If you run an interior design business, you’ve likely heard the term SEO. But you may not fully understand what SEO means or truly appreciate what it can do for your business.
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization and it refers to the different ways your content can be made easily visible in online searches. When someone searches a word or phrase, the search engine produces a long list of web pages that appear in a particular order the search engine algorithm chooses based on its rapid analysis of relevance.
Search engine algorithms are constantly evolving how they find content, but understanding what search engines generally look for can help you stay ahead of these changes and keep your content relevant.
What Do Search Engines Look For?
A search engine’s algorithm seeks confirmation of your content’s relevancy and authority. It finds evidence of relevancy by scanning your content for title tags, image tags, and keywords. It measures authority by how many people view your content, how many other sites link to your content, and it can even assess the user experience. For example, if your website has broken links, it will appear lower in the search results due to a poor user experience.
Steps to Take to Maximize Your Content
🔵 Capitalize on Your On-Page SEO
You or your SEO specialist can break down your SEO efforts into two main categories: on-page and off-page. On-page refers to all of the levers you can pull to control your own web content.
Some examples of on-page SEO include:
Image tags: As an interior designer, the first thing you need to know about on-page SEO is that search engine algorithms can only see text, not images. The algorithm will only see the words you have used to describe the pictures. That’s why image tags are essential. These are the phrases you use to describe all of the images on your website and will play a large role in your SEO.
Keywords: Keyword research will uncover which phrases that are relevant to your content are the most popular. You should identify keywords for each of your webpages and weave them into your content as seamlessly as possible. Long-tail keywords work best because they help pinpoint the relevancy of your content to the search engine algorithm.
Title tags: Like image tags, title tags reflect how the algorithm reads a title on your content. It should include your primary keyword.
Internal links: Linking to your own previous content helps drive website traffic. It also improves your content’s authority according to the algorithm, which follows your links and understands your content with deeper nuance.
External links: Similar to internal links, external links help the algorithm gain a greater understanding of your content. Also, the quality of the content you link to matters. If you link to external content that the algorithm identifies as untrustworthy, or low quality, it will negatively impact your authority.
URLs: Make each of your websites’ URLs an easy to read description of the page’s content, instead of the scrabble of random letters and numbers the code generator will assign to your page if you don’t manually change it.
Content length and quality: The more content you have, the more opportunity for the algorithm to find you. The longer people spend on your webpage, the more authority the algorithm will assign to that content. Images and video help to keep readers engaged, so they also improve your content’s authority. Note that the algorithm can detect unnatural structures, like duplicate content, nonsensical repetition of keywords, and broken links. These will weaken your authority.
NAP: NAP Stands for Name, Address, and Phone number. Make sure all of this information is consistent across your web content and social media, and also searchable by the algorithm as a text-only format. This is essential to take advantage of Local SEO, or search engine algorithms that find businesses based on their proximity to the person searching.
Page speed: the time it takes for your web pages to load impacts your ranking in the algorithm.
🔵 Understand Your Off-Page SEOOff-page SEO refers to the actions taken with your content outside of your control and website. It’s more difficult to control but can be finessed to your advantage with the right insights.
Some examples of off-page SEO include:
Backlinks: Backlinks are where external sites refer to your website content. This drives traffic to your website, and also boosts the algorithm’s recognition of your page’s authority. Avoid the temptation to buy backlinks or create phony web pages to link to your real web pages. The algorithms can detect this inauthentic behavior and will lower your authority score.
Social Media: When it comes to your interior design business’ visibility, social media is paramount. Traditional search engines, like Google, often pull relevant terms from social media posts, proving how essential good SEO on your social platforms can be.
Note that each platform requires a specific approach, with Facebook giving SEO masters the most flexibility to work with. A helpful starting point is to always use each available character in your posts with intention. Write descriptive captions and use hashtags to make your social media content more searchable.
🔵 Hire an SEO ExpertTo capitalize on your interior design business’s content and improve its SEO, you can dedicate a knowledgeable team member or hire outside specialists to regularly optimize your content for better search results. This means they must have an understanding of what keywords to use throughout your site’s content, how to position services you offer on your website, and how to build engaging website pages that maintain low bounce rates.
Time to Apply These SEO Insights to Your Content
SEO is a complicated topic that takes time to understand, but following these steps gives you enough information to get started and improve your site’s SEO. Take a deeper dive here, and craft an SEO strategy that will bring your interior business to the top of search engine results.