Hiring a designer to design an interior is a personal process. Clients are opening their intimate spaces, sharing their highest hopes and exposing their quirks to you. Building a relationship can start with their first visit to your website.
“About” pages that showcase photos and brief bios of principals and others on the team are ubiquitous. You can help prospective clients make a quicker connection with you by introducing yourself on your homepage or in the scroll just below the landing page. This is especially effective if you are a solo practitioner or are the out-front lead of a small team.
An image of Allison Smith, designer and owner of Allison Smith Design in Portland, Oregon, greets visitors to the firm’s website. Paired with a project photo, it gives visitors a sense of her and her firm’s work.
Visitors to the website of San Diego-based Savvy Interiors’ website get a sense of CEO, Principal and Creative Director Susan Wintersteen’s laidback, inviting personality through both images of her and playful text throughout the site.
Tell us how you work
The internet has empowered consumers to research products before they purchase an item and that desire for information extends to services. Walking potential customers through how you manage a project can give them a sense of comfort and security. Daniella Villamil Interiors gives a great overview of what people can expect if they hire the firm, which has offices in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. In that same “Process” section of its website, the firm also has an FAQ. It’s straightforward design-wise but provides answers to questions like “Do you offer an initial design consultation?” “How do you establish the fees for your services” and “How is furniture purchase and installed?”
Erica Kay Remodeling + Design in Roseland Park, Kansas, explains its seven-step process for transforming kitchens prominently on its website. The photo of owners Chris Thowe and Erica Kay Thowe at the top of the process section helps make a personal connection, too, giving a sense of their personal involvement every step of the way.
Tell us what others think
Image: STITCH DWELLINGS TESTIMONIALS
Testimonials, awards and media mentions can give prospective clients confidence in your abilities, which can be especially important if a homeowner hasn’t worked with an interior designer before. Some designers choose to sprinkle short quotes from happy clients throughout their sites.
STITCH Dwellings, an interior design firm in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, takes another tact, featuring testimonials prominently on its website and pairing them with project images.
If you have extensive media mentions or awards, you might want to devote an entire page to them or you can highlight a few in a bar or other grouping on opening pages of a site. The latter option is how interior designer Cheryl Luckett handles media mentions on the website for her Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm, Dwell by Cheryl. Her “As Featured In” list flows naturally from links that prospective clients can use to learn more about her and her work.
Tell us about the dog
OK, this may be personal preference, but if you have a dog you love, introduce them! It’s an unexpected delight and, if they are animal lovers, gives prospective clients another way of relating to you.
Dog-loving celebrity designer Charlotte Moss, based in Charlottesville, Virginia, cuddles her pup in her portrait on her firm’s “About” page. Kaminski + Pew, an architecture and interior design firm in Philadelphia, elevates the owners’ dog, Georges, to a member of the staff, listing him as office dog on its “About” page.
(If you don’t have a dog, use other ways to distinguish yourself. You could have your staff include a few personal details in their “About” profiles. Highlight a charity you support or explain the origin of your company name if it’s not obvious — whatever you can do to show your firm’s personality.)
Fresh eyes
Social media, especially Instagram, gets a lot of attention from interior designers — and for good reasons: Social media offers instant gratification and allows you to be in conversation with clients and prospective clients.
Websites are more of a one-and-done. Create a site and other than posting new project images, you may leave it alone for stretches of time.
So, you may not have thought a lot about your website lately. But it’s still the place that many prospective clients will visit to see your work and learn more about your firm and, often, make initial contact.
It might be time to look at your site with fresh eyes.
