Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website so that it ranks higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs) when your customers search for them on the Internet. SEO lets you increase the visibility of your websites and get organic traffic for your websites.
Interior design is one of the most competitive fields. Everyone wants their homes to be as innovative and beautiful as possible. So, the demand for interior designers who can reinvent their homes is also increasing.
When it comes to interior designs, you would mostly work to rank for location-based terms like “interior designer in Texas” or for more service-oriented terms like “kitchen interior designers” or “bedroom interior designers.”
Whatever keywords you aim to rank for, you can never rank higher in your search results if you don’t optimize your website. Continue reading this article to learn more about SEO for interior designers and understand the steps you need to follow to optimize your website for search engines.
What Is SEO for Interior Designers?
SEO for interior designers is the process of optimizing their website so that it would rank higher on the search results and appear in front of their prospective customers.
SEO is a cost-effective way of bringing customers who require your services to your store. Unlike paid ads that require you to spend a huge sum to attract customers, SEO costs less and lets your prospects find you when they search for you.
For example, when people search for interior designers near them, their search term is often “interior designers near me” or “interior design shops near me.” Using SEO strategies and optimizing your websites can make your websites rank for these keywords, increase organic traffic, and bring more customers to your store.
How Does SEO Work for Interior Designers?
Every time a user searches for something on Google, it goes through thousands of relevant web pages and selects the most relevant ones with the highest quality content to appear on the first page of the search results.
Google always puts user experience first when choosing a website to rank on the first page of SERP. SEO helps interior designers appear on this page by optimizing various aspects of the website, like content, on-page components, keywords, technical components, etc.
Interior designers should understand that most customers only trust and visit the websites of those that appear on the first page of the search results. SEO allows the website to build authority over a particular niche and rank higher than its competitors.
SEO Strategies to Follow to Optimize Websites for Better Ranking
SEO is a long process and takes time to show you the desired results. Unlike paid advertisements that only get you leads as long as you pay for them, SEO gives you a long-term result by bringing in more and more new customers to your interior design store and thus building your business.
Here are steps you need to follow to optimize your interior design website for better ranking and visibility.
1. Create a website for your interior design website
A website is a crucial part of any online business venture because it is how your prospects will learn more about your business.
You need to create a well-designed, user-friendly website with separate pages for each product you offer and provide as much information as you can regarding each product and let your viewers decide whether they want to visit your store.
2. Set up your Google Business Profile
Getting listed in Google Business Profile (GBP) can make your store get closer to your prospects. GBP is none other than the updated version of Google My Business (GMB) with additional features.
Having a GBP account allows you to inform your customers about your products and services. It also allows your customers to find you when they search in any Google services like Google Search, Google Maps, etc.
You can add a lot of information about your store, like its location, contact details, your products, their price range (if possible), customer reviews, images, videos, and other info to make your prospects learn about your store.
3. Conduct an SEO audit
An SEO audit is the process of analyzing and evaluating how well a web page is performing and where you can make improvements to enhance its overall performance.
The purpose of conducting an SEO audit is to identify as many issues in the websites as possible that may affect the ranking of the websites. Some issues that can be found and rectified through SEO audits are
- technical issues,
- on-page SEO issues,
- website structure issues,
- user experience issues,
- potential off-site issues,
- content gaps and opportunities, and
- competitive marketplace insights.
An SEO audit is, in a way, like a “health check” for your website. It should be conducted on a regular basis to identify and correct any new issues that may have popped up.
SEO audits can be performed using tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, and other similar tools.
4. Do a thorough competitor analysis
No matter the industry your business is based in, you will always have competitors who fight with you for customers. In such cases, a deep understanding of your competitors can help you exceed them and get more website traffic.
For interior designers, your competitors are those stores that rank in the top 10 positions (the first page) of the search results for the keyword you aim to rank for.
For example, if you aim to rank for “interior design stores near me,” the stores that now rank on the first page for your location are your competitors. Conducting an extensive competitor analysis on these websites can help you identify what strategies they have followed to get ranked in the top positions.
Here are some points you should focus on while conducting a competitor analysis.
- Understand why they rank.
- Analyze which of their web pages has the maximum traffic.
- Understand the flow of their content.
- Identify keyword gaps.
- Analyze their referring domains.
Create case studies on your competitors’ analysis, use them in your strategies, and run split tests on them. Understand which strategy works best for you and implement them in your websites.
5. Do in-depth keyword research
Keywords are search terms that users use when searching for something in the search engine. Researching and identifying the relevant keyword for your interior design store and working to rank for them can make your website appear before your customers when they search using the keyword.
As you already know, Google only ranks websites relevant to users’ searches. Identifying the right keywords for your store and incorporating them in your content and op-page components can give your website the boost it needs to rank higher in the search results.
Here are some steps you can follow to do keyword research for your store.
- Identify what terms your potential customers use to search for products or services related to you.
- Use keyword research tools, like SEMrush, Google Keyword Planner, etc., to identify relevant keywords with the highest search volume.
- Use a mix of short, mid, and long-tail keywords in your content.
- Use these keywords in various areas of your website’s content, such as titles, headers, sub-headers, main content, etc.
7. Develop content structure
Now that you have completed competitor analysis and researched relevant keywords, the next step is creating a content structure for each web page. As the name suggests, the content structure gives your content a well-structured form, makes it more readable, and makes your readers stay longer on the web page.
Use a clear and logical content structure for your web pages. Arrange it to make it easier for search engines and users to navigate your content.
8. Create helpful content that satisfies your user’s needs
As an interior design store, ensure your content is valuable and provides ample information about your products to your customers. You can be quirky and think of creative ways to grab your customers’ attention.
Understand what your readers need and give them relevant information. You can create content in various formats like
- blog posts
- articles
- video content
- FAQs
9. Optimize on-page components
On-page SEO is the process of examining and improving the structure and content of a website in order for it to rank higher in search results, which drives more visitors to your website.
On-page optimization allows search engines to assess your website content and determine whether it is relevant to the user’s search query. Google’s algorithm is regularly updated in order to better comprehend users’ search intent and produce content that suits their needs.
The following are some on-page components to consider while optimizing your website.
HTML Meta Tags
- Title tag
- Meta description
- Headers (H1)
- Subheaders (H2, H3, H4, etc.)
- Robots Tag
- Canonical URL
- Open Graph
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The URL is the address of any website or web page. It helps search engines identify the websites’ relevancy to the search query. URL is a ranking factor, so make sure you place your focus keyword in the URL.
Links
Place internal links (links of your own web pages) and external links (links bought from other relevant websites) in your web pages to build authority for your websites.
Image optimization
- The size of your images should be within 100kb.
- Keep the images in WebP or AVIF formats.
- Use Alt text for images with relevant keywords.
10. Develop a link-building strategy
Backlinks are one of the ranking factors for Google and are critical to enhancing your SEO. You might rank better on search engines if you have more authority in a niche. This might enhance organic traffic and conversion rates for your websites.
There are some ways you can build links for a website.
- Guest posts
- Directories
- Working on a listicle
- Press Release (PR)
- Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
11. Ensure your web pages get indexed
All your efforts will go down the drain if you don’t ensure that your web page gets indexed by Google so that your webpage is ranked and found by the users.
Here’s the process of how Google indexes a web page.
- Crawling: Google bots crawl the web pages and scan the relevancy of the content.
- Indexing: Google analyzes the web pages and stores them in the database.
- Ranking: Google algorithm searches for and picks the webpages most relevant to the user’s search intent from the database.
12. Fix Core Web Vitals
Once your web pages are indexed, you may begin working on the Core Web Vitals. Core Web Vitals are statistics used to assess the performance of a web page on mobile and desktop devices.
Three criteria are used to assess a web page’s essential web vitals.
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) gauges the speed with which a web page loads.
- The page interactivity is measured by the First Input Delay (FID).
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) assesses the visual stability of a page.
These three criteria are critical for Google Page Experience. So, improve these to rank higher in search results and provide your users with the greatest page experience possible.
13. Analyze your website’s performance
Now that every step regarding SEO is completed, the next step would be to analyze and optimize your website’s performance, which needs to be done repeatedly for better results.
You can use several tools and metrics to measure your website’s performance. Google’s algorithm has over 200 ranking factors to rank a website on the first page.
Some aspects that you need to analyze regarding the performance of a website are
- organic traffic,
- keyword ranking,
- SERP visibility,
- click-through rate (CTR),
- bounce rate,
- website authority over time,
- backlinks,
- page speed,
- time spent on a page, and
- conversion rate.
Conclusion
SEO is an important part of marketing for interior design companies. Implementing SEO tactics in your websites may not yield quick results, but they will provide you with the desired outcomes in the long run.
Following the steps outlined above while developing your SEO strategy can make the process easier and help your websites rank higher in SERPs.
If you lack the necessary skills and time to improve your website, you can always seek the assistance of marketing organizations that offer competent On-page, Off page and Technial SEO services to their clients. They may assist you in making your website more user-friendly and increasing your Google ranking.
FAQ
SEO for interior designers is the process of optimizing their website to rank higher on the search results and appear in front of their prospective customers.
SEO is a cost-effective way of bringing customers who require your services to your store. Unlike paid ads that require you to spend a huge sum to attract customers, SEO costs less and lets your prospects find you when they search for you.
Nowadays, everyone wants to decorate their home and make them look beautiful. Thus, several interior design companies have emerged in recent years. Unless you have an online presence and a unique selling point that distinguishes you from your competitors, you can’t shine in the field.
Having a strong online presence can help customers identify your company faster when they are looking for them. This increases the chances of them visiting your companies and buying your services for their home or office.
SEO can also help your services reach a wider audience beyond your targeted location and expand your customer base. The following are some other benefits of using SEO for your website optimization:
- Improve organic traffic for your websites.
- Stay ahead of your competitors.
- Build authority for your websites.
- Increase leads and patient visits.
