Ioana Bălan — New Website and Local SEO Across 20 Counties

Context

Ioana Bălan is a Romanian folk and party music singer with more than 15 years on stage and three albums of her own. She performs at weddings, christenings and corporate events with a full band, through Grand Music Events in Bucharest.

The artistic value was already there: excellent reviews, live videos, a repertoire covering every major Romanian region. The goal of the project was for the website to convey the same level and turn visits into bookings.

The challenge

In the Romanian wedding band market, the decision happens in three steps: couples search by city or county, compare prices, then message on WhatsApp. The website had to win all three.

1. Local visibility outside Bucharest. The band travels within roughly 340 km. Every county served needed a page answering searches like “wedding band Pitești” or “folk singer Brașov”.
2. Premium pricing, justified. The packages sit at the top of the market. Without context, a high price scares people off; hidden, it sends couples to competitors.
3. Conversion on the right channel. Classic contact forms get ignored in this niche. Couples want a fast answer, on their phone.

What we did

Analysis before design

We started with an analysis of direct competitors. The key finding: only about 37% of Romanian wedding bands display their prices publicly. For a premium artist, transparency becomes a differentiator, as long as the price comes with a clear picture of what it buys.

Validated prototype, then build

Before WordPress, we built a full HTML prototype and validated it with the client. Only after approval did we rebuild everything in Elementor Pro, on a dedicated child theme with global colour and typography tokens. We then checked parity between prototype and final build line by line, because small CSS and breakpoint differences are exactly what a visual review misses.

Visual identity

Dark background, burgundy accent, EB Garamond for headings and Inter for body text, traditional embroidery motifs as section dividers and the artist’s own signature, vectorised, as the logo. Tradition, presented as premium.

Local SEO: one page per county

The core of the project. We built a service-area hub and 20 local pages, from Ilfov and Prahova to Constanța, Dolj and Mehedinți. Each page answers what matters to couples in that area: towns and venues where the band has already played, how travel is calculated and whether accommodation is needed.

These are not cloned pages with the city name swapped. Each one carries real, county-specific information; otherwise Google treats them as thin content and leaves them out of the index.

AEO: direct answers

The questions couples ask most often, about price, areas served, deposit and contract, got short, direct answers on the homepage and on a dedicated FAQ page. That is the same format search engines and AI assistants pick up as an answer.

WhatsApp conversion

The WhatsApp booking button sits in the header, in the hero and at the end of every page, with a pre-filled message. On mobile, the phone number is one tap away.

Technical details that matter

• Self-hosted fonts, with Google Fonts fully disabled, so no visitor data goes to third parties.
• YouTube videos load only on click, through the cookie-free domain.
• Accessible names for the logo and contact buttons, plus up-to-date consumer-protection links.

Where we are now

The website has been live since October 2026. We are not publishing traffic or booking figures yet: a new site needs a few months to be indexed and settle in search results. We are measuring from launch and will come back with real results after the first 90 days.

What’s next

• Monitoring indexing and rankings for the county pages
• A full case study with figures, 90 days after launch
• More blog content around pricing and repertoire questions