lots of content and a strong marketing campaign.
My Experience of Bridebook
I don’t currently have a listing with Bridebook. Having been in business for nearly two decades, I’ve seen countless directories come and go over the years. I tend to monitor newcomers and wait to see if they get established first before investing. Their initial marketing and traffic looks promising though, and it looks like the knot may well have some competition in future. The current listing price is shown as £99 per month, which is similar to Hitched, and Hitched have significantly more traffic.
The Wedding Directory
The Wedding Directory is a long established UK based wedding directory that launched back in 1998, 3 years after Guides for Brides. I don’t recall the traffic ever being particularly high, so it’s not one I’ve paid a lot of attention to, although it has experienced recent growth, so one to keep an eye on.
Overall Search Traffic
From analysing the website, we can see the site has around 2k visitors per month. This is much lower than other wedding directories.
UK Search Traffic
The organic traffic to The Wedding Directory is largely UK traffic, so still around 2.1k monthly visitors when we filter out other countries.
Historic Search Traffic
Rock my Wedding
From the Rock my Wedding website: ‘Rock My Wedding was officially founded in September 2009 by Charlotte O’Shea, then a recently married newlywed with a desire to bring an inclusive and innovative digital wedding planning platform to the UK.’
Overall Search Traffic
Ahrefs data shows approx 79.3k visitors from organic search.
UK Search Traffic
when we look at UK organic search data only, the approximate number of organic visitors is around 59k.
Historic Search Traffic
The Rock my Wedding site has seen strong growth since 2020.
My Experience of Rock my Wedding
I’ve never had a listing on the Rock my Wedding site. One of the things I do love about them is that they select suppliers of a particular aesthetic. Whilst that means I’m not really a fit, I think it makes it a great place for photographers who do fit that aesthetic. That exclusivity makes it much more likely to be found by an ideal client looking for a particular style. Their pricing is also excellent value considering their traffic growth in recent years (currently £12 per county, per month).
Whimsical Wonderland Weddings
From the site: ‘Whimsical Wonderland Weddings brings wedding ideas and advice to modern, creative couples planning the wedding of their wildest imaginations.’
Overall Search Traffic
The Whimsical Wonderland weddings site has around 32k monthly organic visitors.
UK Search Traffic
when we look at organic search traffic just from the UK, the data shows approx 18.7l visitors per month.
Historic Search Traffic
The site had a pretty low amount of organic traffic from search in the past. Like many wedding directories, has seen growth since 2020.
Your Perfect Wedding Photographer
One of the things I love about Your Perfect Wedding Photographer is that they run industry surveys each year and create articles featuring the data. As a wedding site, compared to the others the traffic is relatively low, but I have had a listing with them for a few years on and off, and have had bookings via the site.
Overall SearchTraffic
UK Search Traffic
UK traffic is a pretty low <1k visits per month.
Historical Search Traffic
It appears there was an organic traffic drop at the tail end of 2020, which coincided with two big algorithm updates – one in November that sought out to ensure search results were more balanced, and a core update centering around E.A.T. (Expertise, Authority, Trust). It could be the drop was unrelated to either of those, but sadly traffic has been lower since then.
U.S. Wedding Directory Data
coming soon.
How to Measure the Success of Your Wedding Directory Profile
The time couples spend researching photographers can be longer than in other industries, so it can be tricky to get exact figures on this, but we can use Google Analytics GA4 to track aquisition and conversion.
This can be set up using Google’s Campaign URL Builder tool.
This tool creates a special link that enables traffic to be tracked within GA4, so that you can see data specific to each wedding directory.
