Rank on page one of google: SEO for interior designers

In this article, we get your website to rank on page one of google. Read on for more…

When you first set up your own interior design business, it can be an exciting time. You get a sparkly new website and you prepare yourself for a barrage of customers, all keen for you to redesign their dream home. And then… crickets. Nada. Nothing. You monitor your website stats and… you get a few hits (probably your mum) but nothing much else.

The problem? No-one knows your website exists!

(Apart from your mum).

You see, if your website doesn’t rank on page one of google, you’re not going to get ANYONE visiting your website.

And zero website traffic= zero customers= zero chance of you buying those Jimmy Choos you’ve had your eyes on, anytime soon.

But, my friend, there is a solution. And that solution is learning how to use Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO as we call it for short to get your website to rank on page one of google.

Why you need to rank on page one of google

Unless you’ve been living on a remote desert island for the past 20 years, you’ll know that when someone needs to find something, the first place they look is google. And of course this means that when your potential customers need an interior designer, the first place they look is, yep, you guessed it, google.

But the thing about google is that it returns so many results, and the algorithm is so good, that the solution your potential customer is looking for usually appears on page one. So with their needs met on the first page, there’s no need to click through to page two.

And as for page three, four and five?

Forget it!

Pages two onwards are like the graveyard of ‘didn’t quite make it’ websites. The sorry losers. Those with no visitors.

And so, if you google some search terms related to your business, and everyone and their dog appears -except you- you need to listen up!

How to rank on page one of google

So let’s dive into a few strategies for getting your website to rank on page one of google:

(1) Keywords: The Secret SEO Sauce to Rank on Page One of Google

The main strategy to get onto page one of google is to use what are known as “keywords” in your blog posts. A key word is basically a word that your customer is going to be searching for on google, to find a business like yours. In your case, for example “interior designers Lincoln” (or wherever you live).

Now you’ll notice that my keyword here is actually more than one word. It’s a short phrase. This is known as a long tail keyword and it’s the secret sauce to getting your site to rank on page one of google. If there’s one strategy you’re going to use for SEO, let this be it!

The more that word appears in the text of your blog post, the more that google will think your article is a relevant search result for that person, and the more likely it is to show your blog post on page one of google.

So which are the best keywords to rank on page one of google?

The best keywords to use are the words that your potential customers are searching for on google. As we said above, they may search for “interior designers <insert your local area>” but often people search for other related terms too, especially if they haven’t yet considered hiring an interior designer. So you may want to use keywords like “small bathroom decorating ideas” or “how to arrange an L shaped room”. What is your customer looking for? What problems is she googling that your service solves?

There are different ways that you can find out what the best keywords are. If you begin to type your keyword into the google search bar, it will show you what other people are searching for, as suggestions. This is a good starting point. You can also use google keyword planner, which is a free tool within Google AdWords. You have to give Google your credit card details to use the service, but it is free. Or you can just download my freebie below.

Once I have my keywords, what do I do with them?

You need to make sure that your long tail keyword is in your post’s URL. For the blog post you are reading right now, my long tail keyword is “rank on page one of google” and so if you look at the URL it’s https://www.thehomedesignschool.com/rank-on-page-one-of-google/
Your blog title needs to contain your keyword
Pick 3 or 4 subheadings related to your main blog title, and use the keyword in each subtitle
Use your keyword in the opening paragraph of your text.
Repeat your keyword as many times as possible throughout your text (without sounding like a parrot stuck on repeat, of course).

(2) Size really does matter!

Aside from keyword rich text, the amount of text you use in your post matters too.

Longer blog posts tend to get ranked higher on google than shorter blog posts, because the content is more likely to be content rich, and of real use to people. Short posts are often seen as click bait, and they drop to the bottom of the ranking. Aim to write a minimum of 300 words.
Your main blog title should have fewer than 70 characters
Keep each sentence to under 20 words
Keep your paragraphs to fewer than 150 words. Long bodies of text are difficult to read, so make sure you break them up with subheadings, bold text and italics.

So keep your blog posts longer but your sentences and paragraphs short.

(3) Optimise your images to rank on page one of google

When you use images in your blog posts, make sure that you rename them using your keyword before you upload them to your site. So instead of naming it blogpostimage3.jpeg, make sure that you name it with your keyword e.g. rank-on-page-one-of-google.jpeg

When you upload your images to your website, you are given the option to add in Alt Text. Again, type your long tail keyword into the alt text field, to help those google bots to work out what your site is all about.

(4) Meta description

Somewhere on your site there will be an option to add a meta description to you site. Again, write a short description, that includes your long tail keyword.

(5) Create backlinks & internal links

The final tip is to get as many links as you can to your website, on other people’s sites. This tells google that you are a bona fide website, which is of interest to many other people. Ergo, you’re more likely to rank on page one of google. So contact suppliers and other local related industries to ask if they can put a link to your website, ask your local press if they can write an article about you and put a link on their site, and contact influencers in your field to ask if you can write a guest blog on their site, in return for a link back to your website.

You can also link to more content within your site, to help people stay on your site longer, and to reduce the bounce rate of your site.

So, every time you write a blog post, be sure to go through these SEO tips. Let’s get you ranking on google!