SEO for Interior Designers: A Step-by-Step Beginner’s Guide
5 February 2026
Welcome to Our First Ever Blog
As I began thinking about the stories we wanted to share, it quickly became clear that the place to start was closer than expected. Over the past few months, I’ve spent a surprising amount of time learning about search engine optimisation, and somewhere along the way it struck me — the journey itself was worth talking about.
Whether you’re just starting out or already well established, improving your presence in search engines is essential for reaching new clients. Search algorithms are constantly changing, which means there’s always room to refine and improve your strategy. For those new to digital marketing, though, SEO can feel overwhelming.
I’ve spent the time learning it the hard way, so you don’t have to. This guide breaks down SEO for interior designers into clear, manageable steps, helping you lay solid foundations online and start attracting the right clients organically.
What SEO Means for Interior Designers
In simple terms, search engine optimisation (SEO) is about improving your website so platforms like Google understand what you do, where you do it, and why your work deserves to be seen.
For example, when someone searches “luxury interior design services in Buckinghamshire”, I want my work appearing on the first page — ideally right at the top. It’s about competing for visibility, building brand awareness, and increasing the chances of the right clients finding you.
That said, it’s no longer just traditional search engines people rely on when researching businesses. With the rise of AI tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot, SEO is expanding beyond Google alone. Add to that platforms like Instagram, where many clients discover designers visually first, and it becomes clear that SEO is an ever-evolving landscape — one you can shape around what genuinely works for your business.
For you, this means getting creative and understanding which platforms generate the most engagement for your business — and, just as importantly, how they can work together. A strong Instagram presence might drive people to your website, thoughtful blog content can support search visibility, and both help build trust long before a client ever makes contact.
When these platforms are intertwined intentionally, they don’t compete with one another — they amplify each other. That joined-up approach is what helps you stay visible, relevant, and a step ahead in an increasingly crowded market.
Understand How Your Clients Search
Most interior designers assume people search by style ("modern", "minimal", "contemporary") and whilst some certainly do, the majority of people search by problem, location and outcome.
The 3 most common search intents are:
1. Local intent: "interior designers near me", "interior designers Buckinghamshire"
2. Service intent: "luxury home refurbishment"
3. Outcome intent: "interior designer for home kitchen"
What this means is that you should structure your website pages based on delivering these intents directly.
Whilst your portfolio and the descriptions within might read beautifully, Google struggles to understand what you do unless you are driving the right keywords through your pages.
Below is a before-and-after extract of a project description, showing how thoughtful wording can strengthen a page’s SEO performance. The highlighted terms demonstrate how leaning into local intent — as outlined above — helps search engines better understand your work and where it sits geographically.
Before: Located in Seer Green, Buckinghamshire, Nineteen Interiors were appointed to...
After: This private family home in Seer Green, set within the Buckinghamshire countryside and the Chiltern Hills, is a mid-century detached property located just outside Beaconsfield, close to Chalfont St Giles and Chalfont St Peter. Nineteen Interiors were appointed to...
As you can see, thoughtfully referencing surrounding locations strengthens local search intent. By doing this, you make it clearer to search engines where your work is based and who it’s relevant to.
As a result, when someone searches for “interior designer Chalfont St Giles”, the likelihood of your work appearing in results is increased — not through tricks, but through clarity and context.
Apply this same thinking to both service and outcome intent, and you create a page that works cohesively on every level — attracting the right searches while clearly communicating the value of what you offer.
Optimise Core Pages
Much like the most effective content on Instagram, the first few seconds on your core pages matter. Within moments of landing, the following questions should be clearly answered:
Homepage:
- What do you do? (design-only, refurbishment, structural works)
- Where do you do it? (London, internationally, counties)
- Who for? (residential, developers, commercial)
- Support the above by linking directly to relevant portfolio projects
Services Pages:
- Build a clear, well-structured landing page with individual pages for each key service i.e. luxury interior refurbishment, design only interior design, project management
- Each service page should state - what the service includes, the benefits, how the process works, FAQs and internal links to relevant projects
- A small tip worth sharing: well-written FAQs can quietly do a lot of heavy lifting, helping you draw in relevant keywords while showing search engines that you’re a genuine, functioning business. Click below to see an example of how FAQs can be used effectively — you’ll find them in the page footers.
Optimise Your Google Business Profile
I don’t know about you, but when I come across a local business, one of the first things I do is check their Google Business Profile and reviews before going any further. For that reason alone, if you haven’t already, setting up your Google Business Profile is essential — and it’s completely free.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a physical office — this is about online visibility and credibility. Google provides a profile strength score that highlights areas for improvement, but consistently maintaining your profile can significantly influence local search visibility. Focus on the following:
High-quality photography
This is often the first impression potential clients have when they search your business name. Showcase your strongest projects using professional imagery where possible. Before uploading, revisit the Naming Your Image Files section below to maximise impact.
Regular updates
Keep your profile active by updating imagery, sharing business posts, and ensuring your services and opening details are accurate and current.
Clear service listings
Clearly outline the services you offer so both clients and search engines can quickly understand what you do.
Thoughtful responses to reviews
Engaging with reviews signals professionalism and trustworthiness.
Relevant keywords
Applying the keywords discussed earlier helps reinforce both your services and your location.
That said, reviews are the single most influential factor. Actively collecting feedback from past and present clients — particularly on Google and Trustpilot — builds trust quickly and can have a meaningful impact on rankings. Make it a habit to ask for a review once a project has been completed and handed over.
Name Your Image Files
This is one of those details that’s easy to overlook, but it plays a surprisingly important role in improving search visibility. When you upload an image to your website, it may look beautiful to a human eye, but search engines don’t interpret images in the same way.
One of the simplest and most effective signals you can give Google is the image file name itself. Typically, professional photographs arrive labelled something like IMG_001.jpg. While that works fine for storage, it offers no context or relevance for search engines.
Renaming images before uploading them allows you to clearly communicate what the image shows and why it’s relevant to the page it sits on. It’s worth thinking about the object, the materials, the setting, and the location.
Done properly, this helps your images appear in Google image results, reinforces the topic of the page they’re on, and strengthens your site’s overall SEO — all of which increases exposure to potential clients.
For example, if you’re uploading a detailed image from a Kensington project showing a marble sideboard within a luxury apartment, your thought process might look like this:
Object: sideboard
Material: marble
Context: luxury interior / apartment
Location: Kensington
Brand (optional): Nineteen Interiors
Which could result in a file name such as:
marble-sideboard-luxury-apartment-interior-kensington.jpg
You now have not only a beautiful image, but one that clearly communicates its content to search engines. To strengthen this further, you should also add descriptive alt text. Alt text provides a written explanation of the image, helping search engines better understand what it shows while also improving accessibility for users who rely on screen readers.
Noting the file name example above, here’s how the same image could be described using alt text:
Marble sideboard positioned beneath a large mirrored window, paired with bespoke lamps in a luxury Kensington apartment.
Where you amend alt text depends on the platform your website is built on, but it is usually accessible via the image settings within your content editor.
Keep Track of Your SEO Progress
Before implementing any of the changes above, it’s worth setting yourself up on Google Analytics and Google Search Console. The reason for doing this first (even if you already have them in place) is so you can clearly understand how your website is performing in its current state. From there, you can track progress as you begin to apply the improvements we’ve discussed.
By checking in regularly, you start to see what’s working, what isn’t, and where small adjustments can make the biggest difference. Over time, this allows you to refine your approach rather than guess at it.
SEO is very much a long game, and it does require patience. But once you begin to engage with the data and see your visibility improve, it becomes surprisingly satisfying watching steady progress build as your rankings climb over time.
Ready to Strengthen Your SEO Strategy?
For now, that’s a wrap. I hope this has given you a solid foundation to start shaping your own SEO strategy. While there will be a part two to follow, the steps outlined here are more than enough to begin improving visibility, attracting the right visitors, and encouraging genuine connections with potential clients.
The best advice I can offer is to take small, consistent steps — refining one area at a time rather than trying to do everything at once. Over time, those incremental improvements add up, creating a strong, well-functioning engine that you can continue to refine as your understanding grows.
And who knows — as your online presence strengthens and enquiries begin to follow, you may even find yourself enjoying the process more than you expected.
If you found this post useful, we’d really appreciate you sharing it on social media and tagging us. We genuinely enjoy connecting with other designers and professionals in the industry, and it’s always great to see how others are approaching their work.
Appreciate you reading — more to come soon!
Mike Ross
Director, Nineteen Interiors