Michelle Lynne 0:02
I welcome to design for the creative mind, a podcast for interior designers and creative entrepreneurs to run their business with purpose, efficiency and passion, because while every design is different, the process should remain the same. Prepare yourself for some good conversations with amazing guests, a dash of Jesus and a touch of the Woo, woo, and probably a swear word or two. If you're ready to stop trading your time for money and enjoy your interior design business, you are in the right place. I'm your host. Michelle Lynn, you
Michelle Lynne 0:48
Michelle, hey, hey, hey, y'all Michelle Lynn, back for another podcast episode today. We're talking about more marketing. We're on a roll here. I am your host. Michelle Lynn, I am the owner of ml interiors group, which is an award winning seven figure interior design firm in Dallas, Texas. So y'all, I talk the talk and walk the walk. I have been a mentor and business coach to small business owners in interior design for the past, oh, since 2018 and I serve designers who are stuck in the five figure revenue cycle and want to scale to multiple six figures without trading their time for money. So that's what we're doing here today. We're talking about marketing because I don't know about you, but my business slowed down quite a bit in 2024 and so I have been revisiting our marketing efforts, and want to share that with you so that you and your business can hopefully get some traction going into 2025 I hope we all do. I hope we all do. So just in case your business has slowed down, you are not alone. I've been talking to hundreds of designers, and it's currently a thing. So let's talk about today we're going to do five tips to show up in searches. We're talking about Google and the Google juice. So with all of the modern ways that you can market your interior design business, we're talking about social media, email lists. Last week we talked about your you know who you are, what you stand for, who you're talking to, and there's content strategy, like we're going to go into a lot of these things, but going back to good old fashioned Google searches, it still works. SEO is a long game, and it's a complicated, detailed strategy. Now I will say that there are agencies who focus solely on SEO, but until you can get a place to hire one, I've got some tips for you. Let's start by talking about your Google business profile. If you have not created a Google business profile, it's free, and it will literally put you on the map. The key to optimizing this profile is utilizing keywords that people are going to use to search for your services. When you are doing your social media, you should also be posting the same posts to your Google business profile. Is it? I mean it, that's that's just like bending time because you're already doing it for Instagram. You're posting it to Facebook at the same time you should be posting it to the Google business profile. And I'm going to tell you as a side note, I use side mark to do my social media, and you can post to Instagram, Facebook, Google business profile, you can post to LinkedIn, and you can post to Pinterest, which is completely different, but you can do all of that with just one post. Just just click and it and it goes to all of them. So my sidemark.com actually is going to take care of all of the marketing content that I am sharing with you this in this series, that is a that is a plug. I am a co founder of sidemark, and it is fabulous. Okay, so back to regularly scheduled programming. You want to post a couple times a week on your Google business profile. Add photos of your work to your profile. So if which is what you should be doing to your social media anyway, but what happens is, is that an active profile shows Google that you're alive, that your business is alive. You are an active business, and Google likes it when the person searching on the computer stays on Google, so set up your profile with a lot of information and then send that link to your clients to get reviews and then reply to the reviews. So that's your Google business profile website copy. Last week we were talking about. When you're marketing and you want to use your voice and talk to your ideal client profile, well, you need to be doing that in your website immediately. But you also have to take in mind that Google needs to, needs to read the words so your website should have keywords in its copy. Okay? Copy is the term that you use for the words that go on your website. It's called Copy. That's why you have copy writers when the time comes. I'm telling you, hiring a good copywriter is worth its weight in gold. So your website should have keywords in the copy, interior design, kitchen renovation, decorating like just the keywords to find an interior designer, an interior decorator in your area. It's not like the copy is not going to be award winning, but you're going to write it so that the Google bots know who you are and what your website is about. So don't get fancy. You just want Google to be able to Spider through your content, read your words and show you up in the searches. There are some keyword research tools if you're doing this yourself. One is called Answer the public what I think one is called Google Keyword Planner. And of course, there is the now infamous chat G, p, t, which is painless to use and pretty much free, so there's no excuse for you not to use it. Get out there, find your keywords and pepper them through your website copy and while you're on again, while you're on your like, this is all SEO like. This is just about your website, blog. The more active your website is, your ranking will go up. It's likely it doesn't mean, like, if you change something every day, that you're going to show up on the first page. But the more active your website is, again, it shows Google that your website is live writing key word rich blogs on a monthly basis, at least once a month. If you can do twice a month, Rock on. Do twice a month, and then make sure you're writing it in the proper format. You need to be using headers properly and all you know what, it's blogging for dummies. Just look it up, Google it. Just get the basics down. And then, when it's possible, link to other parts of your website inside the blog. Imagine trying to bake a cake without a recipe. You kind of know what the ingredients are, but you don't know how to put it all together. After lots of hard work and trying different combinations, all you are left with is a sticky situation and a stomach ache. Babe running an interior design business can feel exactly that same way. That is why I created the interior design business bakery. This is a program that teaches you how to bake your interior design business cake and eat it too. If you don't want to figure out the hard way and you want guidance to follow a recipe that has already been vetted, someone that has already been there and done it and will help you do it too, then check out the year long mentorship and coaching program, the interior design business bakery, if your interior design business revenue is below 300,000 or if you're struggling to make a profit and keep your sanity, this is the only program for you. You can find that information at designed for the creative mind.com. Forward slash business dash, bakery, check it out. You won't regret it.
Michelle Lynne 8:50
So in a perfect world, what happens is, is you're keeping people on your website by encouraging them to click over to another interesting area. So think about it, like when you go to Yahoo. Okay, so this is, I did this today. I went to Yahoo, and I don't know, I was reading something about some, I don't know, trashy celebrities or something. I was just taking a break. So let's just pretend it was the Kardashians. Okay, so you're reading something about the Kardashians, and don't hate me for just like, I don't watch the show, but I do like some good trashy, trashy news on Yahoo every so often. And by every so often, I mean like couple times a day. But anyway, so you're reading the article, right, and it, and then when you're reading it, it says it'll, it'll, it'll click through, and it'll say, see what she wore here, or whatever. Okay? Or see, see an image of their Christmas party or whatever here, I don't, there wasn't, it wasn't the Kardashians. I don't remember who I was reading about today, but I don't know, maybe it was the Duchess of Sussex. So, yeah, I do have a little trashy habit. But back to the story. So it's the same thing. So basically, what it does is it takes you from one art. Colon, People magazine.com to another article in The People magazine.com to another article of People magazine.com and what it's doing is it's giving people magazine.com the Google juice. So you want to do the same thing with your blog, to keep people on your site. The longer they're on your site, the more Google juice, you get another thing that you want to make sure that you put on your website, and it needs to be very clear in several areas, is where you work, like, what city are you in? And if you're the type of designer who wants to travel to other locations, that's fine, but they need to know at least where your home city is so that your home city people can find you. Make sure you're mentioning it like, Hey, if you're in the Dallas Fort Worth area and you're looking for an interior designer, we're your girl. Okay, you want to also make sure that you add this in your social media profiles. Y'all cannot believe I talk to a lot of you, a lot of designers, on a regular basis, or I interact with them, and I am shocked at how I cannot figure out where they're located. So if somebody schedules a call with me, I go and look at their Instagram. I just want to get a feel for them, and then I click through their website just to see a feel for them. And so many times there's no city, babe, where do you work? Okay, so make sure that's on your social media, and for the sake of this particular podcast episode, on your website. Now, here's a small it's a tiny but mighty tip is on your images, when you upload your photos, put a description on there. Okay, so instead of uploading 1234, dot, JPEG, jpg, put, instead of 1234, you're going to put, I don't know, vel green velvet sofa or living room, like warm, cozy living room, because Google does not know what your photos are unless you tell them so. But with that, it's if somebody's looking for a quote, unquote, white kitchen or a blue kitchen or a purple kitchen, or whatever you're going to improve your chances of showing up. Or if they're, going back to my example, if they're looking for that green velvet sofa or a warm, cozy living room or a, you know, open shelving, like whatever. So these, these small SEO steps, if you stack them on top of each other, it's going to get your Google juices going. Okay? It'll get Google juice. And it's something that you can do. You don't have to hire somebody to do this. But again, if this, if this type of content gets your juices flowing. A reminder, I mentioned it last week. I haven't mentioned it yet. Today is that we're having a master class, a marketing master class, starting on February 3. So you can go to designed for the creative mind.com design for the creative mind.com click on the workshops tab, and you'll see the marketing master class. Go register, you get a workbook. You get three days of free content. And actually, it's a secret, but we have two bonus days, so you actually get five days of content. And it's really great, but there's a lot of this, and we go into a lot of detail. So if you're interested, cruise on over there, get registered. So with that, y'all thanks for being here. Don't forget that being an entrepreneur can be difficult. We're all in the same boat, but I've got your back. I have got you back. We've got the podcast here. You can also join me in the interior designers business launch pad, which is a free Facebook group where I go live once a week there, and that's where we host our workshop as well. So come join me. Come to the work, come to the master class, February, 3, fourth and fifth, sixth and the seventh. So go out there and be great today. In fact, be great every day. Hey, y'all, if you love the show and find it useful, I would really appreciate it if you would share with your friends and followers, and if you like what you're hearing. Want to put a face with a name and get even more business advice, then join me in my Facebook group, the interior designers business launch pad. Yeah, I know it's Facebook, but just come on in for the training and then leave without scrolling your feet. It's fun. I promise you'll enjoy it. And finally, I hear it's good for business to get ratings on your podcast, so please drop yours on whatever platform you use to listen to this, we're all about community over competition, so let's work on elevating our industry one designer at a time. See you next time you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
