As part of our State of Search study on West Georgia businesses’ online presence, we looked into the online presence of Interior Designers. As interior design is not a major local industry, but rather is a specialty profession, we did not commence a full study of the sector. However, our findings have been interesting, and apply to many other professional sectors.
In Google Places we were able to find a couple local interior designers, although there was not enough reviews on Places or any other site to get a feeling as to the quality of their offerings. We also searched specifically for Carrollton Interior Design firms, as well as for Villa Rica interior designers. What we found is that without using a very tight geographic search, such as with Google Places, that searchers revealed national results. Although the wealthiest among us could justify bringing in an interior designer from New York or Chicago, for most of us it is not a cost-effective, or even necessary, option.
We looked into traffic numbers on keywords related to the topic, and found interesting patterns. Of course, the term “interior designer” had a huge amount of national traffic. And, locally we even found a good amount of traffic for Atlanta interior designer and Atlanta interior designs. But, there was almost no traffic on state-wide searches, such as Georgia interior designs.
So what is a local interior design firm to do? They would have no chance of getting to the top of nationwide search results, and people aren’t searching for them in such great numbers locally. What strategy to implement?
We spoke with a West Georgia interior designer to hear her approach to marketing. She is Karen Hartley, based in Villa Rica. She told us what we have heard from many business owners, that her advertising and marketing dollars have slowly shifted over the years from the old printed mediums to the new digital mediums. And that in the transition there has been an absence of solid support and guidance on how to put her time, energy, and monies to good use.
An SEO professional would help her to approach her situation with the widest possible view. Without much thought on our parts, two simple solutions for her and other local businesses would be implementing an online content creation campaign with a huge base of long-tail keywords, and engaging locally via social media. To be done right, both would best be guided by a professional.
SEO is one of those fields, like interior design, where many novices think that they can apply some do-it-yourself energy and get results as good as a professional. It all looks so simple on the surface, and no one has ever officially declared it a skill that takes advance education or competency. There are no board examines for either field. When we look at the online presence of local interior designers, amongst others, it is crystal clear in our professional eyes that the do-it-yourself energy is impeding these firms from meeting their sales goals. Stay tuned for an article on do-it-yourself SEO, or DIYSEO, and how it is as effective as do-it-yourself surgery.
