Legacy Union

Legacy Union — Los Angeles wedding photography and videography

The challenge

A LA wedding photographer chasing one of the deepest SERPs on the planet.

Matthew Smith runs Legacy Union, a wedding photography and videography studio in Los Angeles. Before we started, the site was getting 5 organic visits a month. "Wedding photographer Los Angeles" is one of the most contested SERPs in the world — 8,500+ monthly searches on "wedding videographer" alone, with thousands of established competitors. A paid-search account had already been tried and failed. SEO had to carry the whole organic pipeline.

The story

Crowded SERP. Patient SEO won.

No paid shortcut worked. The only lever left was slow, systematic organic growth — content, pages, links, indexation. Over 6 months, it compounded.

Client background

Legacy Union is a LA wedding photography + videography studio run by Matthew Smith — shooting weddings, lifestyle portraits, engagement sessions across San Diego, Torrance, and greater Los Angeles.

Problem statement

5 organic visits/month in January 2020. Paid search tried and abandoned. Site not ranking for any commercial "wedding photographer LA" keyword. Full dependence on third-party directory referrals (The Knot, WeddingWire), which charge steep commissions.

Solution provided

A pure-SEO program: service × location landing pages, monthly blog content, a 3-layer off-page stack (outreach, foundation links, sponsored posts), plus Search Console indexation cleanup. Every month compounded on the last.

Channel 1 of 1

SEO performance

Service × location pages. Outreach in bridal media. Directories stacked.

A three-layer off-page program sat on top of rebuilt location pages and fresh monthly blog content. Over 6 months it moved Legacy Union from 5 to 147 organic visits a month.

01 · Content, landing pages & keyword targeting

Target the right keywords. Build a landing page for each one.

Rather than chase the impossible 8,500/month "wedding videographer" head term, we built pages for each specific service × city combo: Wedding Photography Los Angeles, Couple Photography Los Angeles, Lifestyle Photography Los Angeles, Wedding Videography Los Angeles, Wedding Photography Videography Los Angeles. Then stacked blog content (first-look tips, formal-family photo tips, what to wear for engagement sessions) for long-tail reach.

Legacy Union keyword volume table — videographer near me 8,700, wedding videographer 8,500, wedding videography 2,000 — Target keyword universe · volumes

Legacy Union rebuilt Wedding Photography San Diego landing page — Rebuilt landing page · Wedding Photography San Diego

Legacy Union on-page SEO content block under hero banner — On-page SEO content block

02 · Off-page · outreach, foundation, sponsored

Three link layers stacked every month.

Outreach: bridal and beauty media collaborations — Airbrush Masterclass "The Bridal Guide for your Bride-to-be Clients", Christina Flach, Personify Bridal. Foundation: 30 local directory citations a month (PeepLocal, CityByApp, EarthMom, A-Z Business Finder, Dyrectory). Sponsored: placements at Lifestyle by PS, The Fashionable Housewife. Referring domains went from a flat line to 106 over 6 months.

Legacy Union outreach placement — Bridal Guide for Bride-to-be Clients on Airbrush Masterclass — Outreach · Airbrush Masterclass

Legacy Union foundation link — PeepLocal directory citation for Legacy Union Photo Co Los Angeles — Foundation · PeepLocal citation

Legacy Union sponsored post — Book Your Venue guest blog placement — Sponsored · Book Your Venue blog

03 · Technical SEO & indexation

From 30 to 45 indexed pages.

Cleaned up indexation in Google Search Console — new landing pages submitted and validated, stray pages removed. Every page worth ranking got crawled and indexed as the content program expanded.

Legacy Union Google Search Console — indexed pages chart growing from 30 to 45 between March and June 2022 — GSC · indexed pages growing from 30 to 45

The results

5 to 147 visits/month. 279 US keywords ranking.

Legacy Union cut their reliance on wedding-directory referrals, got off paid search entirely, and now own their LA organic presence. Six months of compounding SEO work replaced years of commission-heavy marketplace bookings.

+2,840%

Organic traffic (6 months)

279

US keywords ranking

106

Referring domains

147

Monthly organic visits

Organic traffic · flat line to hockey stick

Legacy Union organic traffic chart — flat at 5 visits/month from 2016 to early 2022, then spiking to 147 in June 2022 — Traffic · 5/mo (Jan 2020) → 147/mo (Jun 2022)

Keyword & backlink growth

Legacy Union organic keywords — 279 US keywords ranking including San Diego lifestyle photographer #5, legacy union #6, torrance photographers #7 — 279 US keywords ranking · top positions

Legacy Union referring domains growth chart — flat at zero for years then climbing to 106 by June 2022 — Referring domains · 106 by Jun 2022

Lessons learned

"In the world's deepest SERP, you don't beat the head term — you build 40 pages around it."

"Wedding videographer" in LA is a 10+ year SEO fight that nobody new wins head-on. What Legacy Union did win: service × location long-tail, monthly content that earned natural links, and a steady outreach drip into bridal media and directories. 5 visits a month became 147 a month, and the business stopped paying commission on wedding-directory referrals.