Your website is your storefront for the entire world. While many businesses stick to social media to promote their services, they could be doing so much more with their own website.
This series will show how easy it is to create your own website tailored to your business, whether you’re a hairdresser, a restaurant, a consulting firm, a photographer, or anything. With our recommendations, you can have your own website up and running quickly, easily, and ready to get customers in.
Today, we’re focusing on making a site for interior designers, decorators, plasterers, painters, furniture designers, handy people, and anyone who works to make the insides of houses beautiful.
Getting started
Before you get started making your website, start working out what you want to put on the website. Do you want to show off your finished work? Give people advice on how to decorate for particular spaces? Show plenty of before and after photos like you’re in Changing Rooms?
It might be tempting to just have your name and telephone number on a single web page but think about your audience and what they might be searching for. Are they looking for only one type of work to be done, or do they need more? Do they know what the technical words are, or are just typing in “wall repair”? Having content on your website, whether that’s tutorials, examples, or just describing the process shows your expertise and provides a signpost for search engines, helping you get those all-important rankings.
Work out what pages you want, and then write the content for each page, focusing on what you want to promote. Make sure you also include the general location you work within to give local search results a boost. Once you know what you want to put on your website, you can buy your web hosting package and get started.
We recommend buying a good basic package, either our Essential hosting package or our Basic Managed WordPress package. Both of them will give you the space and performance you need without costing too much. If you choose Essential, you’ll need to install WordPress on your package, and if you choose Basic, WordPress will be installed automatically.
Making Everything Look Fantastic
You know you want your website to look as good as a finished room, and a good theme can make all the difference. There are hundreds of themes out there, but here are three that could look great for your business.
Luxury Interior
This free theme has a lot of little touches that can make your website sparkle, from interesting photo shapes to block accents to animation, and it’s also responsive and SEO friendly. The Pro version is $39 and comes with even more features, such as custom page templates and font families.
fInteriorDesign
With an impressive drop-down menu system, responsive HTML, and a great collection of customisable blocks, this free theme gives you a great launching point for your website. The Pro version is $34.99, and has WooCommerce and bbPress integration as well as even more widgets and features to fully customise your site.
DecorMe
Built to be unique and eye-catching, DecorMe has a modern design mixed with responsiveness and little animation touches to really show off your work. The Pro version is $59 and comes with over 20 page templates, full support, and even more options. Add in the attractive icons and popping colours, and DecorMe makes everything shine.
Showing Off Your Reviews
Existing customer reviews are a great way to pull new customers in. Many review sites, like Trustpilot and Google Reviews, have their own scripts you can paste into your site and they will often have detailed instructions on how to do that. However, if you want to cut down on the download times and the additional scripts on your site, plugins are a great way to bring in the reviews without the hassle.
WP Social Ninja
Integrate your customer reviews with your social media posts with this all-in-one plugin. The free version lets you blend your Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook feeds with Google Place reviews, perfect for any business that has an in-house showroom. If you upgrade to the pro version, which is $79 for one year for $198 for a lifetime licence, you can add Yelp, Trustpilot, Tripadvisor, and Facebook reviews to your feed, as well as letting your customers message on you on WhatsApp and Telegram.
Social Reviews & Recommendations
Facebook is great for customer reviews, especially if you’re focusing on local clientele. With this plugin, you can pull reviews from your Facebook page into your website, making it easy for your customers to see how people feel about your business, as well as getting more customers to your Facebook page.
Reviews and Rating — Google My Business
If you have a Google Business account, you can pull in your reviews into your site with this plugin. You just need a Google API Key and a Place ID, with plenty of documentation to help you through the setup process. The range of display options also makes it great for showing off your reviews.
Integrating Social Media
Local word of mouth is a great way to get customers, and being active on social media can help immensely with that, whether it’s the neighbourhood Facebook group or showing off your skills on Instagram. Integrating your social media feeds into your website makes it easy for existing and potential customers to share your work with everyone they know.
Spotlight
Instagram is a great way to show off your talents, but it’s also a locked-in system, making it really difficult for anyone without an Instagram account to see your skills. Spotlight lets you put your Instagram feed on your WordPress site, giving you an easy way to show off the work you’ve done while also gaining new followers. The essential version is $39 annually and lets you add unlimited Instagram accounts and feeds to your website.
Smash Balloon Plugins
Smash Balloon provides individual plugins for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, giving you an easy way to integrate specific social media accounts. Each plugin costs $49 annually, giving you a smooth integration from your feed to your website.
Feed Them Social
If you don’t mind a bit of technical work and want to show off all your social media feeds on your site, Feed Them Social lets you add your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube feeds to your site. And if you purchase the Combined Streams version, you can join them all together in one big feed. The premium version is $50 annually, but the free version does come with plenty of features.
Displaying Your Work
While social media is a great way to show off the work you’ve done, there’s always a place for large and beautiful photos right on your website. And with these plugins, they’re a breeze to set up.
Album
If you have multiple galleries but want to display them in one convenient block on your home page, Album is a free plugin that is easy to work with. The free version has four different styles, but for $24.99 a year, you can upgrade to the Pro version, which includes eight more styles and a custom tag filter for more variety.
Envira Gallery
Easy to set up, Envira gives you a lovely gallery on your website, but also includes social media buttons for easy sharing, video embeds for a full multimedia experience, and watermarking to protect your style. The basic version is only $26 for the year.
WordPress Carousel Pro
This plugin gives you great-looking gallery carousels, letting your visitors see the range of the work you’ve done, and also lets you create text block carousels as well — perfect for special offers, blog posts, and more. It’s easy to customise, including what’s included, how it looks, and how fast the carousel rotates. You can pay $39 for an annual subscription or $139 for a lifetime purchase.
So there are some options for your website. Whether you’re an interior decorator, house painter, plasterer, contractor, or general handyperson, having a well-built website is a fantastic way to gain new customers, show off your work, and get your name out there.
If you ever have any questions about how a website can help your business, get in touch with us! We’re happy to help!.
