Event Planner SEO Case Study: How Google Became a Consistent Source of Bookings

When Rachel MacQueen started planning a major rebrand for her Chicago wedding coordination and event planning company, Firmly Rooted Events, her goal was to build a new website that showcased her team and helped her book more weddings.

With the rebrand, she knew she wanted more than just a beautiful website. She wanted a website that would actually help couples find her.

At the time, Rachel was getting most of her inquiries through referrals, venues, and wedding directories. And while those channels were working, search wasn’t contributing much to her business.

In fact, when she looked back at her numbers, she realized something surprising:

Not a single booking in 2024 came from Google.

Like many wedding pros, she had picked up bits and pieces of SEO advice online. She had a blog. She understood some of the basics. But there wasn’t a clear strategy behind her website content or structure:

“I had some understanding of SEO, but I had never really considered keywords. I didn’t even think there was a possibility that my website would ever rank for something like Chicago wedding coordinator.”

As she prepared for her rebrand, she decided it was time to get serious.  She booked the SEO Fix to ensure the new website was properly optimized when it launched.

Building an SEO Strategy for Launch

As many wedding pros know, a rebrand isn’t a small project! Rachel invested in new brand photography, redesigned her website, and repositioned her business to better showcase her team and services.

Because she was already making significant changes to her website, her rebrand felt like the perfect time to build a stronger wedding planner SEO foundation.

Working with our team at Sara Does SEO, Rachel’s site was optimized around strategic keywords related to wedding planning and coordination in Chicago. We also completed technical updates and improved site structure.

Rachel also opted in for our Redesign Rescue add-on.  This includes a higher level of SEO review and setting up redirects so no old links are broken.

Throughout the process, what stood out to Rachel was how easy and “done-for-you” the SEO Fix felt:

“I gave the SEO team full control. Please do whatever you need to make sure this works. It was so nice not having to worry about this thing and being able to focus my attention on other things to grow the business.”

Managing clients, a team, and a growing company, she appreciated being able to trust that the SEO work was being handled.

The Results

Within a year, Rachel began seeing a dramatic shift in both the quantity and quality of inquiries coming through her website.

When she compared her booking numbers year over year, the difference was hard to ignore.

Before The SEO Fix

• 33 bookings in 2024
• No bookings attributed to Google
• Most inquiries coming from referrals and wedding directories
• Not ranking for any high-volume keywords

After The SEO Fix

• 61 bookings in 2025 (nearly 2x!!)
• Multiple bookings directly attributed to Google
• Significant increase in website inquiries
• Multiple Page 1 rankings for high-volume keywords
• Higher quality leads

“I definitely saw a huge influx in the quality of inquiries and also the amount of bookings that we had. I feel like I have been able to get a lot of good weddings and people who are qualified.”

While multiple factors contributed to her growth (including the rebrand itself and expanding her team), Rachel says SEO played a major role in helping the right people discover her business. She has been seeing “Google” frequently in the “How did you find us?” question on her inquiry form.

Couples are now finding Rachel on Google easily because she is ranking on Page 1 for nearly every keyword we optimized for in her SEO Fix:

But that’s not all: After the SEO Fix and new website launch, Firmly Rooted Events tripled the number of keywords it ranked for, increasing from 553 (already pretty solid!) to 1,650 total keywords.

What did this really mean for her business?

That’s actually the BEST part. The numbers above reflect new bookings, but when we recorded this interview, Rachel shared another statistic that stopped me in my tracks.

At the time of our interview (March 2026 — just 3 months into the year), Firmly Rooted Events had already booked 52 weddings. 52!! To put that into perspective, Rachel’s team planned a total of 54 weddings throughout all of 2025.

As someone who remembers when Rachel first came to us during her rebrand, hearing that update absolutely made my day. It makes my heart smile to hear that SEO continues to bring in quality leads for her, especially in a highly competitive market like Chicago!

Multiple bookings through AI search

Rachel has also started seeing inquiries from couples who discovered her through ChatGPT. By early 2026, she had already booked multiple clients who specifically mentioned finding her through AI search tools.

Even more interesting? Those inquiries were converting at a higher rate than almost every other lead source. (I know, that blows my mind too!)

We are so excited that her excellent SEO setup is helping both traditional search engines and AI tools to recommend her business.

Smart business owners choose SEO for growth

One of the biggest misconceptions about SEO is that it’s only for businesses struggling to get inquiries. Rachel’s story shows something different. She already had a successful business. She already had referral partners. She already had bookings coming in.

What SEO did was add another reliable, repeatable way to get discovered, year after year.

Instead of depending entirely on referrals or paid listings, she created a system that helps qualified couples find her organically. And today, that discoverability is contributing not only to more inquiries, but also to better-fit clients and a growing business.

“I wanted to make sure my SEO was done the right way without having to actually worry about it. I’m so glad I paid for this, 100%. It was so worth the money. I would do it over and over again to get the same results.”

If you’re planning a website redesign, launching a new service, or simply wondering how to get found by more of the right couples, SEO can be one of the most valuable investments you make in your business — and we’d love to help you with our signature SEO Fix service!

About the SEO Fix by Sara Does SEO

Hey there!  We’re the team at Sara Does SEO, the wedding industry’s experts in Google SEO and AI search.  If you’re a wedding pro or event planner, we’d love to set up your SEO for you in just 7 days with the SEO Fix (that’s what we did for Rachel!).  Plus, we’ll develop custom content ideas for your business and goals, do a technical audit, and way, way more.  It’s the easiest and most affordable way to get expert SEO help.