The Furniture Industry and Its Online Visibility
Although fashion, trends and methods of finding inspirations are constantly changing, the furniture industry is still doing well. The development of this sector and the fact that people use the Internet to search for specific products and stores or to compare prices and shop online encourage furniture shop owners to take advantage of the SEO services. Keep reading today’s article to find out what are the characteristics of the industry and what to pay attention to.
The first things that come to mind when you think about the furniture industry are probably objects such as tables, chairs or desks which are used on a regular basis. However, the furniture industry we’re talking about today is a diverse market full of products. Due to the numerous competition, effective SEO activities and the fight for the highest positions in the search results are one of the most efficient methods of outdoing your rivals on the market.
How to plan your SEO strategy and what to pay special attention to while devising it? Keep reading to find out answers to these questions and learn about the characteristics of this market sector and its potential. We’ll also spill the beans and introduce you to the secrets of successful SEO for the furniture industry and various paths, such as local, international and long tail SEO, that you may follow.
SEO for the furniture industry – how to get down to it?
Local SEO in the furniture industry
Furniture shops offering products for local markets need to pay particular attention to SEO that takes into consideration their location. Moreover, it’s worth getting to know the preferences of your potential customers. Knowing what they’re looking for will help you tailor your offer and communication methods to their expectations.
The fact that people are becoming much more eager to buy furniture online is a clear signal that it’s beneficial to invest in doing effective SEO. The finest asset of local SEO is the fact that thanks to it, even a small company gets a chance to compete with the most important tycoons on the market.
Below you can see a few tips that will suggest you how to build an SEO strategy that will help you gain local customers:
- Local link building
Creating valuable content with links leading to your website is one of the first steps that you should take. Local catalogues, ad services and NAPs (Name, Address, Phone) will allow you to easily locate your company in the real and virtual world (website).
- Google My Business listing
Having a Google My Business listing will positively affect your online visibility. The possibility of including your company’s address on the Google maps will make it easier for users to search geographically. If you publish your content, photos and information regularly, it’ll help you do SEO for your listing so that it’s displayed in the search results much more frequently.
- Optimizing the website for local SEO
This step is always recommended by specialists. In the case of doing local SEO for the furniture industry, it’s essential to observe the activities of your local competition. Introducing changes regularly can help you get ahead of your rivals on the market. If you want to make sure that you’re better than your competition, choose appropriate local keywords such as product names with the name of the city or area.
Long-tail SEO in the furniture industry
Think about long-tail SEO if you wish to make your SEO activities even more effective. It’s a perfect solution for all online shops as thanks to it you can advertise specific products in a way that truly increases their conversion.
Long-tail SEO is about doing SEO for phrases that are very specific and don’t have so much competition.
In the furniture industry, customers who are determined and look for given products will eagerly buy them as soon as they find a company that offers their dream piece of furniture. People who only search for inspirations for designing their house will enter the website without making a transaction.
On the other hand, users who look for specific products will certainly take action. And you can achieve all of these thanks to being very precise and offering niche pieces of furniture. Exemplary long-tail phrases include designer dining room chairs or white bedside tables.
The furniture industry vs. international SEO
Manufacturers who want to go international should remember about a few very important principles. Sometimes, even the finest product may not be enough.
You’ll need good advertisements and activities that will draw customers’ attention to your furniture and that will make your offer stand out from the proposals of your market rivals.
Doing SEO to gain customers from abroad is all about details. Therefore, it’s worth paying attention to them before you start implementing your SEO strategy. Here are the most important tips:
- Country-specific domain
Having a country-specific domain can be very problematic when you decide to do SEO abroad. If you know that your target group lives in another country, it’s a good idea to obtain a domain characteristic for a given place.
Another possibility, which is much worse from the SEO point of view, are directories and subdomains. Any language version of your website shouldn’t be translated automatically. Stylistic mistakes can deter customers and make Google robots perceive your site as less valuable. Ensure that your content and all website elements (e.g. URLs, titles, meta descriptions) are translated professionally.
- A thorough analysis of the target market
Getting to know expectations of the customers and market you wish to enter will help you properly plan your SEO activities. This is particularly important when you know that companies operating abroad have been taking advantage of the SEO services for years (e.g. the United Kingdom). In this situation you need to be prepared for a greater competition.
- Choosing appropriate search engines to do SEO for
The Internet is not only about Google. Although this search engine is the most popular in many European countries, it doesn’t mean that it prevails everywhere. Among other well-known search engines we can distinguish Bing, Yahoo, Yandex or DuckDuckGo. Each of them has its own dedicated algorithms which directly affect the SEO process.
To find out more, go to one of our previous entries: Alternatives to Google – not so popular search engines.
Do you want to learn more about international SEO? Check out our guide: International SEO and online store sales strategy abroad.
The furniture industry – how to create content?
The furniture industry shouldn’t focus solely on graphics. Although it may seem that beautiful photos of aesthetically and stylishly arranged spaces can replace content, your communication should be supported by texts. Consider running a company blog as regularly published posts discussing current trends or intriguing architectural solutions may increase the number of phrases the website is displayed on.
Apart from graphic representations, the site should include product descriptions. Enable customer reviewing and rating to improve your UX and get some feedback. In your menu, you can also include tabs or subpages which will present realized designs and new furniture collections.
The furniture industry puts great emphasis on visual aspects, therefore, you should always complement your content with quality graphics. However, remember about a few rules concerning image optimization.
- Publish only these photos that were taken by you or that are intended for public use.
- The weight of your images really matters! Choose quality pictures but at the same time remember to make sure that they aren’t too big and don’t slow down the website loading time. Graphics should be professional and should refer to the products on the site.
- If there are any problems with loading the website, you may see the names of the graphics displayed instead of the photos. Thanks to it, users will know what the images are about. This can be done by setting appropriate Alt tags in the HTML code (for example, < img src=”table-night-white.jpg” alt=”night table in English style”>). Apart from that, Alt tags inform Google robots what is on the website and help to do SEO for the graphics, therefore, it’s worth including keywords in your image descriptions.
To sum up
It’s worth doing SEO regardless of whether you plan to sell in your home country or abroad. It’ll help you become more profitable and at the same time improve your brand recognition online. Both long-tail and local SEO should be conducted with a thorough care for details, however, the process needs to be preceded by a meticulous market analysis.
It’s also worth mentioning that both strategies can be implemented at the same time. Advertising campaigns perfectly complement SEO for the furniture industry. If you manage to successfully synchronize your strategies and ad campaigns, attracting new customers will be only a matter of time.
