8 Marketing tools for Interior Designers

In 2018, online marketing will be the number 1 way customers & clients will discover your business.

Using the right online marketing methods depends on what your business does, and how far along your business is established or ready to move on to a particular marketing method. If you're just starting out, Email Marketing & Google Adwords are the best methods to begin with. And if you're getting lots of traffic to your website, and your business is growing, doing regular SEO, blogging, and Social Media can compound your online marketing effectiveness.

Google Analytics

The first thing you should do before setting up any online marketing is to get a Google Analytics account hooked up to your website. This will help you track all data coming into and away from your website to see what marketing methods are most effective. One of the most important metrics to use is to track "Conversions" on your website, which means tracking how many people enter their email address, fill out a contact form, or place an order on your website.

Email Marketing

For most businesses, an email marketing campaign is the lowest hanging fruit for online marketing. Even if you only have 20 people on your email list, this is the best way to test out ideas with an audience and link people back to your website. Even if you just have a list of only friends & family, any email list is better than no email list. And, in my opinion, Mailchimp is the best email marketing tool for small businesses. If you don't have one yet, here is where to sign up for a free account: www.mailchimp.com

Google Adwords

Google Adwords can get expensive. And it is better for service-based businesses that sell more expensive services or service-related products. A good starting ad budget is about $300 per month on Adwords, or about $10 per day. Because Google.com is the number one website in the world, this is where most of the action is, even above Social Media. But if you sell inexpensive products, Google Adwords is usually not the right place for your business. Also, Google Adwords helps jump-start your SEO ranking, which will quickly boost the amount of people who visit your website through natural, unpaid keyword searches. Get an account set up at adwords.google.com and don't do the dumbed-down version called Adwords Express, which is a waste of money. 

Google Business

Just like Google Adwords & Search Console, the Google Business tool helps people find your business through a Google Search much faster. Google prioritizes businesses that give their phone number, address & website publicly, because Google wants to build personalized trust online and de-rank websites that seem anonymous. This tool is also free and easily helps your website rank higher in SEO. So setting this up is a must for businesses who want to be found more easily online. To get started, simply go to business.google.com

Yelp

Just like Google Business, Yelp helps give credibility to your business, especially through real customer reviews. Having a Yelp profile is free, and also helps you rank higher in Google SEO searches. In smaller cities, Yelp isn't as popular. But in major metropolitan areas like Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle & New York, Yelp is a trusted source for many online users. Even in smaller towns, setting up a Yelp page will still help establish you as a professional business and get you additional attention that your competition is likely missing out on. Get a free Yelp Business account at biz.yelp.com

Google Search Console (SEO)

This is a free tool that allows you to see what keywords are working best to capture people and bring them to your website. Once you start to get even a little bit of data from the Google Search Console, you can use this information to write blog posts specifically on topics that people are searching for. As you write new blog posts on those trending keywords, Google typically will bump you up even higher, giving you more insights into what people are typing into Google. And from there, the cycle continues. After about 3 months of doing this, I typically see the average business pull in around 500 visits per month to a client's website, and it typically grows steadily from there. So optimizing your SEO, keyword and blogging content can typically have long-term positive impacts for your business.

Blogging

A good blog does two things. First, it helps educate and inform your visitors about the expertise you have learned over many years and can share with others freely. You can tie all of your email newsletters, social media and other online marketing into your blog to regularly drive traffic back to your website. The second is to build a collection of valuable posts and pages that will be eventually indexed by Google to drive even more traffic to your business, which also helps your SEO ranking. While most of my Clients don't enjoy the idea of blogging, if you can write about topics that you are passionate about that you've learned over time about your own specific industry, eventually you'll find blogging to be much easier. Blogs don't have to be super long. They can be just 1 paragraph and a few bullet points. And not all blogs need to have images either. Blogging regularly can help you develop content for all of your other online marketing, so it's something that every business should think about and put together a plan to implement. Even just 1 blog post per week will be enough to build a lot of sustainable traction over time.

Social Media

Instagram
Right now, the most popular Social Media platform - especially for visual-based businesses like Interior Design, Photography, Art, Architecture & Custom Home Building - is Instagram. The big downside to this marketing method is that it typically requires regular posting, usually 4 times per week, Monday to Thursday, in order to be effective. Also, people on Social Media typically convert to clients & customers at very low rates. That's why it's crucial to have a strong on-boarding method that brings people from Instagram to your website and captures their email address quickly to later get them into your regular, weekly email newsletter. I only recommend Instagram for businesses that are prepared to take custom photos daily or have a staff person who can regularly put together graphics to keep their account up-to-date every single business day.

Facebook
Facebook recently downgraded their preference for showing Business pages because of widespread criticism. However, companies that are able to stay socially engaged and lead great conversations and community projects can do even better on Facebook than before. Facebook also gets ranked by Google for Reviews. So, in addition to Yelp & Google Business, this is an important part of SEO. For posting, it's likely best to post one very good, socially-oriented post per week on Facebook that will drive conversation with your followers. Avoid sales pitches, promotions, and posts that feel too business related.

Pinterest
In my opinion, Pinterest is one of the best places to grow your business over the long term - especially for visually-based businesses like interior design, custom furniture, artwork, photography, and custom homes. That is because Pinterest is less socially-oriented, and is more based around keyword searches and helping people "Pin" their visual ideas in a single place. While it can take a while to get traction on Pinterest, this can be an extremely effective long-term strategy that most businesses should keep on their radar once other online marketing methods are put in place.

Twitter
Twitter is primarily a place for people to keep up to date with news and very short, rapid-succession conversations. For this reason, it's typically not the best place to promote your business if you do things like Architecture, Interior Design, or Photography. However, if you keep up with the progress of your industry, especially if those topics are newsworthy, Twitter is a great place to help educate people who follow you on academic or news topics. For instance, if you are an Architect in Malibu, California, and the City of Malibu recently change the laws on residential architecture and zoning, Twitter would be a good place to post that sort of thing, as well as on your Blog & Email Newsletter.

 

Branding

The last thing to think about for your online marketing is to create a consistent and compelling branding message. What is your business about? How can your products & services solve your customer's problems? What information do you know in your industry that is going to greatly improve the lives of other people? If you keep your business's vision in mind and how to serve your customers well, then online marketing on Email Newsletters, Google Adwords, Blogging and Social Media will come more easily, and you'll see better long term results. Remember that most people will need anywhere between 5 and 15 impressions to your brand before they're ready to buy from you. So building a long-term online branding strategy is extremely important in order to create a healthy, stable business in 2018. 

Successful online marketing can only be done one step at a time. And doing all of these methods, or even some of them, all at once is going to be overwhelming for every business. So make sure to only choose 1 or 2 methods at a time that will bring the most Return On Investment for you. And, at some point, you're going to want to hire your own online marketing assistant to keep up with these things daily for you. Remember than online marketing is the best way to drive long-term sales. So a sustainable business will definitely want to plan to shoot towards doing all of these online marketing methods roughly over a 12 month timeline.

Best Fonts for Interior Designers

I am a big advocate of the font Futura, and I've been using it for my own business or over 8 years now.

Get access to the commercial license for Futura at: 

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/neufville/futura-nd/

What to tell your Interior Design photographer when taking photos for your website

This is a common question from my clients, and it's an important one. How do I get the right kinds of photos for my website? What should I tell my photographer? And how do I find the right photographer?

Here are 3 things to consider when hiring a photographer:

1
Don't expect to pay less than $800 USD for a good quality photographer.

Anything less than that is probably going to be an amateur or un-professional photographer. I've discovered this first-hand when hiring third-party photographers for my clients. It doesn't matter if you are in Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle or Dallas. Don't plan on spending less than $800 USD. Otherwise, you'll end up with photographs that you'll be disappointed with. On the other hand, paying over $2000 USD for a single one-day photoshoot also seems to be where there is no extra value-added for a photographer. A $2000 USD photography is going to be very high quality and professional. And, from my experience, a $3000 USD photographer isn't going to be much different unless there is a stylistic preference you have between the two. 

2
Photographers tend to be booked out 2 weeks in advance, and have a 2 week turnaround.
Meaning, the whole process will take roughly 1 month between hiring & getting the actual photos. A hard-working photographer will get this turn-around to be much shorter. I've done hundreds of photoshoots for clients in the past, and it can take me less than 1day to get the photos in my clients' hands. But some Photographers want to delete all the bad photos shoot, and find the top 10 images to present to you. A good photographer will submit to you 3-5 images as a sneak-peak so you're not anxiously waiting to see the final results.

3
The Photographer should be pro-active about choosing a location or background for your photoshoot.
However, you should also give the photographer a few example of the style you want to go for ahead of time so they know exactly what to shoot, and then can make some recommendations in terms of location or backdrops, or at least ask you some questions about the process at least a couple weeks before the shoot actually occurs. 

Here is what to tell your photographer about getting good photos for your website

I am always amazed at how few photographers actually know how to take good photos for a website. After all, websites are the most powerful and important marketing tools a business uses these days. But most photographers are stuck in the mindset of treating these pieces as a final piece of art, rather than a raw photograph that will later be used for brochures, websites or social medial. 

So here are 3 things you need to tell your Photographer when doing a photoshoot for your business website:

1
Get 50% Horizontal and 50% Vertical images
Websites, brochures and social media photos are mostly horizontal or Square in shape. Except, on mobile devices, Pinterest images, or tri-fold brochures, they need to be vertical. Therefore, let your Photographer know that you need both horizontal and vertical orientations of shoots, as much as possible. I am amazed at how many photographers only do Horizontal or only do Vertical when shooting. You need both. So be firm about letting your photographer know this. 

2
Lots and lots of white or blank space
This is another thing that bugs me about Photographers. Obviously, text is going to be overlayed over these images. Only on an Art website is the image a stand-alone. Virtually all websites & brochures overlay text on top of images. So make sure you ask your Photographers to allow for as much white space, or simple background, or simple compositions as possible so that these images actually look good on a website. Show your Photographer examples of ones you like so they understand. Most Photographers get this wrong. 

3
Don't have them touch up and crop the images afterwards
Another thing some Photographers do is crop, touch-up or alter images and often spend weeks doing this. The best thing to do is ask them to send you the Raw, un-touched images first, in high resolution, then narrow them down to your final selections. Photographers have this tendency of waiting as long as possible to get you the final images, or to play around with them in Photoshop for too long. Speed up the process and ask for the raw, un-edited, un-cropped, un-filtered photos they took from the photo session. They'll need to be altered for website use anyway, so that we can figure out the right layout & orientation of these photos for your website. 

How To Create Effective SEO Content For Your Interior Design Website

I hear a lot of business owners say something like, "My friend who used to do SEO five years ago told me I have to do this and that to get good SEO rankings." 

But the way SEO works today has changed dramatically, even in the last 1 or 2 years. Google prioritizes websites that provide good, helpful and powerful content, like blogging or PDF downloads. They prioritize websites that are mobile responsive, have a clean simple design, and websites that do not try to cram a bunch of keywords, text and tons of gimmicky tricks in order to get their website to rank high in a Google search. 

What has worked in the past no longer works today. In 2018, here are 4 important things you should be doing to create better SEO value for your website.

1

All of the text & images on your website should be extremely helpful, interesting, powerful, useful and compelling

Don't make a boring website. Make something that people will want to look at, that is beautiful, that they will understand what it is all about, and that they'll want to take a clear action once they get onto your website. Websites which are boring are places that people leave and forget about. Google ranks websites higher if they have interesting content that adds value to peoples' lives.

2

Blog on a regular basis about all of the incredible knowledge you have - Give good information away for free

Google loves it when you create valuable, helpful and expert advice to the public for free on very specific topics. As an expert in your industry, you are already equipped with the right knowledge about how to plan for your next custom home build, or the most popular venues for wedding photography in your area, or information on the highest-quality furniture lines for modernist interior design & decor. Create content where people will say, "Wow, this was extremely helpful" after reading your blog posts.

 

3

Use a simple platform like Squarespace that makes it easy to blog or update your content

Not only is Squarespace the easiest platform to blog and update content on your own, it's automatically mobile responsive, which Google Search loves to see. Get into the habit of updating your website and posting new blog content every week to keep your site up-to-date. When you use a good, easy-to-use platform like Squarespace, you get to spend more time on marketing and building your business through SEO. When you use a complicated platform like WordPress to promote your small business, your time will instead by wasted on trying to figure out how to create a new bog post, or worrying whether or not your website is even working at all.

4

Make sure your website is SSL or HTTPS secure

If your website is in Squarespace, this is an easy one because all you have to do is flip a switch and your website is secure. If your website is in WordPress, get ready for a nightmare. You'll likely have to spend hundreds to have a web developer make your website secure with an SSL certificate. Google ranks sites higher which are SSL secure and mobile responsive.

There is a lot more to SEO that just these 4 items. But SEO is much more simple than it used to be. Today, focus on building a beautiful & helpful website, and over time the natural views from Google Search will show up. SEO is about building a helpful online business, not on sneaky tricks or obscure techonologies.

 

7 reasons why you should not use WordPress for your small business website

Every business owner knows about WordPress. And the entire web development industry loves WordPress. The problem is that WordPress is just terrible for small businesses. It's complicated to set up, it's expensive to maintain, and it's a huge headache to keep worrying about. 

Over half of my clients come to me after they've lived through the nightmare of working with WordPress. They're ready for a change, but not really sure if there is a better option. Fortunately, I've worked with over 600 businesses creating a new website, and the ones that have gone with Squarespace have ended up being the happiest, most successful and most productive with their website and with their business. Instead of worrying about code, maintenance and getting hacked, business owners can focus on marketing, sales and growing their company.

For this reason, 3 years ago I decided I would no longer work with WordPress. I now only design and maintain Squarespace websites for my clients. I believe it is the right thing to do for small and medium-sized businesses. It's just good for business. And here is why: 
 

1
WordPress Developers will drive you down a dark path of coding & customization
Wordpress people love code and researching and all the crazy things you can do with a website. The problem is that you run a business, not a technology experiment. WordPress Developers will make your project too complicated, take too long, and cost too much money.

2
WordPress is too expensive to manage
Once you get your website up in WordPress, get ready for a world of hurt. WordPress sites often break down every 3 months or so. They need to be constantly fixed and updated as online technology changes. Be prepared to hire multiple WordPress developers over the next two years to fix up your site until you get to the point where you're so burnt out, you hate the idea of having a website altogether.

3
You won't be able to edit on your own without a ton of training
I'm a website designer & developer, and even I get frustrated and confused with WordPress. That's because it was not designed with Clients or Business people in mind. It was made for coders. The backend of WordPress is so confusing, so annoying and frustrating, that all my clients refuse to attempt to edit it on their own after their first few attempts. WordPress is not user-friendly to Clients, no matter what any WordPress developer claims. WordPress might be fun to play around with for coders, but it is not fun for business owners.

4
WordPress breaks down too frequently
WordPress is designed so loosely, that all the pieces, plugins and technology fall apart constantly. You'll need to hire a WordPress developer on a roughly 1-3 month basis just to make sure it's all still working properly. And this can often cost anywhere between $300 and $1000 per 3 months just to make sure all is working well. And that's not including any website changes, improvements or modifications as your business grows. WordPress is not cost-effective for small businesses when your gross revenue is less than $200,000 per year. Spend that money elsewhere on advertising, or other ways to automated and improve your business internally.

5
Hackers get into WordPress too easily
If your website is not being managed and updated on a monthly basis, get ready for someone from Russia to hack your website. Coders and hackers love to mess with WordPress to try and break your site to use it for their own purposes. For this reason alone, WordPress is a nightmare to deal with. 

6
WordPress is not the only platform that works well with SEO
A lot of WordPress developers claim that only WordPress works well with SEO. This may have been true 5 years ago, but it simply is not true anymore. Just about any web platform works well with SEO, and that is because Google prioritizes quality design, good blog posts, and helpful information higher than any sneaky tricks or techniques. Don't let a WordPress developer convince you otherwise. SEO is about good, quality blog posting and content creation - it's no longer about sneaky, weird coding hacks that only developers can figure out.

7
It's just bad for small business
For every reason mentioned above, and so much more, WordPress is bad for small business. It takes up your precious time, money and resources to make sure your site just does the bare minimum. So many of my clients come to me after 2 years of a WordPress site, desperate for a change, but unsure if something better is possible. Your website is the most important marketing tool for your business, so don't leave it in the hands of an unreliable and expensive CMS platform. Instead, you need a website which can stay online, without getting hacked, that looks beautiful, and is easy for you to manage and grow, so that it builds over time and becomes an invaluable asset to your business.

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Here's Why You Should Use Squarespace Instead

My clients love using Squarespace. It's not the only platform that works well, but it is definitely one of the best ones. I've designed over 400 websites with Squarespace - and my clients are amazed at how much easier it is to use than WordPress. My clients use Squarespace to blog on their own, make minor text edits and changes to images without having to contact me for every little change. Here are 5 reasons why Squarespace is superior over WordPress for small businesses:

• It's so easy to make minor text edits, photo changes & adding new blog posts - my clients love being able to use their website as a real business asset rather than a marketing tool that just sits on the internet, never to be updated without extensive help from a web developer

• Squarespace takes care of all the technology updates, so you don't have to worry about making sure it doesn't get hacked or making sure all of your plugins are constantly up to date

• The costs of maintaining and improving your Squarespace website are much lower in the long run than WordPress

• While Squarespace has fewer customization options than WordPress, the simplicity of the platform helps you to focus on what really matters

• SEO works just as well on Squarespace as any other platform

There are two reasons why you should do WordPress for your business, though. First, if you a large company that can afford complex customizations that run in the $20,000+ per year range, WordPress is a better option for you. Second, if you are a technology company which requires lots of customization for ecommerce, blogging, databases, or other complex functions, then WordPress is necessary. That's about it.

For small businesses, stick with Squarespace.

The Benefits of Using Squarespace For Your Interior Design Website

The first question my clients tackle is what platform their new website should be built in. This is a decision that often sets back business owners for several months as they research all of their options. WordPress and Shopify have typically been at the top of the list for most business owners in the last 3 years. And most web developers who focus on code like to push for WordPress because it has endless coding and customization possibilities.

I've designed over 600 websites for clients in the last 8 years. And I've seen how choosing the wrong platform can devastate your business. Often times, a bad website can actually kill your business. In 2018, your website is the most important marketing tool your business will use. So when you are constantly having to pay for website updates, or your website breaks, or is a constant headache, your run the risk of having your website be a liability. 

That's why I believe that Squarespace is the absolutely best platform for your business if you are a small or medium-sized business. That means, if you are a service-based business doing high-end services like interior design, architecture, photography, art, custom home building, or if you are an e-commerce website doing less than $100,000 in revenue per year, Squarespace is the best option for you. 

 

1
It's easy for you to quickly change text and images on your own.

Even my clients who are not computer savvy love how easy it is to edit their Squarespace website on their own. I'll even come back a couple years later to view their website to see that my clients have been blogging on their own, making simple text changes to their pages, and sometimes swapping out images on their owns. The easy of use for Squarespace is so enjoyable, that most solo entrepreneurs and small businesses take on the task of updating their website willingly. When challenging new changes are required, my clients will get in touch for help or to ask a quick question. But for the majority of the time, my clients are extremely pleased with just out enjoyable it is to maintain and manage their website on their own. 

 

2

Squarespace takes care of all the technology updates so you don't have to

Squarespace is on a roll making great updates to their platform in 2018. And when they release a new tool or feature on their website, it tends to work flawlessly. While Squarespace doesn't have every option in the world that a website can possibly do, it has all the main features you actually need to run a proper small business website.

This leaves my clients with having peace of mind that their site will still be working 2 years from now, with very few setbacks. Just like any other web platform or web hosting plan, Squarespace web hosting goes down several hours per year sporadically. But instead of having to pay a web developer to diagnose all the possible issues that might have risen with a platform like WordPress, Squarespace takes care of hosting & web technology issues automatically, usually resolved within hours.

3
The long term costs are lower than any other website platform

Because Squarespace takes care of all the features, updates and plugins, your long term costs on Squarespace are extremely low. The only time you'll be paying a developer or designer to make changes is when you need substantial changes made, such as lots of new pages, or a re-design, or need SEO integration. 

For a platform like WordPress, you'll end up paying a web developer every 3 months to do major diagnostics to make sure things are still working. And that can get incredibly expensive. Even more, when you need to add new pages, or hire an on-staff employee to make basic edits regularly, your costs are going to skyrocket.

Many businesses I have worked with that used WordPress in the past have deep emotional scars, leaving them weary of another website project. All businesses know they need a website to be relevant in 2018, but if you've had a WordPress site in the past, you know what I nightmare it is. But I can tell you with all certainty, you are not going to regret moving forward with a Squarespace website for your small or medium-sized business.

 

4
In 2 years from now, your Squarespace website will still be working flawlessly.

But your WordPress website would have already broken a few times. I've had clients on Squarespace for over 5-years straight, and their websites are still going strong. For WordPress, that is unheard of. WordPress websites break down, they need to be watched carefully. Every time WordPress does a major update, you can expect to spend days trying to figure out where all the broken holes are.

The downsides to Squarespace

Yes, there are downsides to using Squarespace for your business, and here they are:

• If you do hundreds of thousands in ecommerce online sales, you do need a more complex platform like WordPress to further grow and optimize your website.

• If you require extremely complex and customized plugins for unique online tools, such as creating online interactive databases, multi-user logins or need a fully custom check-out experience, a platform like WordPress would be better. 

For any other business, I fully believe and have experienced with my hundreds of clients that Squarespace is the right platform for most businesses. But if you need to be absolutely certain before making a decision, get in touch with me today for a free consultation. I don't build sites in any platform other than Squarespace, so if I feel like it won't be the right platform for you, I'll absolutely let you know.

Important Marketing Tools for Interior Designers

Logo & Branding Design
A strong design presence tends to help a company establish themselves as a leader, competitor and helps your visitors take your brand more seriously if you have a sophisticate logo and overall branding concept. In addition, you need a clear marketing slogan and explanation of what your business offers. A confusing brand strategy while drive customers away, but a clear and concise marketing strategy can help grow your business quicker. This would include a logo design, font concepts, color concepts, business card design, and marketing slogan concepts which then can be used consistently on all of your marketing material. 
 

Website Design
In 2018, websites are the cornerstone to any business's marketing strategy. Your website needs to be flexible, easy to update, and to help keep your long-term web development costs down. After working with over 600 business in the last 8 years, I strongly believe that Squarespace is the best website platform for most small and medium-sized businesses. The only exception would be if you are an ecommerce business driving over $100,000 in revenue per year directly from your website. For everyone else, Squarespace allows my clients to easily blog on their own, and make simple text and image updates within minutes. For more substantial changes you to your website, Squarespace development costs are dramatically lower than other popular platforms like WordPress & Shopify. I am passionately opinionated about informing you on which website platform is the best for small businesses, because I want to see your online business succeed. 
 

Email Marketing
Emails are engaged with much more frequently than social media. People who sign up for an email list are more likely to be buyers, and are more likely to stick with your brand for several months after signing up. All businesses need, at some point, to develop a strong email marketing campaign. At the very least, when you get your website live, you should collect email addresses - even if you aren't ready to start sending out regular email newsletters. This way, when you finally have time to take that next step, you'll have lots of email address you can send your first email blasts to. The best way to capture email addresses through your website are when you offer something free, valuable and unique on your website. You want to encourage someone to enter their email address to get access to free content, rather than simply saying "Sign up for our newsletter" or "Get 10% off your first order." Most people that visit a website are "on the fence" when they first are looking for products and services. So offering some sort of free download or other free content in exchange for their email address helps give you a competitive edge over other firms that don't have a clear on-boarding strategy. I've seen this work extremely well for business-to-business websites over and over again.
 

SEO & Google Search
While most business owners have heard of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), the concept is really not as complex as people make it out to be. These days, Google Search algorithms tend to favor websites that regularly provide valuable, helpful, informative, and honest content. Most web developers are going to make this process sound highly complex and intimidating. But the truth is, if you create a weekly blog that continually contains valuable information that would greatly improve other peoples' lives, then there isn't much more you need to do in order to have successful SEO on your website. There are a few tips and tricks, but these days, valuable content is far more important than using "special website techniques" to get good traffic to your website. While SEO tends to be best for business to business that offer higher-end services or products, Social Media tends to work better for lower-end products that are business to consumer. For instance, a high-end technology consultant would do better with SEO marketing, while a local flower delivery service offering $49 bouquets would be better suited to focus on Social Media marketing.
 

Ongoing Marketing
Once each of the 4 main elements to your online marketing is established, the final step is maintain, grow and dominate your market online on a monthly basis. For my clients, I like to find the online marketing strategies that will likely work best for your business model. But in order for your website to be useful for your business, you must continue to maintain and grow all the different ways to bring new traffic to your website. This might include regular blog posts, email newsletters, more SEO integration, setting up a Yelp & Google Business page, asking previous customers to leave reviews on Yelp & Google Business, setting up Social Media accounts and doing regular posts, starting a Google Adwords or Facebook Ad campaign, or driving people to your website with business cards, flyers or brochures at your local office. There are many ways to drive traffic to your website, but you only want to select a few of them at first to ensure that your marketing strategy is paying off and gaining you new customers and clients. 

I encourage all of my clients to take this process one step at a time. First, by creating a logo & branding strategy, next is to build out an initial version of the website. Afterwards, if email marketing makes sense for your business, that will come next. And finally, SEO works great for most business-to-business websites. If not, you should continue to build and grow your online marketing strategy to reach more new customers each month. 

Get in touch about your website & online marketing needs

The best Call To Action phrases for Interior Designers

Your business website is just one tool to capture leads, yet it is often the most important tool to drive new business and establish your firm as a leader in your industry.

To capture leads on your website, focus your website content towards leading visitors to take the "next step," such as setting up an initial phone call consultation, allowing people to sign up for an email newsletter, or allowing visitors to send a quick message through your website. The easier and more clear these "call to actions" appear on your website, the more likely people will use them. 

Here are some of the best ways to capture leads on your website, and also techniques to avoid on your website:
 

4 ways you ruin chances of getting leads on your website

Offering no incentive to get in touch. Most business websites do not offer something helpful on their website that prove that your business has valuable information to offer. Instead of treating your website like a resume, informational catalog or merely a list of services, each page of your website should lead people to one, very easy action. A "call to action" button at the end of each page of your website can prevent web pages from being a dead-end. 

Using only a "Contact Us" or "Learn More" button. While most people are going to look for your "Contact" page, it is often the very last step people take once they already know they want to get in touch with you. For everyone else, your website needs to use much more than just a "Contact Us" link. The majority of your website buttons should focus on things that encourage a specific action, such as "Schedule A Phone Call" or "Sign Up for Our Free Online Class." These specific types of buttons are much more likely to be clicked on because they direct the visitor to take a clear action on your website. 

Not making your Call To Action button obvious. If people can't quickly find a button to click that will help them email you, call you, or fill out a simple form, they are very unlikely to do anything on your website. A clear "Get Started Now" button needs to be bigger than anything else on your website. It also needs to be a contrasting or bright color, and it needs to look like a rectangular or rounded button so people know exactly where to click and do it very quickly.

Requiring people to fill out super long forms. Almost no one wants to fill out a long form on your website. Long forms are typically done at the very end of a transaction, such as purchasing their items on your checkout page, or filling out a final form to prepare the drafting of an agreement. But when you are trying to capture new leads from your website, the shorter forms almost always work better than long forms. 

3 of the Best techniques to capture leads on your website

Offer something free. Offer something like a free PDF download with insightful information, or a free phone consultation, or a free online video lesson. Whatever it is that you offer, the free content should be focused on educating your visitors by focusing on how you can help make their business or personal life easier, more effective, and more productive.

Use language that doesn't require a commitment. Asking your visitors to buy something right away, or sign some sort of non-disclosure, or fill out a long form is almost always going to scare people away. Instead, your website should focus on language that shows that your process is simple and straightforward. There shouldn't be a Sale that is offered right away. Instead, use terms such as "No obligation" or "Take the first step" or "Try this out today." The more open and inviting your language sounds, the more likely people will follow along.

Capture email address. Probably the most effective tool you can use on a website is a simple "Sign Up" form. And the easiest sign-up forms only require a simple single email address field. Once you capture an email address, you can later collect more information like a direct message, or their Zip code, or other helpful pieces of information. You can use the email addresses you collect to follow up with an email newsletter. But keeping your forms to just an email address is the best way to ensure the maximum amount of people sign up on your website.

Your website is one of the best ways to help people take the "next step" in learning more about what you offer. But it is almost never the "final step." So don't allow your website to be a dead end. Each page on your website should be a simple invitation to slowly move along in the process of becoming more educated, by helping your visitor learn about their options, compare prices, and become informed about your industry.

The more fluidly you allow your website visitors to take small, easy steps through a clear process on your website, the more likely they'll convert into a paying Client or Customer.

Get in touch with your website design & marketing questions 

Should Interior Designers Have A Blog?

For most of my clients, blogging is hard, boring or unimportant.  But blogging can be one of the most effective tools to build your brand online. And it doesn't need to take much of your time. 

In fact, all you really need on your website is a simple blog, and about 5 or 10 minutes per week to write a single blog post. You don't have to publish it right away, and you can let it sit on your blog website as a "Draft" until you've refined it a few times. 


Here's why blogging is important for your business.

1. When a visitor views your website for the first time, they are more likely to see you as trustworthy if you have an interesting, engaging, fun or helpful business blog. A blog can quickly show you are actively involved in your field of expertise, especially if you are regularly writing every week or so.

2. Over time, you can build a lot of natural SEO value that Google will pick up. Even after just a few months of blogging, many of my clients see thousands of extra views per month simply from Google Searches that end up leading to their website through regular blogging. When you write about lots of different, specific topics related to your precise industry, it isn't too hard to show up high within hundreds of different keyword searches. Specific, niche markets have a lot of opportunity to be found on Google.

3. It's an important way to capture email addresses to build an email list. Over time, you'll have a much larger potential customer or client base because they've been at least somewhat engaged in the content you've provided. Companies with a blog that provide regular, valuable information are much more likely to see visitors sign up with their email through a website's "Call To Action."


Here's how to blog effectively.

1. Short blogs are okay. Even one or two paragraphs is plenty. Most people wont read the whole thing anyways. They'll simply skim. Over time, if your blogs get better and better, you'll more likely have a decent-sized group of people who are willing to read longer blog posts because you've slowly provided lots of small pieces of information over time. 

2. Your blogs should come from a place that you are passionate about. Blogs don't need to be boring. And they should not feel like a chore. Even if every blog post is not related directly to the products or services you offer, your blog posts should contain topics that excite you enough that you feel motivate to write about and share them with other people. 

3. Blog posts should provide valuable, helpful and important information. Most people think of blogs as places where weird people express their bizarre or obnoxious opinions. But it can also be a place where other peoples' lives are improved, because you are spending time to share valuable information that you've learned from your own life experiences. And people all over the world are truly hurting because of lack of proper educational content, and lacking the proper tools to live life well. Your blog has great potential to actually make the world a better place by writing about things you deeply believe are helpful to others. 

4. Get in the habit of writing & practice regularly. No blog post is perfect, no blog needs to be perfect, and writing over time is simply a skill you'll always get better at. But don't be afraid that your writing won't ever be turned into a published book or novel. What's great about publishing on the internet is that you can always go back and make edits later. So get something up, publish it, and come back later and edit the blog post to improve it over time. Most likely, very few people will read the first posts anyways. But at the least, you can use the internet as an opportunity to learn how to write and get your writing in front of new eyes. 

Build an online marketing presence that helps grow your business.

How To Create A Great Logo For Your Interior Design Business

After designing hundreds of logos for clients, I've seen the process of taking a client's ideas, creating a logo, and then seeing it go on their website, flyers, and signage. 

The more your business grows, the more you will be using your logo on just about everything. So getting the logo design process wrong early in your business' growth can end up being a huge, costly mistake.

Here are some important principles to think about when getting your logo designed:

1. Your logo should form a rough rectangular shape.
This one is important, because it determines how your logo will be printed onto spaces. Most signage, or clothing tags, or social media images require a square or rectangular space. If your logo is an awkward shape, it will take up unnecessary white space that will cause your logo to appear small and unevenly placed. The close to a square or rectangular shape your logo can be, the more places it will be able to fit into nicely. 

2. Your logo should not be too thin.
This is important for signage, printing, and even web use. An ultra thin logo, or details that are very thin, will not translate well in a variety of print and digital settings. It's typically better to err on the side of thick, but elegance can often be part of a brand. So default on the side of medium to thick fonts when possible. 

3. Your logo should be as simple as possible.
This also has to do with the practicality of printing your logo down the road. If you print your logo on clothing, or signage, or other physical materials, the more complex your logo is, the more difficult and expensive it will be to print your logo. I've seen this costly mistake before with clients who really wanted an intricate logo, only to find later that the pattern makers, printers, and signage manufacturers could not replicate the design without extensive testing and expenses. The take away here is that you do not need a fancy, complex logo. Simple, in almost every aspect, is better.

4. Your logo does not need to have color.
These days, I have a lot of clients who really appreciate the minimalist aesthetic that so many companies use. Black, grey and white tend to be favorites, even when choosing car colors, smart phones, or home decor. The same should go for your logo. The more monochrome your logo is, the more likely you'll be able to pair it with branding you do down the road. Often times, color trends come and go very quickly. In some seasons, Navy and Turquoise are popular. In others, a ruby red or forest green is popular. But the classics of black, white, grey and gold never go out of style. Stick with a color that works, and go with a more neutral option.

5. Your logo does not need to have an "icon" or picture associated with it.
While it is nice to have some kind of icon or graphic associated with your logo, it's really not necessary. There are only a few iconic brands who have "icons" that are culturally recognizable, like Target, Apple and Starbucks. But even brands like Walmart, which uses a yellow starburst icon, is not culturally recognizable. But the company name is. The most important aspect of your logo is your brand name, not the icon. So instead of trying to develop a fancy icon for your busy, focus on a brand name that is easy to say, spell and remember. That is far more important.

Does Squarespace Work Well For Interior Designers?

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Squarespace works perfect for creative businesses that need to showcase their photography and work in a clean, professional way. Interior Design is one of the best industries that work well on Squarespace, because interior designers primarily need to showcase their Portfolio images in galleries, and generally only need a simple Services page, Blog, About, Contact, and Home page. And that is exactly how Squarespace is intent to work. 

I've designed over 50 websites for Interior Designers on Squarepace. And my clients absolutely love how easy it is for them to add new projects, images, and write text on their website. And blogging is incredibly simple on Squarespace as well, which motivates my clients by allowing them to post their ideas, latest projects, and advice to their own customers & clients at any time, on their own schedule.

Below are a few examples of interior design websites I have designed for clients. Because Squarespace is such a client-friendly platform, many of these interior designers have been able to manage and grow their online website marketing on their own, without needing to contact me or another website designer for simple changes. 

Get pricing for your interior design website

Which Squarespace Template To Use For Your Interior Design Business

Squarespace offers a ton of templates to choose from. But for the most part, they all do roughly the same thing except for just a handful. 

Since designing over 400 websites with Squarespace for all kinds of businesses, I've used just about every Squarespace template they offer. 

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Best Squarespace template for Blogging

My favorite template for blogging is the Five template. Five has a very classic, simple blogging layout, with the ability to have a side column on the left or right. Most other Squarespace templates do not offer a side column at all, so Five is really the only option if you want a traditional blog layout with a right-hand column. 

View the Five template here: https://five-demo.squarespace.com/

 

Best Squarespace template for Portfolios

My favorite non-ecommerce template is Pacific. It's one of their older templates, but it works great for full-width images, and yet is still flexible for other styles like full-width galleries, or simple text pages. It's versatile yet simple. 

View the Pacific template here: https://pacific-demo.squarespace.com

Best Squarespace templates for Ecommerce

For all other businesses, I recommend that you look at their Online Store templates. These tend to be the most up-to-date templates with the most features. The newer Squarespace templates have a Shopping Cart icon integration with customer Accounts, and search bars at the top right. They also allow for Quick Views for ecommerce product searching, and have a ton of design customization that can be easily customized with their Style Editor. In terms of choosing the design, I recommend you pick the layout that you like best, as they all roughly have the same features and can be more easily customized than any other template, so you shouldn't have to worry about picking the "right" one, since elements can easily be moved around with their Style Editor tool.

View all the Online Store ecommerce templates here: https://www.squarespace.com/templates/online-stores

Is Squarespace A Good Platform For Interior Designers?

I've designed numerous of websites for Architects on Squarespace, and they have all been extremely successful. 

First, the aesthetic of Squarespace is perfect for architects. It's clean, minimalist, and has an architectural feel. 

Second, most architecture forms only need the ability to post images, text, and PDF documents for blueprints or printable catalogs of their work, all of which Squarespace does extremely well with.

Third, it is incredible easy to add new projects to. As a new project is complete, simply hire a decent photographer to document the final product, and upload the new project to the website. Squarespace is easier to manage than a Mircosoft Word document. 

Below, are select projects I have built for architects and home builders with Squarespace. These projects have been some of my most successful and enjoyable work to date. 

To help you get started, I offer Squarespace courses to help you or an employee build the site from scratch. Or, you can have a fully custom project built by myself personally. Simply get in touch with me here.

Sign up to take the first 5 courses free here.

Should Interior Designers use Squarespace, Wix, Shopify or WordPress for their website?

I've been designing websites for clients professionally since 2010, and over 600 websites in my entire career. I have tried just about every platform their is.  In 2010, the big thing that all my Clients wanted to have was an "Adobe Flash" website - but just a few months later, Apple announced they were no longer going to support Flash. So I knew I needed to start looking for another way to build sites. 

WordPress has always been a platform known by people, even those who aren't tech-savvy have heard the term. I spent about 6 months trying to learn WordPress, but got burnt out by the endless amount of learning needed, so I outsourced to a WordPress developer.

WordPress is a nightmare for anyone that is not obsessed with coding. Personally, I like design. I like start businesses, and doing marketing and coming up with ideas. But learning WordPress sucks up all your time. 

After 2 years of doing WordPress for countless clients, I would get emails and phone calls from my Clients saying they were frustrated with trying to make small edits on their own, or that their site crashed, or was hacked, or some other major frustration. With such a low, long-term success rate with WordPress, I was reluctant to keep working with it.

In my opinion, Shopify isn't any better. It's still a do-it-yourself web developer kit that requires coding, a lot of focus, and a huge time investment. 

In 2013, I finally tried out Squarespace. Over the past 4 years, they've very slowly made improvements to the site to add more features. Squarespace claims that their tools are easy to use. And in terms of doing quality Website design work, I think they do have the easiest-to-use platform. But there is still so much to learn with Web Design, no one who doesn't do this full-time can learn it all, unless they get some serious help from a professional web designer.

But 5 years later, I have clients who have Squarespace websites that are still using it to this day. They can edit their blog on their own, change out text and images, and make other basic alterations without having to sit down and make it this huge all-day process. 

Every web developer has their opinions, and you'll get advertising and marketing advise from all sorts of people who will say WordPress is best for this, or Shopify is best for that. 

But, in short, if you have less than $100,000 to spend on your website, and you are a small business, and need to manage your website on your own, or have an employee manage it for you, and you don't have the time or money to hire a huge web coding firm to do it all for you, then I highly recommend Squarespace as your website platform. 

This is coming from years of experience, working with hundreds of small, medium and large businesses, and seeing websites and businesses crash and burn, or greatly succeed. 

In 95% of the cases, I recommend you go with Squarespace if you are Small Business with a limited budget. Don't waste your money and time on other platforms that have thousands of tools, but will burn through your capital and test your patience. 

I hope this information is helpful as a staring point, but feel free to write me or leave a comment for more information.

And don't forget to sign up for my weekly blog on starting your own online business. 

Choosing The Right Name For Your Interior Design Business

My favorite stage of running a business is the start-up stage. It's the most exciting part of creating a business. But for many first-time business owners, it can be a bit frightening. But, to me, one of my favorite hobbies is starting a new business. 

Picking the right name for your business is easy. Start with just your own name.

You want something that people will remember. When I was in college, people always remembered my name Justin Page Wood, but only if I included my middle name "Page."  But if I only went by Justin Wood it was too generic, and no one ever remembered it.  So Justin Page Wood, as well as my initials 'JPW' were the right starting point for my business. Once I started using it in my emails or any documents, I suddenly found that strangers or people I hardly knew would easily remember my name, even calling me "JPW" or calling me "Justin Page Wood" as if my entire name was actually my first name. 

So when you are starting out, whatever you do, choosing your first name is the easiest way to go. If your name is unique, but not too hard to spell, then use that as a starting point. 

The other thing to think about is choosing a name that will allow you to do long term growth. For instance, a while back we chose the name "MW Textile Design" for my wife's business. The problem was that she started to move away from Textile Design altogether, so the name no longer made sense. You want your business name to be generic enough that it can work for all sorts of fields, and not corner yourself into a wall. At the same time, you want it to be easy to say, easy to spell, and easy to remember. 

Just think about if you were to tell people what your website address is. If you have to spell out each letter for them, or if it is confusing, or too easy to forget, especially if they were to type it into a browser, then you're going to get a lot of missed opportunities for new business. 

Overall, here are things to keep in mind:

• Don't make your business name too long, especially your web address. For instance: www.justinpagewoodminimalsitdesign.com is way too long.

• Try as much as possible to use simple, common words that are easy to say, spell and remember.

• Starting with your own personal name is always a good start, unless you've found that people have a hard time saying, spelling or remembering it.

• Don't be afraid to change your business name over the next few months. As you get established, you may find that your business name no longer works. If that is the case, feel free to change it quickly. 

What is the best kind of logo for your interior design business?

There's nothing worse than delaying the start-up of your business just because you do not have a logo ready. In my opinion, there is no need for you to design a logo or hire someone to make a logo when you are just getting started with your business and have no money saved up.

A professional logo design is going to run you somewhere around $200 to $2000 USD, depending on the logo designer. And if you are just getting your business started, there is literally no reason why you should take on that kind of expense. That money should be going towards other things that will actually bring you income later on. 

To get started, there are some really easy ways around getting a logo for your business:

1. My favorite is just to pick a nice font, space out the letters a bit, and stick with that for the first few months. My favorite fonts are Futura Book for a minimalist aesthetic, which is what I use for my own businesses, or Garamond for a more classic look.

2. Find a logo building tool online like Squarespace's Logo Maker. I believe it is only $10 to purchase once you build your own logo online, and tool is pretty simple to use. 

3. Find a premade logo on a platform like Etsy. You simply find a design you like, and a designer will put together the logo files for you, like PNG, AI, and JPG files for your reference. Simply go to Etsy.com and search for a keyword like "premade logo" and you'll find thousands of options. 

Once you establish yourself as a business, making enough income per month to justify the cost, you can then hire a logo designer to make something custom for you. At that point, spending $200 or $500 or even $1000 might make financial sense. But when you are just getting started, avoid spending money on things that really won't convert towards getting new sales or new customers.