Your architectural firm's website should be the hub of a comprehensive inbound marketing strategy. Once you've established your business' website by getting found in search engines, it's time to drive traffic and develop your brand with online channels that encourage prospects to visit your site. As you develop your plan, the first step is to define your ideal client and then determine where they search for information online. One channel that is incredibly valuable and focused that is perfect for driving your ideal clients to your website is Houzz. 

Houzz is a photography based website that allows professionals in the home trades to build a profile which is invaluable for driving traffic. Architects, designers, design-build firms and contractors have successfully used Houzz to drive traffic to their company websites, improve the quality of their clients, and grow their businesses. Houzz has over 43 million monthly viewers with an average annual household income of $125,000, and their readers are all searching for home related services like architecture. 

When it comes to building your Houzz profile, much like your website, perception is everything. You need to attract and engage with visitors to direct them to your website to convert and enter your lead funnel. Complimenting your company site with an exciting, dynamic profile page on Houzz, complete with exceptional photography is the first step. You want to offer visitors as much detailed information as possible to highlight your firm's strengths and brand identity. Comprehensive descriptive content will help to convey your skills, has SEO benefits, and will engage visitors in a deeper way than images alone. The next step is to drive viewers to your website where you can convert them into leads, and eventually paying clients.

Let's look at how you can maximize your Houzz profile to engage viewers and convince them to visit your architectural firm's website where you can further educate them, gain their trust and convert them into qualified leads.

Maximizing Lead Generation on Your Houzz Profile

Much like keywords play a role in your organic search results on Google, you can help your profile to get found on Houzz by using relevant keywords and phrases in your profile, project pages and photo descriptions. Houzz also will search by location. For example, if your project is a residential building, and your firm is located in Boston, adding “Boston residential building” along with “residential building” to your keywords will help you to get found when a visitor searches for Boston residential architectural firms. You should also include some of the same keywords throughout your profile, and in your description pages. 

In the “brick and mortar” world, your best leads come from word-of-mouth referrals. Houzz allows you to include customer reviews on your profile. These carry a lot of weight with Houzz visitors. Today, most consumers begin their search for services online, and your reviews can help readers narrow down their search when making a buying decision. Reviews also contribute to your search rankings on the site.

Engagement is another way to build trust with consumers online. Houzz provides a “questions” feature which allows readers to ask questions about your projects. Monitoring your profile and quickly responding to these questions shows that you care and allows you to engage directly with potential customers at which point you can then direct them to your company website where they can enter your lead funnel. 

Another way to increase the value of Houzz is to drive traffic to your firm's website through external linking. If your site incorporates a blog component, (and if it doesn't have a blog, it should!) whenever you add a project to your Houzz profile you can add an external link to your blog. Linking is an excellent way to drive traffic to your site where you can then begin the conversion process.

The Next Step In The Houzz Lead Gen Process

All roads should always lead to your website. (Ideally to a landing page where you can capture contact information, but that's another blog.) Whether it's your Houzz profile, Facebook page or any other social media, your ultimate goal is to drive traffic to your company website to convert visitors into leads and leads into customers.

Blog posts, direct engagement, and external links are all excellent ways to bring Houzz visitors directly to your website. If you include a call-to-action in your blog posts, you can use that to convert your readers. When clicked, your call-to-action can take readers to a targeted specific landing page where you can offer further information in the form of a premium item like a white paper or ebook in exchange for their email contact information. At this point, your Houzz visitor has successfully made the transition to your lead funnel, and through ongoing personalized email, your relationship can further develop as you build trust and lead them through the buying process.

If you need advice on Houzz or need someone to build your profile and project pages, we're here to help. Contact us for an initial consultation at (603) 289-6616.