SEO for Interior Designers

You’re an interior designer, so you know better than anyone else that good interior design is about more than aesthetics. Each choice that is made – whether it's traffic flow or lighting placement – will impact how a space functions and how it will make people feel.

So why wouldn’t you apply those same ideas to your interior design website? 

As a designer, you put a lot of thought into how your website looks. But how is it performing? Are you seeing the traffic you expect? Are leads coming in and converting into paying clients?

If your website isn’t designed to be found, you’re building a gorgeous showroom in the middle of nowhere. You could be the best in the business but nobody knows that you exist!

To make up for it, many designers pour their hard-earned money into online ads. But paying a high price for digital ad space without the right search engine optimization will leave you with less than ideal results.

The good news? There are some tips and tricks that you can learn quickly to start boosting your web presence and being seen – even in the new world of AI. 

SEO for interior designers isn’t rocket science, but there are a few things you could be doing better to match (and beat) your competitors.

What Is SEO for Interior Design?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a fancy term for organizing and optimizing your website content so that Google (and other search engines) will “recommend” your business to potential clients.

If you run an interior design business – or manage the company’s digital presence – you’ve probably heard of SEO. You may have even taken a crash course in knowing how to put the right “keywords” into the backend of your website’s blogs.

But search engine optimization is more than picking a keyword and rolling the dice. SEO has grown beyond the traditional methods for driving traffic to your website.

If you are going to find quality clients who are willing to pay top-dollar for your interior design services, you need to give the same careful eye to your online presence that you do real-world spaces.

Imagine someone searches "mid-century designer near me" or "interior design for small homes in Miami." You want your business’s name, logo and link to be at the top of that search engine results page (aka at the top of Google).

Sure, you could pay to take that top “sponsored” spot at the top of the results page, but those spots are expensive and can quickly drain your budget without noticeable results. 

Buyers are smart. What they want is a company that is so good that Google has to put it up at the top without being paid to.

How Do I Do SEO for Interior Design?

Think of SEO as an engine. An engine is needed to get your car from point A to B – but the engine itself is made up of interconnected parts and pieces that need to all run together. 

One piece goes bad, and the entire engine is at risk.

The same can be said for SEO. Most interior design agencies think SEO is just about using the right keywords. 

Keywords matter, but if you aren’t also leaning on your on-page structure, technical SEO, and localized content, you’re not getting very far very fast.

Keywords

Keywords are the words and short phrases that your ideal client persona (ICP) types into Google as they are searching for interior design services or ideas. 

Using these keywords and phrases in your copy and content can help Google “connect the dots” between your content and their search, helping pull your site into the list of recommended destinations depending on the searcher’s needs.

On-Page SEO

SEO goes beyond keywords alone. You’ll also want to make sure your site’s content is organized properly for Google’s “crawlers” (think tiny reading bots that quickly scan your site pages) to know who you are, what you do and if you’re legitimate.

Elements like headers, title tags, meta descriptions – all of these play into your on-page design much like the layout of a well-designed room. 

Everything has its place and purpose, guiding both visitors and Google through your site.

Technical SEO

Ever visit a site and immediately get frustrated that it’s slow to load or doesn’t look right on your phone? Beyond frustrating. 

Technical SEO matters in your site’s overall SEO performance. Site speed, mobile responsiveness, proper website coding – think of these as the plumbing of your website. Not glamorous, but think of losing a high-value client because your contact form isn’t loading properly on your page!

Local SEO

For interior designers, local SEO is huge. This is where your SEO gets granular to your target audience. Setting up your Google Business Profile, local directories, and using location-based keywords all play into how you show up when someone searches "interior designer near me." 

Content

Consumers want to work with real people. So you need to showcase more than just pictures on a page. Writing blog posts, curating project descriptions on your portfolio, and even writing great service page copy will help give your brand a "content voice" that helps build your digital reputation.

Plus, in the age of AI search, great content is a great way to convince the algorithms that you’re a source worth trusting (and citing in responses within ChatGPT!)

Backlinks

Your overall SEO performance is enhanced by the number of backlinks you have. Backlinks are “earned” when other reputable websites link back to yours – sort of like receiving a digital referral from a colleague. 

Think about interior design magazine sites that cite you in their stories, or businesses you’ve helped that link to your service page as a “thank you” for your great work. Every backlink is seen by Google as a vote of confidence in your expertise.

Is SEO Worth It for Interior Design?

All of this is good and great – but why spend time or money to work on SEO for interior design businesses? 

Google doesn’t "see" images the way that humans do. A potential client may pick you based on the visual evidence you give them on your portfolio page of your website – but what if they can’t find your portfolio page in the first place?

Google needs more than great pictures on a page to point to you as the best interior designer around. There are over 1 million searches each month in the U.S. for interior designers – that’s 1 million potential clients looking to hire you.

Investing time and effort into great SEO has some benefits beyond just enticing more visitors to your site.

Great SEO Compounds Over Time

Social media posts can be great for drumming up traffic, but the effects are typically temporary. Paid ads can stop earning you traffic the moment you stop paying. 

But great SEO gets stronger as your site ages. Organic traffic will continue to grow (without you lifting a finger) as you continue to manage your site’s overall performance.

Quality SEO Brings In Motivated Clients

The more you fine-tune your site’s content and technical SEO, the more likely you are to draw in more interior design clients who are ready to pay. 

They’re actively looking, and if you can snag them and showcase yourself in the best light, they’re likely to stick around.

You Can Optimize Your SEO As You Grow

You may have started your interior design business to cater to anyone and everyone. But as you grow, you may find that particular projects or client types fit your style. 

You can continue to hone your SEO and optimize for specific ICPs and service types as you go – and drive more targeted traffic for the work you want to do.

How to Boost Your Interior Design SEO?

So, are you ready to start optimizing your website for SEO performance? The best technique is to pick the right "part" of the SEO pizza you want to work on first, and then continue from there. 

Trying to overhaul every element could leave you overwhelmed (unless you work with a partner who can handle it all for you!).

Here are three key areas you can start optimizing right now to see SEO gains over the next weeks to months:

Pick The Best Keywords for Interior Design SEO

Keywords aren’t everything – but they’re a powerful part of the engine. Think of keywords as the fuel that sparks everything into motion.

Optimize for the right keywords, and you’ll soon start to “rank” online for that word. The higher your rank, the better your SEO performance will be. 

But ranking for "interior design" isn’t as powerful as "kitchen interior design Portland" – because you’ll start to capture the highest value client traffic for specific services you offer. 

Picking the right keywords starts with knowing your ideal client type. Imagine you specialize in modern farmhouse design for younger families. 

Your ideal client persona (ICP) could be "Emma" – a 35-year-old marketing director with a family living in a fixer-upper starter home in the Chicago suburbs. 

She’s likely not just searching for "interior design services." She might be Googling:

• "modern farmhouse living room ideas"

• "kid-friendly interior designer near me"

• "how much does it cost to redesign a kitchen"

• "shiplap accent wall designer Chicago”

When you start to know the search intent of your ideal clients, you can begin to use keywords more effectively. You can then begin to build around specific keyword categories:

Style-Based Keywords (What aesthetic are they after?)

• "mid-century modern interior designer"

Service-Based Keywords (What specific help do they need?)

• "home staging for sale"

• "kitchen and bath designer"

Problem-Based Keywords (What pain point are they solving?)

• "pet-friendly interior design"

• "interior designer for rental properties"

Budget-Based Keywords (What can they afford?)

• "affordable interior designer Chicago"

• "luxury interior design services"

• "interior design packages under 5000"

The more granular you can become with your keyword phrases, the better your traffic will be. You can use tools such as Google Keyword Explorer to find similar keywords to your ICP search terms to build a strong list.

Then you can start to use those keywords in your website copy, on-page FAQs and blog posts!

On-Page SEO for Interior Design

You’ve built a list of keywords – but now what? 

It’s time to put your interior design skills to work in designing your on-page SEO. You’ll want to take a good, hard look at every aspect of your website’s design and messaging to check three things:

1. Does the messaging make sense?

You want your content to clearly communicate who you are, what you do, and why you’re a great fit for your ICP. But don’t miss the point – solving your customer’s problems, not bragging about your success!

2. Are the keywords fitting into the messaging?

You want to use your keywords where they make sense across your page content. 

For example, your top header should be upgrade from "We Create Beautiful Spaces" to "Chicago’s Trusted Mid-Century Modern Interior Designer." Subheaders should be similarly designed to communicate the what, who, and where of your services.

When in doubt, go back to your ICP and ask: “Does this meet their need? Does it make sense?”

3. Is the structure of our site guiding the client to a conversion?

At the end of the day, you want one thing: someone to click “contact”. So, make sure your content is guiding the user to that call to action. 

Make sure your copy, images, and buttons are all designed to make it obvious what the next step is. 

That way, when Emma arrives on the page, she’ll click to get in touch rather than “bounce” from the page when she gets confused or overwhelmed.

These are just a few of the on-page content development tips to help boost your SEO.

Working with a trusted SEO expert for interior designers can help you unlock more great opportunities on your site and put them to work for you faster.

Schema & Technical SEO for Interior Design

A third quick tip for SEO gets a bit more technical than keywords and copy. SEO involves all aspects of your website – including site speed, mobile optimization, and your schema markup.

Site Speed

Is your site loading quickly? Does everything look right when it pulls up on a laptop as well as a smartphone? 

Interior design agencies rely on great images to land clients – so you don’t want your site underperforming when someone visits. Attention spans are down to a mere 3 seconds. If your site takes longer than 10 seconds to load, you can bet they’ll push “back” before any of your interior design images load!

Make sure your site’s hosting is up to date, your images are sized properly (under 500KB per image), and minimize any unnecessary plugins or widgets that could be taking up your site’s performance power.

Mobile Optimization

Speaking of mobile devices, is your site optimized for them? Tablets and phones come in all shapes and sizes, so your website should be built to be responsive, meaning it can adapt to any screen size without messing up the functionality or design of the pages. 

Schema Markup

This sounds technical, but don’t fret. Your schema is simply the labels on your site’s design code that help Google know what the content is about. 

Think of it as a clean closet with containers all labeled for what exactly goes in each. 

• Local Schema: This tells search engines your business’s name, address, service areas, and contact information.

• Review Schema: This schema highlights your business’s ratings, number of reviews, testimonials, and any other content that praises your success and value.

• Service Area Schema: This tells Google where you work, how far you travel, and where your offices are located.

• Image Schema: When you rely on images to sell services, make sure the schema explains what’s in portfolio images and who created them (you!)

Schema markup will help you get the best bang for your SEO buck. Google rewards performant websites with better rankings!

There are a variety of SEO plugins that you can use to build this schema and apply it automatically. When in doubt, trust an SEO expert to handle all the schema details for you.

Get More Interior Design Clients Now with SEO!

I get it – you became an interior designer to help transform spaces, not spend hours digging into your website to help it perform better on Google. 

The good news is that you don’t need to become an expert on SEO to make your website shine. You just need the right partner to help!

At KC SEO Consulting Services, I specialize in helping local businesses – including interior designers – build online presences that work. 

Every SEO service is unique, so I work with you to design a strategy that captures the lowest-hanging fruit first so you start seeing results faster. 

We’ll optimize your website and digital presence to make the most of your interior design skills and use the latest techniques and methods to boost traffic and leads.

Want to learn more? Let’s chat about how to get your beautiful work in front of the right eyes. Because great design deserves to be discovered.

Schedule your free consultation today!