Deb Mitchell

From a pro copywriter’s point of view

If you feel in the dark when it comes to starting down the path of hiring someone to build a website for your interior design business, I can assure you you’re not alone. 

I talk to interior designers all the time who know it’s time for a new website but don’t know exactly what they need or where to begin. No one really teaches interior designers how to approach getting a new website for their businesses and most of them end up learning through trial and error (which can be costly and frustrating!). 

But I don’t want that for you. Working alongside website designers over the past decade, I’ve learned a lot about how to hire someone to build a website you’ll love. Here are four things I think you should know to help you make smart, informed decisions about hiring for your next website project!

1) The best creative agency in town might not be the best for you

Marketing for interior designers is incredibly complex. If your website people don’t understand the many nuances of the interior design industry and what your clients want to see in an interior design website, you’re likely to end up disappointed with what they give you. 

That’s why I’m a huge proponent of interior designers hiring support service providers in general and web designers specifically who are experts in the interior design industry

If you’re looking at an agency, no matter how amazing they are, if they don’t have experience working with creative professionals at the very least if not interior designers, I suggest you move on. 

You’ll save yourself time, money, and headaches simply by using a web designer who understands the interior design industry. If you need help finding someone, I have a network of amazing designers I can recommend, so just reach out. 

2) Trying to save money by using a website template could backfire on you

There are, of course, a lot of factors that go into the cost of building a new website. One key factor is whether you hire a web designer to build your site from a predesigned template or to create it from scratch (i.e. a custom-coded website). 

Websites built from templates can be customized to an extent, but they have inherent limitations. They usually offer some predesigned options within the template to choose from, but if you want to be able to change everything to your specifications, you could run into problems.

Just like with customizing a home that’s already built, the changes you want might not be possible. And even if they are, it could end up costing you more to have your designer make those changes to the template’s coding than it would to have had your site built from scratch to your specifications in the first place. 

Simply put, a site that’s custom coded and built from scratch is going to offer you the most options and flexibility in appearance, layout, and functionality. When you go with a custom site, the options are only limited by your website pro’s creativity and coding abilities.

If price is the deciding factor for you, go into your project knowing you may not be able to have everything on your site exactly the way you’d prefer it to be. 

3) Copy largely leads the design

If you’ve never worked with a professional to build a site, you may not be aware that many website designers won’t even start working on your site’s design until you give them all of the copy.

Any good web designer understands that copy is crucial to the building of a new website. Some are happy to design your site using placeholder copy, then make any necessary changes to the layout and design once the actual copy is ready to place on the site.

But other designers prefer to let the copywriter lay the initial groundwork for the site’s design as they create the copy for each page and determine where headings, subheadings, body copy, etc. are needed. 

As a copywriter, I accommodate each web designer’s preferences and my client’s needs by creating a detailed sitemap/copy plan document before I begin writing the copy. If my client’s site has already been designed, I base this document on the new design and recommend only minimal changes if they’re needed to make the copy clear and effective. 

If the website has not yet been designed, I create the sitemap/copy plan document from scratch, providing complete initial ideation for the pages needed and the general layout of each page. The website designer can then take this document and make everything look amazing! 

(To learn when the best time is to bring a copywriter onto your website project, check out this post.)

4) You need someone on your website project to act as a strategist 

A huge source of frustration I hear from new clients is that their existing website and copy are too ‘vanilla.’

Aside from their photography, it looks and feels like it could belong to just about any interior designer. And let’s face it, if your website isn’t doing anything to differentiate you as unique and showcasing how you’re the perfect designer for your ideal clients, is it really helping you?

To get a website and copy that helps you stand out, you need someone on your project who’s more than just an implementer. You need someone who understands not only the many nuances of your industry, but also how to apply marketing strategies that will ‘soft sell’ your luxury services

Much many interior designers’ knowledge and understanding of new construction and renovation projects as well as furnishing and decorating perfectly equip them to advocate for the homeowner’s best interests, a copywriter who specializes in the interior design industry can help strategize your website’s design and functionality, as well as the copy. 

While that is admittedly something of a shameless plug for my copywriting services, it’s also true! Most website designers won’t really be able to weigh in on the exact copy you need, but an experienced copywriter is knowledgeable about the layout and design options available to you. 

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So, if you’re looking to get a new website (or even if you’re just revamping your existing site) and you want to start off on the right foot, keep these four tips in mind. Hiring the right people will save you from frustration and maximize your investment in your website. 

Are you in the process of hiring someone to build a website for you and need a copywriter who knows the ins and outs of the interior design world? I’ve had the pleasure of working with many talented and incredible designers and I’d love to create copy that gets you found by more of your ideal clients!

My services are designed to give you writing products that connect you with the people who sit right in the center of your target market—those “bullseye” clients you’ll love working with and who’ll view you as their superhero designer. Sounds good, right?

Reach out here to connect with me about your website project or click here to learn more about my services. 

 

Ugh! SEO. It’s so darn complicated. And overwhelming. And confusing. But you really do need it to help drive clients to your interior design website. As a copywriter, I’ve learned a few SEO tips for finding the right keywords. 

SEO TIP #1 What makes a keyword ‘right’? 

Finding the right keywords to try to rank for is the most important thing you can do to boost your SEO. 

In a nutshell, a keyword is ‘right’ if it checks off the following: 

√ It’s searched for fairly frequently 

√ There isn’t a lot of competition in the search results I’ll explain more in SEO TIP #3.

√ It matches up with what the people you want to attract are searching for I’ll explain this one in SEO TIP #2.

SEO TIP #2 Think like your ideal clients

Think about what your ultimate goal is in trying to rank (i.e. get on the first page of Google results) for a certain keyword. If it’s to be known for a certain design style, project type, etc. that’s fine. 

But I’m guessing that what you want most is to get more of your ideal clients (as in people who actually might hire you) to find your website. If that’s the case, this needs to be the primary focus of your SEO efforts.  

As I mentioned above, you want the keywords you choose to match up with what searchers (i.e. your ideal clients) are looking for.

To find those keywords, start by thinking about the exact words your ideal clients might type into the Google search bar when looking online for an interior designer (this is called ‘user intent’ or ‘search intent,’ which you can read more about here if you’re interested).

They’re most likely typing something like ‘interior designer [your location]’ or a variety of that query. 

Let me give you an example using my own business. I know that when looking for writing help for their interior design businesses, my ideal clients tend to search for things like:

Interior design copywriter 

Copywriter for interior designers

Website writer for interior designers

Interior design website copy 

Writing help for interior designers

Interior design blog writing

Let’s flip that over to thinking about your ideal clients. The majority of them probably aren’t looking to bring an interior designer in who isn’t within driving distance, so they’re probably searching for things like: 

Interior designer [your city, state]

[Your city] interior designer

Interior design firm in [your city]

Best interior designer [your city state] 

Even though it would be super cool if you ranked for something like “best interior designer” or “award-winning interior designer,” those phrases don’t match how people in your area search for a designer to hire for their upcoming project.

Focus on the kinds of keyword phrases you’d use if you were looking for a plumber (except you’ll use ‘interior designer,’ of course!) and you’re closing in on how your ideal clients search for you.  

SEO TIP #3 Play the keyword numbers game

In SEO #1, I mentioned keyword difficulty. Basically, this refers to how many other websites/webpages are targeting that keyword. 

When you search for something on Google, sometimes you’ll get only two or three pages of results and other times, you’ll get hundreds of results. If a keyword yields a ton of results AND those results are really good quality (meaning Google is giving people lots of the kind of thing they’re looking for), it’s probably going to be difficult to rank for. 

You can’t always determine the level of difficulty just by looking at the search results, though, which is where keyword research tools come in (I use Ubersuggest and Keywords Everywhere). 

Those tools show difficulty/competition as a percentage or out of 100. If a keyword has a 70% (70/100) difficulty or higher, that means a ton of websites are ahead of you in the rankings. 

Some might be paying to show up there and some may just have lots of content using that particular keyword (that’s why big corporations and media outlets often show up first for many keywords).

On the other hand, if it’s 30% (30/100) you’ve got a good chance of showing up on page one of the results. 

That said, a low difficulty score could be because no one’s searching with that keyword. 

I talked about this in SEO TIP #1, as well. The amount of searches using a particular keyword each month is called ‘search volume.’ 

You’d be surprised how many seemingly great keywords are totally useless because no one ever types them into Google! The only way of knowing whether a keyword has good search volume is to run it through a keyword research tool. 

Finding the right keywords to help your ideal clients find you can be challenging. If you find one that matches how those clients search for designers and has a high search volume and a low difficulty score), you’ve found the Holy Grail of keywords, my friend. 

You’re more likely to find a few with decent search volumes and medium-difficulty scores. Don’t hesitate to use them! They can work together to give you some good Google juice and get you found by more of your ideal clients. 

If you want help with your interior design website’s SEO, that’s part of my Full-Service Website Copywriting package. Give me a shout!

 

It’s not just what you say that stirs people. It’s the way that you say it.

– William Bernbach, American advertising executive

What is brand voice?

Technically, brand voice refers to the tone of a business’s communications. 

If we’re talking about written communications, the brand voice is essentially the voice people hear in their heads as they read. This voice can give a very specific impression of your brand. 

But I think it’s important to note that achieving that impression requires a bit of a complex communication equation: 

Your Tone + Your Word Choice + What You Talk About = Brand Voice

If this equation isn’t coming into play for your brand, you’re running the risk of either making the wrong impression OR not making any impression at all (yikes!). The potential negative effects aside, you’re missing out on an important opportunity to connect with your ideal clients. 

When I write for one of my clients, I consciously work to put this equation together to make sure we’re checking all the boxes on their brand voice. 

Brand voice types

If you do a search online for brand voice examples, you’ll come up with a lot of one-word results like ‘confident,’ ‘humorous,’ ‘friendly,’ etc. 

I actually don’t embrace this one-dimensional view for my clients. It just doesn’t go far enough toward creating a brand voice that’s unique to them and that’s just the right note to help their prospective clients trust them. 

Here’s how I approach it. First, interior designers need a brand voice that falls somewhere on the spectrum between ‘polished and professional’ and ‘warm and friendly.’ Exactly where you fall on that spectrum depends on the clients you’re looking to attract and your personality.

But I don’t stop there.

Next, I layer on top of that your personality and what your clients need you to emphasize in your in-person tone with them. 

After all, my goal is ultimately to make them feel like they already know, like, and trust you. The best way to do that is to use your brand voice to give them a taste of what you’re actually like in person. As with everything else, how much of your personality we infuse your brand voice with depends on the clientele you’re trying to attract.

Brand voice inspiration

When communicating to a client and the rest of the project team what your vision is for their design project, you rely in part on visuals. Drawings are important for getting everyone on the same page and for preserving your design intent along the way. 

In the same way, you need guideposts for your brand voice – examples of how it should sound, the degree of professionalism vs. warmth, how formal or casual, etc. 

For my clients, I use brand voice inspiration examples. I can envision exactly what the brand voice needs to be, but to help the client understand my vision, I pull together a handful of websites that strike specific parts of what I’m going for. 

Of course, since we’re developing a custom voice just for them, there’s not going to be any one brand that sounds just like my client. Instead, we take aspects of several – the polish of Brand X’s voice plus the charm of Brand Y’s with just a dash of Brand Z’s cheekiness, for example. It really helps them (and me!) hear the voice we’re after in their heads. 

Fine tuning – not reinventing 

I feel compelled to point out that it’s not usually a good idea to adopt a brand voice that’s utterly unlike you for the sake of trying to sound like something you’re not. Your interior design firm isn’t a huge corporation and you’re the face – and the mouthpiece – of your brand. 

You’re going to have to carry on your brand voice in emails, on calls, and in the media so you want your brand voice to feel like a natural fit for who you are authentically. 

Think of your brand voice more like a fine tuning of how you already speak, emphasizing some aspects while dialing others down a bit. 

Are you clear about what your brand voice should be? 

If not, you could be missing out on a foundational (and fun!) way to create connections with your ideal clients. It makes all of your brand communications feel more relational and sincere for everyone, and that’s always a good thing! 

For help developing your brand voice, check out my Brand Messaging Development service.

 

Studies show that brands consistently get better results (i.e. are effective in getting sales) from their marketing efforts if they’ve been careful to clearly communicate their intended message to their target audience. 

That means effective website copy is about more than just writing that sounds good. 

Effective marketing is about figuring out exactly what your ideal clients need to hear to get them to choose you over any other option available to them. 

But how do you do that? In my experience, most business owners are too close to their businesses so they can’t get perspective on what matters (and what doesn’t) in their brand communications. One minute, it all feels important; the next, it feels like there’s nothing worth saying at all!

The key is to work with someone who’s one step removed from your business to help you get everything about your business out of your head and to sift through it to find the gems that will make you stand out from the crowd and attract your ideal clients – i.e. your brand messaging. 

What is brand messaging?

I like to think of brand messaging as talking points about your business to use as building blocks for all your marketing communications. 

Brand messaging can include a number of different pieces depending on who you work with, but the focus should be on understanding your ideal clients and developing language around your unique value. 

I give my clients brand messaging reports that include things like…

• An analysis of their ideal clients, what they care about, and what makes my client the perfect designer for them
• Their brand values (the ones that matter to their ideal clients)
• Describing vocabulary for their aesthetic and the service experience they provide for their clients
• Their positioning statement
• Their key differentiators
• Statements that express their unique point of view on design, the home, serving their clients, etc.
• Their brand voice
• Short pieces of copy that bring all of those elements together to address things like the value of their service offerings, their process, their background, their team, etc.

Developing strategic messaging around all of these elements of my clients’ brands serves two important purposes: It allows us to get on the same page about how we should portray their brand in their website copy and it gives them well-thought-out, expertly written messaging they and their team members can use to communicate about their brands in writing (emails and other client-facing materials) and verbally (discovery calls, media interviews, etc.)

Brand messaging first, then website copy

I hate to start writing anything with nothing but a blank screen. It’s virtually impossible to come up with what to write on the fly like that! I want something already there to use as a jumping-off point that gets me headed in the right direction. 

And my clients’ website copy is such an important part of their marketing. I don’t want to just write copy that sounds good but doesn’t really do anything to differentiate them from other designers. 

By thinking through the most important talking points about my clients’ brands and determining how best to say them upfront, I have all the ingredients in place when I start writing their website copy (or anything else for their businesses, for that matter). 

Having already made all the hard decisions with my clients about what needs to be said and how to say it reassures us both about where we’re headed with their copy. Even better, it ultimately makes the copywriting portion of their project relatively easy with fewer revisions and less frustration for everyone involved!

Fringe benefits

As it happens, working through the process of developing their brand messaging gives my clients more than just effective website copy. 

It gives them clarity about themselves, their clients, and their work. Just getting everything out of their heads and talking it all through together is almost therapeutic in a way. And because I understand the interior design industry, I’m able to give them perspectives they’ve never been able to get on their own, including what makes them super special and unique as a designer. 

A by-product of this clarity is confidence. Not only does their brand messaging allow them to see themselves and their businesses in a new light; it also gives them language for it all – language they know is on point and right for where they want their businesses to go. It’s like walking into the party in a killer new dress that makes them look amazing! They’re ready to talk to anyone and everyone about their brand. Bring on the new prospects, please!

Now how does that sound? If you feel stuck in your head about your interior design business and are craving a change in perspective that lets you communicate with prospects and clients clearly and confidently – whether you need new website copy or not – you can learn more about my Brand Messaging Development service here. 

 

So many designers ask me this question. They wonder if it matters to anyone whether they have a full bio or just a couple of lines, detailed service descriptions or just a high-level overview, not to mention descriptions for every project in their portfolio. 

If people aren’t going to read it, why invest in it, right?

As a copywriter, I’m admittedly biased. But if you’re wondering whether it’s worth it to have more than the bare minimum of copy on your site, here’s a little food for thought. 

Google likes (and rewards) copy.

Ultimately, Google and its all-powerful algorithm are working to provide the best information (i.e. search results) to searchers’ queries.

When someone types in a search for an interior designer in your area, the Google bots need to find evidence on your site to support that you’re a good match for that search. 

Yoast puts it this way, “When your text is longer, Google has more clues to determine what it is about.”

The higher the investment, the more people read.

Content writer, Nico Prins, says that when writing marketing copy for the web, if your product/service costs more than $20, if you can claim it solves a problem for your perfect match clients, if people wouldn’t likely make this purchase on a whim, and/or if you need to overcome objections or hesitations, you’re going to need more copy in order to effectively build trust with your prospects.

Hiring an interior designer is a big investment and a high-stakes decision. And while most prospects expect to get deeper information on a call with you or a team member, they’ll be much more inclined to schedule that call if they feel informed and comfortable with talking to you based on their experience on your website.

You can’t craft an experience with only a few words.

What I mean is how your prospect feels about their experience on your site. It’s the sum of all the parts of your site, but the copy plays a lead role in making people feel a certain way about you and your services.

Generally speaking, minimal copy just can’t convey enough about your business to get the job done. 

You just never know…

Your prospects are most likely to represent a variety of different decision-making processes. Some may be ready to reach out the moment they see your portfolio. Others may want more information before they take that step.

The truth is, the fast decision-makers are going to flip through your site rapidly no matter what. But anyone who needs to get more of a feel for who you are and what it’s like to work with you will be disinclined to schedule a call if they can’t get much of a handle on you based on your site. 

You just never know who’s going to visit your site and what they’ll want to skim vs. what they’ll want to read about more deeply. Cater to everyone’s needs by having sufficient copy to convey information and create an amazing experience, but not so much that it’s overwhelming. 

My bias aside, I think this is all worth considering if you’re thinking about getting a new website (or just new copy).  

Want to chat with me about how I give my clients awesome website copy? 

Schedule a call!

 

A prospect recently asked me what I mean by ‘website copy.’ It had never dawned on me before that, whether I call it ‘site copy,’ ‘web copy,’ ‘website copy,’ or just plain ‘copy,’ it falls in the category of industry-speak. And while some people may have a vague idea of what it means, it’s definitely not a word many people use regularly, if ever, which means it requires a little explanation.

Even though I answered her question easily enough, I felt horrible that I’d confused my prospect in the first place. I’d probably said the word at least 10 times up to that point, totally clueless that I was yammering on in writer-speak. 

But it got me thinking that even though she was gracious enough to ask, there are loads of other people who don’t know what I’m talking about, either.

So, let me see if I can clear up the confusion.

‘Website copy’ is the text on your website

Words. Paragraphs. Headings. It’s any and all written material on your site – all the elements that aren’t photographs, artwork, or graphics. 

Let me show you on an actual website homepage like this one from my amazing client, Katie Menon of Stephenson House Interiors.

When working with my clients under my Website Copy Package, I take responsibility for all of the elements like those shown on every page of their site. I even handle the text in the footer, client testimonials (I select which ones go on the site and edit them for length and clarity), text on the buttons leading to other pages on the site, image captions, etc. Generally speaking, the only text I don’t write are the copyright and attributions, which are typically the website designer’s territory. I even create the taglines and occasionally, a new business name (I LOVE coming up with those! So creative and fun!), which means my copywriting can appear in the logo, as well. 

It’s soup-to-nuts, floor-to-ceiling, full-service copywriting, baby!

So now you know! Copy is just the text on your site. Even though it’s a simple definition, that doesn’t mean it’s common knowledge. Note. To. Self. You can bet I’ll be making sure to clarify what website copy is right off the bat on calls with my prospective clients in the future!

Got any questions about copy, copywriting, brand messaging, or anything pertaining to marketing for your interior design biz? Reach out to me here!