- Outlines 7 backlink strategies for Canadian wedding photographers to improve search engine visibility.
- Recommends using CanadianWeddingPhotographers.com for directories, blog features, and award exposure.
- Helps photographers using Sprout Studio increase website traffic and bookings through smarter SEO practices.
By Joel Boily, Founder of Canadian Wedding Photographers
If you’ve ever wondered why your beautiful, thoughtfully designed website still isn’t showing up on page one of Google, the answer might be backlinks.
Backlinks — links from other websites that point to yours — are one of the strongest signals search engines use to determine your site’s authority and relevance. And for photographers, building high-quality backlinks doesn’t have to mean chasing shady tactics or spammy directories. Done right, backlinks are about relationships, credibility, and creating value.
I’m the founder of Canadian Wedding Photographers, a national platform built to help photographers grow through SEO, exposure and community. In this article, I’ll share seven proven ways you can build powerful backlinks — including how being part of our platform can fast-track your efforts.
1. Get Featured on Vendor Blogs (and Always Ask for a Link)
You already work with amazing venues, planners, florists, and makeup artists. Don’t let those connections fade after the wedding day. Follow up with your favourite vendors and offer to send a gallery or write a quick blog post featuring the event you shared.
This not only helps them promote their work — it gives you an opportunity to get a backlink when they publish it.
Pro Tip: Make their life easier. Include a handful of curated images, a short write-up, and the exact link you’d like them to use when crediting your business.
Bonus Backlink Tip: At Canadian Wedding Photographers, our Featured Wedding blog series works exactly like this. It gives you a professional SEO-optimized spotlight featuring your work and a high-quality backlink to your site.
2. Submit to Wedding Blogs — Big or Niche
Submitting weddings to blogs is a classic strategy, and for good reason. These platforms have massive domain authority and when your work is published, you usually get credited with a clickable link back to your site.
But don’t sleep on smaller, regional blogs either — they may be easier to get published on and still pack a solid SEO punch.
At Canadian Wedding Photographers, we make this process easy by offering multiple content submission opportunities. Every accepted submission earns you a valuable backlink and exposure to Canadian couples actively searching for vendors.
3. Use the Reciprocity Strategy: Link Out to Get Links Back
One of the most underutilized strategies in SEO is giving value first. Write a blog post featuring your top five favourite venues or vendors. Once it’s live, email each business to let them know you mentioned them. Most will be flattered and some may link back to your article from their site.
That’s the kind of backlink that Google loves: natural, relevant, and built on real relationships. Our Venue Spotlight program at Canadian Wedding Photographers works on this exact principle. You write about venues you’ve shot at, we turn it into an SEO-optimized article, and both benefit from backlinks and long-term traffic.
4. Pitch Local News & Community Sites
Have you won an award? Donated your services to a nonprofit? Captured an unusual or viral wedding story? These are the kinds of things local newspapers, blogs and magazines love to feature — and they’ll often include a link to your website.
Even small-town publications can have strong domain authority. A single backlink from a news outlet can move your SEO rankings more than ten weak links combined.
5. Join Quality Directories (Not Spammy Ones)
Not all directories are created equal. The right directory should do more than just list your name and website. It should be curated, trusted by Google, and ideally optimized for real traffic from engaged couples. At Canadian Wedding Photographers, we’ve built our entire platform around SEO. Every member gets a personalized profile with a do-follow backlink. They also have opportunities to be featured in our top-performing blog content, award roundups, and social media.
6. Write Guest Posts for Industry Blogs (Like This One)
Guest posting isn’t dead — you just have to do it strategically. If you can offer value to someone else’s audience, they’ll usually include a link back to your website or blog.
For photographers, this could mean writing about:
- Tips for posing couples naturally
- What to pack in your wedding emergency kit
- How to plan a timeline with your photographer in mind
I regularly invite our members to write guest posts for Canadian Wedding Photographers. If you’ve got something to say, we’ll help you say it. And we’ll credit you with a valuable backlink to your site.
7. Create Shareable Resources (That Link Back to You)
Photographers are full of knowledge — but how often are you repurposing that knowledge into downloadable or shareable content?
Try creating:
- A PDF guide for planning engagement outfits
- A sample wedding day timeline
- A checklist for family photo groupings
Once you’ve created it, share it with vendors and couples — and embed your website link inside the PDF.
Final Thoughts: SEO is a Long Game — But You Don’t Have to Play Alone
Backlinks are one of the few parts of SEO you can actively control. With the right strategy, they can take your website from invisible to top of the rankings. But the truth is, most photographers don’t have time to build backlinks one by one.
That’s why I created Canadian Wedding Photographers — a platform that helps you get found by the right people, for the right reasons. From directory listings and blog features to award recognition and vendor guides, we’re here to make SEO easier, one backlink at a time.
