Many customers now begin their furniture search online. However, unlike some sectors, many still prefer to visit a physical store to finalize their purchase. In fact, about 51% of people buy furniture online, and 49% in a physical store.
This, however, doesn’t mean they don’t start with your website, browsing to see what you have, compare prices with other retailers, etc. This makes SEO vital for discoverability, even if people eventually come to your store. Proper SEO increases visibility and improves sales, both online delivery and sales through your store.
This blog will help you with some basic SEO strategies to improve your website and attract more traffic.
Understand Your Target Audience
All companies need to know their ideal audience. With furniture it might be a no brainer that most purchases are made by people buying their first home or upgrading, but if you focus on smaller pieces, then your audience might be renters or even elderly people who are downsizing.
If you pay attention and use the right tools, you can get insights to the kind of people who are buying from you, which may not be what you immediately expect. Use Google Analytics to track website traffic, and pay attention to customer feedback, including reviews. Then tailor your content and keywords to match buyer intent and attract more of the kind of customers that love your product.
Keyword Research for the Furniture Industry
Keywords remain important. The days when you could get search ranking by stuffing a lot of keywords into an incoherent post are long since gone, but you still need to understand keywords.
First, there are long tail and short tail keywords. Short tail keywords have higher search volume but lower conversion rates, while long tail keywords face less competition and typically attract less traffic but more conversions.
Long tail keywords are the narrow focus point in your content. They are things like “mid-century modern sofa” or “reclaimed wood dining table.” They attract people searching for that specific thing, which can be incredibly effective. However, they don’t help develop rank as much as short tail keywords do. In the furniture industry, these might be things like “art deco” or “wooden chair.”
You need to mix in both for best effect.
Optimize On-Page SEO
Optimizing your on-page SEO helps Google ranking. If done right, it also improves user experience. Make sure to include keywords in page titles and meta descriptions. However, it’s just as important to write high-quality product descriptions that contain unique long tail keywords and detailed information that helps buyers make the right choice and makes your product more appealing.
In content, you need to use header tags for structure and scanability. Bullet points or numbered lists can also help scanability. Make sure that you link your products and content to each other. Link to your own product pages in your blogs but also link back from your products to related content, such as linking from a reclaimed wood table to a blog about caring for reclaimed wood.
Finally, make sure you use alt text on all product images. Alt text is not only good for accessibility but also makes your images “searchable.” Include key words in this too.
Leverage Local SEO
With half of customers still preferring to shop in store, local SEO is important. Start by claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile. It’s completely free to create and manage your profile, and you can make sure that Google Maps displays accurate hours and contact information. You can, and should, also add photos. Add photos of the exterior of your building to help people find you, but also of the interior and select products. You can also add your store to local directories and citation sites. Make sure you’re on every relevant directory.
Use local keywords such as “furniture store Montreal,” without being awkward about it. If you are close to several towns, try to include them all somewhere in your content.
Finally, collect and respond to your reviews. Respond to positive reviews with a thank you and respond to negative feedback with an apology and an offer to make things right if possible. Link to positive reviews to improve SEO and use negative ones to learn how to improve.
Create SEO-Friendly Content
Start a blog. Make sure that your blog is unique and different. Share interior design tips, buying guides, and style trends, but also local community content. Make your tips your tips, collect them from employees not ones gleaned from the internet.
Go back to Google and ask a question about furniture, then take the “also asked” questions and use them to generate FAQ sections. Again, keep things unique and local and show your personality and expertise.
Incorporate visual content in your blog, including photographs of furniture and design, and videos. Videos can be particularly useful if you want to show furniture care or restoration tips.
Keep your content up to date. Do a periodic content audit so you can update or even remove outdated content and repair broken links.
Improve Website and Mobile Experience
Start with Core Web Vitals. These sound awfully technical, but here’s a quick explanation.
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). This is the point in the page load timeline when the main content loads and users can start reading the page. It thus measures perceived load speed.
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP). This is how fast the page responds to an interaction, such as adding an item to a cart, entering a form, etc. It measures how quickly the page responds to users.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Unexpected layout shifts can be annoying, for example if you start reading the page and then an image loads and it jumps down, potentially causing you to lose your place or, worse, confirm an order they intended to cancel.
Healthy Core Web Vitals make for a good user experience. Optimizing images and using lazy loading (where images load only when the person scrolls) can help reduce load time, especially LCP.
Make sure your website works on all devices. Test it on phones, tablets, large screen desktops, laptops, etc., and across multiple browsers. If somebody can’t load your page in their preferred browser, they’re unlikely to switch.
Use Schema Markup
Schema markup is structured data that impacts search results. Common examples of this for furniture stores is price, availability, and reviews on product pages. Adding appropriate schema markup helps Google display rich results and gets you more good clicks.
It makes sure that your customers see all the info they need to decide whether to purchase right away and that nothing is missing. It also prevents frustration if a customer orders a piece that is out of stock.
Build Backlinks and Social Proof
You can’t always force good backlinks. But you can partner with home design influencers and bloggers and encourage them to talk about your product. When it comes to social media, customer testimonials are your best friend. Remind people to post reviews and testimonials and encourage user-generated content on your page.
Share content that earns natural backlinks. Design tips and buying guides work well for this. Cute animals are always a bonus when you want your content to be shared.
Track Performance and Adjust Your Strategy
SEO is not one and done. Monitor all your SEO KPIs including organic traffic, bounce rate, and keyword rankings. Google Search Console and Google Analytics work together to help you track performance.
Use A/B testing as much as possible on any changes you make and pay attention to algorithm updates. Search engine algorithms can often look like a black box, so try not to chase them, but be ready to make changes.
How Tailbase Can Help
If all of this is overwhelming, then it’s time to talk to a professional. We have an SEO-ready website platform designed for furniture retailers. We even have pre-integration with the catalogs of major vendors.
Our platform supports local SEO and product-rich pages and includes features to manage content and quickly update product details, while making sure all your structured data is solid.
Take a proactive approach to your SEO and use key strategies such as leveraging local SEO, using alt text, and creating SEO-friendly content. Then contact us to learn more about how Tailbase can support your SEO goals. We have a high level of familiarity with the retail furniture industry and the expertise you need for success.