The answer for how to get interior design clients is a tricky one. If you’re just starting an interior design business, or looking to expand an existing one, you might just be looking for the best way to accomplish this.
What’s challenging about getting interior design clients is there isn’t a one size fits all approach. Some firms can grow exponentially through referrals only, while others can grow through local print advertising.
In this post, we will look at various digital marketing efforts that can get interior designers new clients. When it comes to digital marketing in 2022, there are many ways to do this, but our main focus will be SEO for interior designers.
Promoting Your Interior Design Business in 2022
As digital marketing becomes more popular each year, there become more ways to market yourself. Below are a few ways to promote your business:
- Instagram,
- Facebook,
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising,
- YouTube,
- Public Relations (PR),
- Email Marketing, and
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
While all of these methods can land your business new clients, I am going to make the case for why you should invest in SEO.
SEO vs. Paid Advertising
Many of the marketing tactics listed above are “paid” marketing tactics. Meaning you pay to “rent digital real estate” on those platforms. Once you stop paying, you don’t get that digital real estate anymore and now you’re back to where you started. Looking for the best way to land new clients for your interior design firm.
With SEO, you’re building an asset for your business. Most of the work that goes into SEO stays with your business website as long as it’s active. Here’s a look at the SEO offerings that stay with your website if you invest and decide to pull the plug one day.
Content
With SEO, you, or a business you hire writes content targeting keywords for your target market. Once this content is written, you have it forever. It doesn’t disappear if you stop paying for services.
In the digital world we live in, high quality, targeted content is becoming one of the best ways to market your business.
Link Building & Citations
Link building is a big part of SEO and most link building efforts SEO companies work on stay with your website forever. There are some initiatives companies utilize that are temporary and depending on what those are, I’d stay away from those.
Websites
Many of you reading have a website, but some of you do not. Certain SEO companies can build you a website with foundations and page load times that Google likes. When I say “page load time” I am talking about how fast your website loads when someone clicks on it.
Speed is a ranking factor for Google and if you don’t have a website that loads fast, it can hurt your Google rankings. This is a problem I see with many interior designers and one that you can easily avoid.
So, if you work with an SEO company to improve the speed of your website, that work will stay with you unless you start changing aspects of your website they worked on.
What if the Google Algorithm Changes Though?
The Google algorithm is always changing and it ultimately decides who ranks on the first page and who does not. No matter the algorithm change though, you’ll still always have the work put into your SEO campaign. It won’t disappear after Google announces a big update.
Landing Interior Design Clients Through SEO
When it comes to SEO, there are times you can do it yourself and other times where it is best to bring in a professional. Below are a few tips that can help get you in front of new interior design clients.
Google Business Profile
Currently, setting up a Google Business Profile (GBP) is free. Setting one of these allows your firm to appear on Google maps and the possibility to rank in the “local pack” or “3 pack”. The local pack looks like this:
When you set this up, fill out every section possible. DO NOT leave anything blank. Once complete, do what you can to build out reviews for your profile.
Keyword Research
There are free tools you can use to find keywords your potential clients are typing in on Google and other search engines. Finding these keywords and adding them to your site can help you start website start to rank. Here are a few free tools you can start using today.
Keyword Surfer
Keyword surfer is my favorite free keyword research tool and is definitely one of the better ones out there. Here’s what it looks like:
This panel shows on the right side of your chrome browser for every search you type into Google. In order to get this to show up, you’ll need to download the chrome plugin which you can find here.
To find keywords, type in searches you think your clients might use and see if Keyword Surfer shows any “volume” for the search.
Once you find keywords you want to rank for, you’ll need to create content on your website targeting them.
Keywords Everywhere
Keywords Everywhere is another free chrome plugin with similarities to Keyword Surfer. I like using both of them because sometimes one will show me keywords that the other does not. Keywords Everywhere also shows on the right side of your Chrome browser and looks like this:
Final Thoughts
While there are many ways to get interior design clients, there isn’t one method that’s considered “the best”. What can work will depend on your business, the market you are in and they types of clients you want to target.
While I like SEO, it isn’t right for everyone. If you’re interested in learning more about SEO I’d love to chat with you about the possibilities it may, or may not have for your business. I am always one email, or phone call away and offer free introductory calls for anyone looking to learn more.
Growing your business isn’t easy. It’s a very scary and daunting task at times. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.