SEO For Furniture Stores: Four ways to increase traffic
In the past year alone, the UK spent nearly £15 million on furniture.
While the furniture market may be in a great place right now, it doesn’t mean that furniture stores can stop putting effort into boosting their store traffic. According to the results of this recent Global Consumer survey, 21 percent of UK consumers have bought furniture and household goods online in the last 12 months, while 30 percent claim to mostly look online for information about these products.
This means that search engine optimisation is a valuable skill for furniture stores. By investing in the right tactics, SEO can help furniture stores gain increased online and in-store traffic and, in turn, reap the rewards of increased revenue. It’s a win-win situation.
Here’s a handy guide to SEO for furniture stores, with the tips and tricks to help take your traffic to the next level.
SEO For Furniture Stores: Four ways to increase traffic
When it comes to investing in SEO for furniture stores, there are plenty of things that your business can do to increase your organic visibility such as localised SEO, user experience, and more.
But before you start trying to implement an elaborate SEO strategy, it’s important to get to grips with what SEO actually is, and why it’s so important for furniture stores.
SEO, or search engine optimisation, refers to the tactics performed to make sure customers can find your website on Google and other search engines. When Google provides results for an organic search, it provides links to sites that it believes to be relevant and trustworthy. Google has its own way of judging these sites, which is formed through ranking factors. The better the SEO of your website, the higher your website will appear in relevant search results.
In today’s digital age, SEO is vital for furniture suppliers and stockists. Almost everything we do is now online, so you’ll want to keep up with your competition.
Furniture stores with an effective SEO strategy will reach higher ranking positions in search engines, which will bring them greater online visibility and higher footfall. Online visibility leads to more online traffic, which in turn brings your furniture store more sales- as well as that all-important edge over competitors.
The SEO tactics you’ll need to implement for your furniture store include:
- Using Local SEO to increase online traffic and on-site footfall
- Improving customer experiences through use of UX
- Attracting and engage customers with content marketing
- Optimisation of your product pages
This will help your furniture store on the path to success.
Use Local SEO to get more people to visit your shop
The benefits of local SEO mean that even small furniture companies can compete with the biggest chains in the market.
Local SEO doesn’t just have the potential to boost your online traffic. When used correctly, local SEO can increase foot traffic to your physical store location, which makes it one of the most useful SEO tactics your furniture store can use.
To maximise your online and physical footfall, make sure your Google My Business page is set up correctly and up to date. Check your locations set up, reviews, and opening times are correct and refresh your pages with new, quality photos.
Consider taking your local SEO for furniture a step further by setting up a location page on your website. Make sure you include a full list of your physical locations. It’s also important to optimise your site for local keywords and localised landing pages and ensure NAP (name, address, phone number) consistency.
With stores nationwide, DFS cannot afford to sleep on local SEO. On their website, you’ll find a Store Locator page with localised search results and a store directory.
They have also set up Google My Business listings for each of their store locations. These activities help DFS to maximise their performance for local searches.
Improve the customer experience with UX
Google is now placing much more emphasis on user experience (UX). Earlier this year, the search engine announced that it was launching the Page Experience update, which means that Core Web Vitals are now a UX-related ranking signal for organic searches.
So how does this affect SEO for furniture stores?
The new changes mean that your furniture store- or any store for that matter – needs to focus on user interaction. Understanding the details of UX as a ranking signal will improve your customer’s experience on your site, therefore boosting your website’s rank-ability and performance in organic search.
Try to think of UX as a part of customer care. It helps your customers navigate their journey to purchase your products or services. Remember that the smoother the UX, the more likely customers are to buy from you.
To make the most of your UX, you’ll need to:
- Improve your site structure (e.g. making your website easy to navigate, optimise category and product pages etc.)
- Reduce the number of clicks it takes to purchase
- Optimise your website for mobile
- Improve internal linking structures
By implementing these measures, your business will start to see increased traffic and rankings.
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Attract and engage customers with content marketing
Content marketing is a powerful tool for retailers and e-commerce stores. So much so, over 70% of B2C marketers agree that their company needs a content marketing strategy.
But content marketing isn’t just useful to e-commerce. It’s an important part of any SEO strategy, as it helps all kinds of businesses grow and thrive.
Furniture stores should implement a data-driven content marketing strategy to attract, engage and convert customers for their business. Keyword research and competitor analysis are both crucial to this process, as they will help you produce content that is relevant and interesting to your target audience.
Never underestimate the power of a good blog post. When creating content for your website, think about how this content relates to your wider digital strategy. Make sure your articles are informative and engaging and link them to product pages to convert traffic. Keep these posts as regular as you can- Google loves fresh content.
While crafting your content marketing, keep in mind that the overall goal is to increase organic traffic and sales.
Another benefit of content marketing is that it can also make it easier to build links with higher organic search potential.
Along with the link-building potential, content marketing also has its own unique advantages because it can be repurposed for other marketing and sales activities as part of your wider business strategy. So, make sure you take time to create a compelling content marketing strategy for your furniture store.
The furniture store MADE is one company that understands the value of content marketing. On their website, they have an ‘Ideas’ hub where they share buying guides, room ideas, style tips, a ‘find your style’ quiz, and more.
MADE make sure that they keep their website frequently updated with new content to attract and engage their target audience. They also repurpose this content for social media, helping further increase the reach and performance of their content marketing efforts.
Optimise your product pages
It’s fairly likely that many furniture stores will sell similar products or even products of the same brand. With this in mind, you’ll need to think about how you can make your furniture store stand out from the rest. This is where product page optimisation comes into play.
Optimisation of product pages is useful for SEO for a number of reasons. It ensures you aren’t at risk of duplication by ensuring your content is differentiated from competitor websites, it prioritises keywords, and it also helps you design product pages that are valuable for customers.
You can optimise your product pages by:
- Writing valuable and detailed product descriptions that are also keyword-rich
- Including high-quality product photography
- Including a benefits and technical information section to give clarity and detail, which makes it easier for potential customers to find the information they are looking for
Remember to write these product pages from both a customer and UX perspective. Think about who your target demographic is, such as homeowners or families, and make sure that these pages are interactive, configurable, and easy to purchase from.
The UK sofa brand Loaf is a great example of a brand with an optimised furniture product page.
The product page itself is interactive, allowing visitors to choose their fabric colour, change the sofa size and preview their selection.
The product page is also presented in an easy-to-read format thanks to its use of distinguishable subsections, tables and graphics. On their product page, they include upselling options, as well as clear technical information and benefits of the product with some eye-catching graphics.
Create a checklist of things that you need to include in your product pages, and work this into your wider SEO for furniture strategy.
SEO for Furniture Stores: Wrapping Up
SEO for furniture stores is something that can make a real, tangible change to your business. By taking the steps to increase your visibility and traffic, the more likely you are to gain an edge over your competitors and see a positive impact on your bottom line.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that paid advertising strategies can also complement your SEO strategies. At Common Ground, we succeeded in revamping PPC campaigns for Annie Sloan, which increased onsite purchases by 400%. This demonstrates the impact that a combined PPC and SEO approach can have on your furniture store if you’re prepared to invest in it.
If your furniture store is looking to take its SEO strategy to the next level, then drop us a line. Our expert-driven SEO services deliver on revenue and help you unlock the potential of your websites.
Keen to learn more? Get in touch with us today!
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