It’s the nature of online marketing that it is constantly changing. Perhaps the greatest reason for this is the billion or so human beings who are competing for attention online; whether other product and service providers or some kid seeking attention, they all influence how that attention is gotten. Because of this, SEO is also constantly changing but is not dead.The BasicsSEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is about the various tactics that can be used to try to influence the search engines in your favor – to gain their attention for your website, in other words.It is not magic, and it is not technically difficult. However, it can be a bit time consuming and requires diligence and patience. After all, when you try to get a mega influencer like Google to pay attention to your designer website, you must give them reasons to do so. Really cool videos or images, or a truly informative blog post is not enough. It takes a combination of all three, along with some behind-the-scenes hints to the granddaddy of search to get you there.High-value SEO HintsOf all the hints that will catch the eye of the search engines, those that you place within the images you publish are some of the most important. Within the code of every published image is a little something called “alt txt”. Within a blog post or on a page, the code for the image here might look something like this:<a href="http://www.joeswebsite.com/location/" rel="attachment wp-att-2603"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2603" src="http://www.joeswebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/7K0A0972-300x230.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="230" /></a>The critical area here is the bit that’s highlighted, alt="". This is the area within the code where you tell Google and the other SEs what the image is about. Simply type a very short description between the quotation marks and that becomes your “alternative text” for the image. Normally, this would be one of your targeted keywords.Do NOT use the word “kitchen” as your alt text. Rather, something more descriptive is required to catch the attention of the search engines. Using something like “contemporary kitchen design” would have far more value that the generic, singe word description, “kitchen”. (Image from DwellingDecor.com)Your code now looks like this:<a href="http://www.joeswebsite.com/location/" rel="attachment wp-att-2603"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2603" src="http://www.joeswebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/7K0A0972-300x230.jpg" alt="contemporary kitchen design" width="300" height="230" /></a>You Coder, You!OMG… You just wrote some html code!Of course, your website will automatically create the image code for you when you upload it to your website and place it in a page or post (if you have a great CMS like WordPress, that is). All you have to do is insert your keyword into the appropriate spot and you're good to go.Remember, the search engines, even Google, do not have eyeballs to look at the images you publish. Using the alt text within the code for each image tells them what they’re “seeing”, enabling them to get a sense of its value for the searchers who use them.If you're an interior designer who posts a lot of images of your work to your website – and you should be doing just that – you simply must learn how to do this, or you are wasting all of those beautiful pictures of the work you do.Looking for more new design trends, tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.
Virtual Reality Interior Design Apps
Welcome to the 21st Century, where technology and interior design are becoming ever more connected. The reason this should matter to you as a designer is, these interior design apps are being marketed directly to homeowners, often as a tool for eliminating designers from the home remodeling process!Of course, for the sharpest designers (like you), these tools are being used to enhance the interior design process, enabling such professionals to capture their client’s imaginations, creativity, and dollars!Perhaps the newest on the scene is an app named rooomy which has offices in the U.S., the Netherlands and China, and is using augmented reality (AR), virtual reality, and 3-D technology to change the way homeowners, real estate professionals, furnishings retailers, and interior designers visualize homes and spaces.From virtual staging to furniture modeling and rendering, roomy supplies Interior Design Apps that enables virtually anyone to design and shop their dream home, with access to the largest library of home décor from top retailers, like Amazon and Wayfair, using an exciting 3D Design Studio App.Top Design and Decorating Apps
According to The Study, a lifestyle and design blog at 1stDibs.com, “There is now a wealth of home improvement and decorating wisdom in the palm of your hand, thanks to the rising number of design apps available for your smartphone. From digital mood boards to virtual consultants, they inspire. They source. They even measure the height of your ceiling. We’ve picked 10 of the best home decoration apps on the market right now.”Zillow DigsZillow, the searchable online database that has an estimate for (almost) every real estate address in America, now offers the same service for home improvement and design.The Zillow Digs app gives estimates on the array of interior projects in its database, then directs you to retailers to help source your products. Overall, it allows you to choose the project that matches your price point.The app also provides advice from real interior designers and a social media platform that allows you to share, like, and follow other users.Homestyler Interior Design
HomeStyler bills itself as a “virtual fitting room,” and rightly so. Try out different looks for your space by superimposing real products—3-D models of various furniture, fixtures, and so on—onto an actual snapshot of your living room.Share your ideas in the Design Gallery, and take a look at what everyone else is doing. Also, browse profiles and portfolios of actual designers in your area to ask questions and make connections. MyPantone
Unequivocally, Pantone is the ultimate color arbiter — when it comes to disputes on whether a shade is turquoise or teal, they have the final say.The historic company put its standardized library of colors into a convenient app that allows you to accurately communicate your color choices to decorating professionals, designers and manufacturers alike.It also identifies the colors in your photographs and expertly generates complementary palettes. ($9.99)Home Design 3D Gold
A new interior or exterior design plan is as easy to devise as dragging and dropping.This architectural app lets you import floorplans and change the space itself; visualize new openings, raise ceilings, or take out entire walls, then add in the furniture and other amenities of your choice.Work in either 2-D or 3-D, and share projects with collaborators who can make modifications with you in real time.Looking for more new design trends, tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.
Online Marketing Tips - What is Organic SEO?
It’s a new year, let’s learn something! Organic SEO is a strategy of using targeted phrases to direct the search engines toward the content on your website. The techniques for doing this vary, from “on-page” to “off-page” SEO.On-page SEO involves using assorted keyword phrases within the content you publish, such as titles, headers, images, and the page URLs. These phrases should also be placed within the “Metadata”, the information that exists “behind the scenes” of each page and post, but which the search engines use to identify and rank your content.Variations of your targeted phrases will also be used within the text you create, as well; this allows you to take advantage of a search engine feature known as “synonymous search”.Off-page SEO focuses on increasing the authority of your website through the act of getting links from other websites; a completely different strategy.How to get startedAn important step toward beginning an effective SEO strategy is to perform market research and keyword analysis. Finding high-value phrases that identify your website as a source for valuable information within your niche is critical to bringing the search engines, and an audience, to you. Since any number of phrases may be available to help you define your subject and purpose, it’s important to determine which phrases offer the greatest potential for bringing visitors to your website.A note on single-word keywords – Single word KWs are basically useless, as they tend to be vague yet highly competitive, e.g., “coaching” is vague. Do you mean football, basketball, baseball, life, business, health, wellness coach?As you can see, if you are a life coach who targets the single word, you will be competing with every type of coach in the world – not just with those in your niche. The use of 2, 3, and 4-word phrases is a far more effective SEO strategy. Known as “long-tail keywords”, such phrases are much more descriptive and are highly valued by the search engines.There are basically two levels of research and analysis:
- Basic – This keyword research is designed to discover related phrases that are actually being searched, offer the potential for traffic to your website and have manageable competition from other websites.
- Advanced – Advanced keyword analysis is a phrase-by-phrase study, designed to determine which of the phrases discovered present the greatest opportunities for moving up on the search engine results page (SERPs) for each phrase.
Basic research is very much about raw numbers, how many searches, how much traffic you might see, and how much competition there is from other websites.Advanced research and analysis, on the other hand, provides you with valuable information on how easy or difficult it will be to move into the Top Ten in the search results, for each phrase you may choose to target.Benefits of Organic SEOWhile offering no guarantees of placement in the search results, organic SEO is a proven strategy for gaining the attention of the search engines and bringing traffic to your website. It is cost-effective and, once a list of high-value keywords has been developed and the techniques have been learned, is fairly simple to implement. However, it is not an overnight solution. It requires patience and a commitment to consistently implement the strategies and techniques outlined above.Compared to pay-per-click advertising, however, organic SEO has two great benefits: it is less expensive and your placing in the search results will hold greater value with your target audience (since they tend to heavily discount the paid ads seen in the search results).Looking for more new design trends, tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.
Interior Design Tips - How Accessories Complete a Room Design
Accessories play an important role in your overall design plan. They bring color into a space, insert texture where needed, add shape, depth or height, provide focal points, and last but not least, they reflect your client’s personality and style. (Not to mention your own.)Simply put, a room without accessories can feel generic and uninviting. That being said, there is an art to accessorizing well and it does require a bit of planning. It’s one of our favorite parts of designing a space because it completes the room and gives it that finishing touch.Here are the key elements to artful accessorizing:
- Take cues from the existing color palette in the room. The job of your accessories can either be to enhance the existing shades or to bring color to an otherwise neutral canvas.
- Be aware of access points and make sure your accessories won’t hinder the traffic flow. With that in mind, an accessory can also be a guide in defining an area or directing traffic.
- Never overcrowd a tabletop or shelf with too many accessories. Make sure you are able to pick one up without disturbing anything else.
- Use accessories to emphasize your client’s personality, allowing it to shine through and don’t be afraid to include personal items that have sentimental value for them.
- Pay attention to the height, weight, and shape of your accessories and place them where they will enhance the surrounding décor.
- Display accessories in groups. Odd numbers are more interesting to the eye.
- Vary the size and height of accessories in a grouping.
- Experiment by moving things around to find the best placement.
So where do you start? It’s good to know all of your options, so here’s a short list of what to consider when accessorizing your space:
- Framed artwork or photographs
- Sculptures, figurines or other art objects
- Vases
- Candleholders and candles
- Lanterns
- Pillows or Cushions
- Throws
- Bowls
- Baskets
- Floral arrangements
- Urns
- Books
- Clocks
- Trays
- Mirrors
While the furnishings and/or floor covering may be the focal point of the space you're designing, use accessories to make the space feel complete.Looking for more interior design trends, marketing tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.
Every Room Design Begins with Light
Light is one of the four key elements of design. It’s also one of the trickiest to get right, thanks to the all the different options in lighting available. To assess the lighting in a room, begin by considering these questions:
- Is the lighting inviting? (Is it too bright, or too dim?)
- Does it work for various the tasks and activities that take place in that room? (A kitchen needs brighter light than a bedroom, for instance.)
- Is it energy efficient?
- Can I vary it according to mood or time of day?
You can make big changes in how your room is lit without necessarily getting rid of your current fixtures. Dimmers on light switches or lamps give you the flexibility to change up the mood of a room easily. And switching to a different type or size of bulb changes the kind and color of light they produce.If you’re confused about what kind of light a particular bulb will create, check the label on the package, where you’ll find the facts on its brightness, estimated yearly cost, life expectancy, light appearance, energy used, and mercury information.Choosing the Right LightingLight color is measured on the Kelvin (K) temperature scale. Lower Kelvin numbers mean more yellow light; the higher the Kelvin number, the whiter or bluer the light. Warm white - 2500K-3000K (the standard color of incandescent bulbs) is ideal for bedrooms, living rooms or dens. Bright white or cool white - 3500K-4100K is good task lighting, and works for kitchens, bathrooms, and workspaces. Daylight - 5000K-6500K – is the best reading light.The most efficient bulbs on the market now are LEDs, which save up to 80% in energy costs over the older incandescent bulbs now being phased out and last up to 20 years. Unlike the CFLs, which they’re quickly replacing, these bulbs contain no mercury and thus are much easier to dispose of. A 12-watt LED light bulb puts out the same amount of light as a 60-watt incandescent.New options in light bulbs and ways in which to control them are nothing short of amazing. Your smartphone can now be paired with your home lighting system, allowing you to switch lights off and on remotely. There are LED bulbs on the market that respond to voice commands – and there’s even an LED bulb that includes a Bluetooth speaker, so you can pipe music wirelessly into every room from a central source.Remember, lighting sets the stage for an entire room, and affects how everything in it is viewed. Your best decorating efforts can be undermined by poor lighting choices – so don’t forget to begin your design efforts by focusing on the lighting as you set your vision for a room.Looking for more interior design trends, marketing tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.
Hot Kitchen Design Trends 2018 – What Will Kitchens Look Like This Year?
In real estate, people talk about location, location, location. In home design, the talk is of kitchens, kitchens, kitchens. The reason for this is pretty clear, and we’ve mentioned it before, the kitchen is the most used room in the house. With that in mind, we look at some hot kitchen design trends for 2018.Country Kitchen Designs
Whether traditional or contemporary, the country kitchen look is expected to be trending strong next year. From grey undertones that look like stone to contrasting colors between cabinetry and flooring, each of these designs possesses a timeless quality that would be difficult to match were it not for the country theme in both. (CountryLiving.com)
Contrasts and Two-tone Colors
Speaking of contrasts, another hot design trend this year will be two-tone colors in the kitchen. Not only does this kitchen show delightfully contrasting accents between the backsplash, flooring, and cabinets, the cabinetry itself is nicely inconsistent: weathered white oak and Farrow & Ball's Cornforth White paint in Modern Eggshell. (HouseBeautiful.com)Island Storage
Often a dead space, kitchen islands remain popular with homeowners. Finding innovative ways to employ these well-loved features for storage uses will be a big trend this year. For example, a kitchen island with a refrigerated crisper built right into it is a design decision that stands out from the pack.
Hidden Appliances
Especially when counter space is at a premium, getting appliances out of the way will be too. However, the trend for 2018 is to get all appliances off the countertops, even if there is plenty of space to be used.Kitchen as Command Center
The kitchen is the center of activity in many homes. The large wall of cabinets serves as a command center concealing a telephone and compartments for family mail, calendars, and cookbooks. Painted cabinets and granite countertops make this space a bright gathering place for family fun and entertaining.What kinds of kitchen design trends have you seen, that you believe will continue throughout 2018?Looking for more interior design trends, marketing tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.
Interior Design Trends - Did You Purple Yet?
In the late 21st-century, a vampiric disease modifies some people, imbuing each of them with superhuman strength, intelligence, and speed. Worldwide civil war looms as normal people, feeling threatened by their enhanced brethren, demand the extermination of the group… Enter Ultraviolet to save the day.Or, perhaps more baffling, Pantone has chosen purple – which they label as Ultra Violet – as the Color of the Year for 2018. Pantone says it chose this color because it conveys “originality and ingenuity, [and] is a distinctive and complex purple shade that fascinates and intrigues.”Yes, well, Milla Jovovich was fascinating and intriguing in the role of Ultraviolet in the film too. Doesn’t necessarily mean you want to show her off in your home, right?
Pantone Color of the Year 2018 – Ultra VioletAll kidding aside, while Pantone claims that “Historically, there has been a mystical or spiritual quality attached to Ultra Violet,” one can’t help but wonder if the statement made by such a shade might be too intense for decorating most homes.After all, ease of integration into a new design should be considered with the Color of the Year and, while Ultra Violet is bold, it may just be too bold for too many homeowners to accept.That said, for those who are intrigued by a color that “suggests the mysteries of the cosmos”, on-trend colors like this do tend to make it much easier to find furnishings and decorative accessories in the hue, eventually.For anyone who loves purple, it looks like 2018 will be THE year to stock up on their favorite color.What is Pantone?The Pantone Color Institute is a consulting service within Pantone that forecasts global color trends and advises companies on color in brand identity and product development, for the application and integration of color as a strategic asset.Recognized around the world as a leading source of color information through seasonal trend forecasts, custom color development, and palette recommendations for product and corporate identity, Pantone Color Institute partners with global brands to leverage the power, psychology, and emotion of color in their design strategy.Looking for more interior design trends, marketing tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.
Home Remodeling Growth Looking Strong, Short and Long-Term
According to an article at MultiBriefs.com, a site which claims to be “The leading source for targeted, industry-specific news briefs”, growth in the home remodeling sector looks strong for the foreseeable future. Remarkably, other reliable sources concur with this assessment of the marketplace, allowing for an extremely optimistic outlook for next year.
This is, of course, good news for interior designers, home furnishing dealers and suppliers, and contractors. “Coming on the heels of third-quarter indicators that showed sustained high levels of activity in the remodeling industry for the remainder of the year, recent longer-term projections forecast even higher levels of growth in the coming year and beyond,” the article said.Quarterly Growth in Home Remodeling It goes without saying that the natural disasters experienced by homeowners in Texas and Florida (and other southern states) at the beginning of Q4 this year have sparked the need for residential repairs. However, various assessments of the market have determined such demand is not enough to account for the consistent rise in remodeling activity throughout the year.In fact, the National Association of Home Builders reports its Remodeling Market index rose by 2 points in Q3, to 57, compared to the score for the second quarter. The index for current market conditions rose by just 1 point over Q3, but the index for future market indicators, at 58, was up 3 points.“Current market conditions increased one point from the second quarter of 2017 to 56. Among its three major components, major additions and alterations waned one point to 53, minor additions and alterations increased three points to 56, and the home maintenance and repair component rose one point to 58.”That assessment correlates with the findings of Houzz's third-quarter Renovation Barometer, which also found remodeling activity up quarter-over-quarter and remodeler sentiment optimistic about demand continuing into the fourth quarter. It also showed the level of backlogs had increased in recent months.Looking ahead to next year, longer-term projections are forecasting potentially even higher levels of demand. In releasing its third-quarter National Residential Economic Report, Metrostudy projects that the surge in remodeling activity that began in the second quarter will continue throughout 2018 and likely well beyond.In short, designers, suppliers, and contractors have great cause for optimism through the end of 2017 and well into 2018. If your design business has been slow this quarter, it’s time to be more proactive, since it seems the home remodeling work is out there!Looking for more new design trends, marketing tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.
Interior Design Tips & Marketing News and Headlines
The diversity of information available today is remarkable, isn’t it? Unfortunately, the number of sources from which valuable information can be culled tends to overwhelm and can be quite frustrating. In an effort to help you separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, we offer these interior design tips and marketing news and headlines, some from sources you may never have imagined could provide you with valuable information.Has Your Interior Design Business “Gone Green”?Some designers jumped on the “green” design trend early, some much later. Some have yet to make the move at all. Reasons for this vary, among them that there is little hard data to suggest that investing in green design offers a significant return on investment.In the next few years though, we should begin to see some definitive or at least indicative, data upon which to base the decision to promote green buildings and green design.According to an article at FacilityExecutive.com, a new study at Harvard University has been designed to answer the question, “How Do Green Buildings Impact Thinking, Health, Sleep?” To get the answer, the researchers are recruiting 100 office buildings around the world to discover the impact of green buildings on health and productivity.Though three years may seem a long time to wait for the results, this is the projected length of the study, optimism is high that the research team will be able to assess employee cognitive function performance, a key indicator of productivity, by using a proven, standardized app-based process. Stay tuned for more…Why Americans Don’t Move HouseIn a recent blog post here, we shared optimistic news about the home renovation sector of the design market, where growth has been consistent this year and is expected to remain strong next year. Could one reason for this bump in home renovations be that some 89% of Americans refuse to move, despite an increasingly strong economy and increased household equity?In an eye-opening article at BuilderOnline.com, we are educated to the fact that the share of people moving house has been steadily declining, even as economic recovery and job growth strength trace back almost five years.Based on the Census' Current Population Survey, “The absolute number of movers has hovered at an average of around the 35 million mark for 10 years now, spiking up to 37 million or so only a couple of times since the Great Recession. Before 2007, the average was up around 40 million.”The fact that American mobility is falling as a percentage of a growing population is eye-opening indeed, for those of us who’ve always thought of the US as a somewhat transient society.The numbers tell a different story and, for the sharp interior designer, knowing the settled nature of homeowners in your marketplace will go a long way toward helping you plan your marketing strategy.Looking for more new design trends, marketing tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.
Diversify to Meet Changing Market Forces in the Design Business
If there is one thing we can all count it’s this: things change. This includes market forces in the design business as much as any other. Those who do not respond to such changes tend to get left behind, while others prosper. How to be among the latter?As proof of the changing times, we’re in, an interesting article at MultiBriefs.com recently caught our eye. Titled, Diversify to grow your revenues, and written by design consultant Lloyd Princeton, a strong argument is made for diversification of income streams to meet the changing needs of the marketplace.As Princeton argues, while the design business has experienced nice growth in the second half of this year, and is expected to continue to do so into next year, “Many designers are not benefitting from the increase in demand, or they may be getting more business but are not realizing the revenues or profits they had hoped for at the beginning of the year.”“Clients are more frequently seeking design consultations and advice, rather than hiring designers to design and manage projects, often resulting in lower fees and fewer billable hours for the designer. This is making it tough for sole practitioners and smaller firms to remain profitable.“In the past, when designers wanted to increase their revenues, they would focus on selling clients more products. Those opportunities are becoming harder to come by now, as more and more clients choose to go online and do their own purchasing.“Designers need to be looking for other sources of revenue to sustain their businesses and maintain their incomes. I am not talking about diversifying your interior design practice or menu of services. I am talking about diversifying your sources of income.”Diversify Income StreamsWhile the big “Go-to” for most designers looking to diversify has always been product development, Princeton argues against this trend in the current market. Explaining that it is simply too competitive to expect enough market share to sustain a profitable business model, he suggests looking for income streams outside the design industry, instead.What those streams may be depends, of course, on your location and the vagaries of your particular market. However, an old reliable jumps to the front of the list for him, real estate investment.He closes with this advice: “If you have some cash available to invest in an opportunity outside of interior design that could serve as a hedge against the current volatile conditions in the industry, I advise you to talk with reliable counsel and explore it. It could be just the edge you need to keep your business going and provide you a more secure future.”Looking for more new design trends, marketing tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.