Designer Marketing Tips – Online Marketing: “Oh no, not more SEO!”

Well, yes; when it comes to designer marketing tips about online marketing, we need to get past the fear and talk about SEO (search engine optimization).For help with this subject, which sometimes frightens website owners (and more than a few website designers), we turn to the inbound marketing experts at HubSpot. Not only do these folks know what they’re talking about, they happily share quite a bit of their high-value information for FREE.First…Benefits of organic SEOWhile offering no guarantees of placement in the search results (SERPs), organic SEO is a proven strategy for gaining the attention of the search engines and bringing traffic to your website. It is cost-effective and, once a list of keywords has been developed and the techniques have been learned, is fairly simple to implement. However, it is not an overnight solution. Effective SEO requires patience and a commitment to consistently implement the strategies and techniques outlined below.Compared to pay-per-click advertising, however, organic SEO has two great benefits: 1) it is less expensive and 2) your placing in the SERPs will hold greater value with your target audience (since they tend to heavily discount the paid ads seen in the search results).Keyword Optimization for Your WebsiteYes, keywords still matter and knowing the phrases that are being searched by your target audience is critical to improving your ranking in the search results and building traffic to your website.But, the traditional view of keywords in search has changed. Where just a few years ago there were maybe 10-20 “big keywords” that would be sought after for ranking within a specific topic or niche market, there are now hundreds or thousands of long-tail variations that are regularly searched within a topic and which can change based on location.Simply dominating a few high-value phrases is no longer enough to produce successful results and, while search engines of the future aren’t going to punish your website for underusing keywords or failing to have an expertly crafted keyword-optimized page title, they will continue to punish you for overusing keywords.What does all of this mean? You should execute proper due diligence and perform market research and keyword analysis to discover high-value phrases to use while creating content for your website.Local SEO Strategy Has Real Value for Interior DesignersBecause most interior design work is local, your online marketing should be targeted accordingly. Both your target audience and your SEO strategy must be focused on the needs of your marketplace – not a national audience.Many marketers and website designers believe that “local SEO” has no value. As it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth. Since Google's algorithm treats local search rankings more like traditional search rankings, they now take hundreds of ranking signals into account; going so far as to improve the way Google evaluates distance when determining rankings.In other words, if you’re a local interior design business, optimizing for local search won’t only help you get found – it will help you get found by people who are nearby and more likely to buy from you. And, if you’re a national or global business trying to rank for a local term, you might as well give up. Local SEO is that important now.While there is a great deal more to say about how and why you should focus on SEO for your design business (and we’ll have more later), we understand that it’s easy to become overloaded with information. On the other hand, if your interior design website is underperforming, it may well be that you’ve ignored this area of online marketing for too long already.Looking for more interior design marketing tips, trends, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today. And, if you need help developing or improving your SEO strategy, we can refer you to our favorite SEO Strategist!