A Thoughtful Interior Design Keyword Strategy Bridges The Gap Between Client and Your Firm

What’s a keyword, and why is it important? In short, is the way in which qualified buyers of interior design services learn about your company and visit your website. Successful online marketing requires you to help as many people as possible across that bridge as possible. This is done by writing lots of great content for your website and ensuring the words you use to describe your services are plentiful and relevant. It's called content marketing.

Keywords are words and phrases that people type into search engines when they’re researching interior design services online.

Interior Design firms hoping to be found by those prospects need to use the same language on their websites. Think of search engines like Google as the "matchmaker." The more words you have on your website that match a prospect's search queries, the more prominently your website shows up in search engine results from pages. Or to put it another way, Google sells only one thing, access to relevant information. You want your website to be seen by Google as relevant for certain terms that describe the design services you offer.

Let's say a prospect conducts a Google search for “Interior Designers Boston.” On the search results page, just below the paid advertisers, he or she will see a list of web pages with the most relevant listed first. A recent search for the phrase above yielded 2,890,000 results but only presented about 10 were listed on each web page. Since most people will never look past the first or second page, your firm will not be seen unless you have quality, relevant keyword rich content. 

First things first: Make sure you’re using the correct keywords and as many variations of them as possible. A little upfront research will help you work smarter and save lots of time and money in the long run.

The Four Steps of Keyword Research, Insertion and SEO

Step 1. Use a keyword research tool like SEMrush, WordTracker or MOZ and type in your website or a competitor’s and see a list of keyword ideas as well as those words that are searched for most often. You'll also see how steep the competition is for each keyword or phrase in the results. Hubspot has a paid Keyword SEO Tool, that helps you analyze your keywords, increase your search rankings, decide which keywords are generating customers for you, and track the competition.

Step 2. Who are your customers, and what words are they using to search for your services? It’s always helpful to see the world through their eyes, and you can do that by developing buyer personas, or profiles of different types of customers. Hubspot has good advice and a free template for businesses looking for little help getting started. We are often so close to our business that we difficulty seeing our marketing as others do. Developing personas helps you understand your prospects better. 

Step 3. Shorter isn’t always sweeter. More general search terms, such as “interior designer,” will have steep competition for rankings, and, frankly, they’re probably not going to be as helpful to you as something more specific, such as “interior designers Boston.” Even better: “kitchen interior design Boston” or “affordable kitchen interior design Boston,” or why not both? The idea is to come up with a list of search terms that are two words or more, and that accurately depict your particular business niche and attract fewer competitors for rankings purposes. 

Step 4. Now, what? Write content! You’ve created a list of keywords to help your business get found by the right people, so it’s time to create some website content to showcase them. Try to use one keyword phrase per website page, and include it in the page URL, the headline, the content itself, the image name, the alternative text (or alt tag) for the picture, and the page’s metadata. Blogs are an excellent way to incorporate keywords into your site’s content – just follow the same advice in showcasing one keyword per post.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully integrated keywords into your marketing strategy. Just remember: Keywords are the way your company gets found online. Content marketing is not just about your website, having a good SEO strategy for Houzz is important as well. The more relevant keywords you feature on your site, the greater the opportunity.

About Michael Conway and Means-of-Production

My firm builds Squarespace websites, Houzz profiles, and content marketing and advertising solutions for architects, interior designers, design-build contractors and landscape design firms. Our all-in-one tactics attract the right clients with exceptional architectural photography and brand messaging that sets you apart from the competition. Contact me for a free-of-charge consultation and marketing review. It takes about 40 minutes and you'll be provided a list of actionable improvements designed to solve your specific marketing problems.