In today’s tech-savvy and internet-driven marketplace, having a reliable website is crucial to your success as an e-designer.
Your website is the place where your potential clients will first meet you, your brand, your work, and your style- and who is going to hire an interior designer with a mess of a website? Nobody…
So it’s important to make a great first impression on the web. But you didn’t learn web design in your interior design classes!? Don’t panic; we’ve got your back. Here’s what you need to do to create a killer interior design website:
1) Choose a Website Builder:
If you don’t already have a website, check out some of these easy-to-use, template driven website builders. Be sure the platform you choose is in-line with your computer knowledge, embodies your style, showcases your work, loads quickly, and is compatible with mobile devices. There are tons out there, but here are a few you may want to check out:
· WordPress (we started with this)
· Wix
· Jimdo
· Weebly
2) Plan Your Content:
Consider the layout of your website and in the information you share on it as carefully as you would a floor-plansor inspiration board for a client. Create an outline of the pages you’d like to have on your site, keywords, what each page will say, your drop down menus, etc. Here are the pages we recommend as must-haves for any interior design website and a quick tip or two for each:
· Home Page – Grab their attention with stunning images
· “About” – Make your bio professional, yet personal.
· Services- Outline which services you provide for clients, big and small. From space-planning consults to full-service design and everything in between.
· Portfolio- Build it wisely and check out our article ((INSERT LINK–what makes a great interior design portfolio”
· Testimonials/Press- this is where you prove your credibility as a designer, so share any testimonials or press/blog coverage you have.
· Contact- be sure your site makes contacting you easy via a short, sweet, and simple form. You can get all the details later- for now you just want to capture their basic contact information!
· Blog- You may not be ready to start a blog yet, but the sooner the better! Check out this blog to learn why this is an interior design website step you can’t afford to skip; The Importance of Blogging for InteriorDesigners.
3) Start Designing:
Obviously this will be your favorite part! Stay true to your identity and style, and carefully choose your fonts, backgrounds, and images by following these rules of thumb:
· Use solid background colors, so visitors are not distracted from the main point- your work!
· Avoid overdoing it with decorative fonts. Make the font stylish, but easy to read.
· Keep navigation simple. You don’t need tons of drop-downs and pages. Remember the point is to showcase your work, highlight your brand/personality, and capture the lead. Too many navigation options will distract from that.
· Use impressive visuals! Professional photos of spaces you’ve worked on are great, but if you don’t have them, that’s ok. You can create 3D Interior Design Boards quicker and easier than you might think and use them to create beautiful visuals for your site.
4) Make It Discoverable:
When filling out the information on your site and adding images or graphics, consider the following carefully. These are factors that will impact your SEO (search engine optimization):
· Page Title/Title Tag- this is the title of the page in your source code, will show up in search results, and are used byGoogle and other search engines.
· The Meta description- this is that little paragraph that shows up under your page title in google results. Be sure it succinctly and accurate describes what people will find on your site.
· Alt tags- every time you save a graphic/image for your site, be sure the raw file is named/saved with your keyword. Be sure to also add that keyword to the alt tag when you upload it to your site- don’t panic, website builders like the ones we named above make this super easy.
· Share it on social media! The more your website, images, and blog content are being shared on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and especially Instagram.
And there you go, the basic steps and best practices to building an interior design website that will help you attract and convert clients to grow your business!
Once you’ve got your site set up, it’s time to take the nextstep and improve your portfolio with Photoshop for Interior Designers and start marketing your business with beautiful looking designs.
To your great success!