A Set by Step Guide To Creating A Professional Houzz Page This white paper is for business owners who want to increase sales using permission based, inbound marketing techniques. It will help you better understand how to get found, nurture and convert leads, strengthen your marketing message, improve calls-to-action and measure your success. Means-ofProduction uses HubSpot marketing software to assist our clients. 278 Clothespin Bridge Road, Webster, NH 03303 (603) 289-6616 mc@means-of-production.com
If you re an interior designer, architect, design build professional or realtor and have not signed up for Houzz you are missing out on one of the biggest online marketing opportunities around. Think of Houzz as a cross between Facebook and LinkedIn for the built environment professional. It is all about lead generation and increased sales. Houzz was created in 2009 by a husband and wife team who were struggling with their own home re-modeling project. From these humble beginnings it has grown to having 250,000 registered companies. Each one of these companies is able to post examples of their work online for potential clients to view. Homeowners can save and share these samples to their Ideabook for inspiration or to consider hiring the designer. There are over 2000 people who search online for Houzz Kitchen and 1500 homeowners, which search for Houzz Bath every month. And those numbers are minute when compared to the 14 million unique visitors every month. With this much traffic and the opportunity to directly communicate with potential clients; Houzz is a fantastic marketing platform. This article will explain the best practices for Houzz with some step to step guides to help you with effective promotion on the site. Creating a Profile Houzz isn t just a social media platform; it s also a business directory. As with any other business directory; contact details are necessary for potential clients to contact you. The top ranked professionals on Houzz have their: e-mail, webpage, telephone and postal address 2
listed. This is a must. Don t leave it to chance that the potential client will appreciate your craft enough to search for you through Google. Remember to include your location in addition to the address; homeowners can search their local area for designers and this is an easy way to be found. Like with most social media platforms and business directories; there is an opportunity to create a sales pitch on your profile. Some of the highest rated Houzz designers give a brief introduction to the company and its history before moving onto the services provided and finally any industry awards. It may seem a lot, but a high quality profile has been proven to yield better lead generation. The key is to use keywords in all of the written content you post so that your profile comes up when people seek a professional. Think in terms of Mid-century Modern Living Space or Spacious Terrazzo Tile Bath. When posting, ask yourself how will people find this project if they were searching for it on Google. Uploading and Sharing a Portfolio The next stage of creating your professional Houzz profile is uploading examples of your previous work. This is by far the greatest tool that Houzz possesses and can be a good lead generator. A good portfolio allows your previous designs and projects to be bookmarked in a user s Ideabook which link back to your profile. One of the best pieces of advice when uploading pictures regards the size of the images. It is highly recommended that any picture uploaded is at least 1000 pixels wide. This allows that the image to be displayed on the site at the optimum grade and for good display on mobile devices such as tablets. If you are unsure how to upload an image to Houzz, here is a simple guide: 1. Click on the green upload link in the upper right corner of the page. 2. Fill in as much detail as possible on the form. The more information you can provide the easier it is for potential clients to find you in their searches. 3. Next select whether you are uploading a space or a product and choose a category. 4. Choose the location where the image was taken. 5. Select or create a new project that the photo belongs to. 6. Provide a link to your website and write a photo description. Your description is very important as it is the main method that the search engine uses to index your photos. Remember to use keywords that clients may 3
use to search for samples. 7. Select the photo that you wish to include in this project. You can select a number of photos per project, to do this repeat this step. 8. Complete the process by clicking on the Upload button. Once uploaded you are able to edit photos and projects in many ways. Editing options available include: reordering the photos, editing the descriptions or keywords and adding unassigned photos to projects. Adding Tags Tags are a useful way to add extra information for your photos. If you are finding that Houzz users are asking a lot of questions about a single photo; adding tags may answer a significant portion of these questions. Some of the popular questions tend to be about dimensions of products and colors that are available. These might be a good areas to start with your photo tagging. To add tags follow this three step guide: 1. Identify the products in the images. 2. Add related product tags and to the image and select product tag. 3. If the product is not in the Houzz database; you can upload it with the upload button in the top right corner of any screen. Sharing Ideabooks The Ideabooks is the main principle of Houzz. Potential clients can add your photos to their Ideabooks to consider for their projects or as consideration to allow you to work on their project. But Ideabooks can also be used publicly in collaborative projects. This is a great method to network with fellow professionals and interact with potential clients. All that you need to do is go to your Ideabook and click on the sharing button. There you can select whether to make the Ideabook public or private. Unless it s a specific project for a specific client, make it public. You can share the Ideabook by entering in the e-mail addresses of anyone who you would like to share it with. At this point you can also select permissions for these people, so you can choose whether or not they can edit the Ideabook. Increasing your Rank on Houzz One of the biggest challenges for any design professional will be achieving a high search rank. A high rank will increase visibility and generate more leads. There are two methods for increasing rank. The first is by including a Houzz badge on your blog, website and e-mail signature. The badge is a direct link to your portfolio and allows readers direct access to save 4
your work in their Ideabooks. There are many different badges, including a 'featured' badge and the highly sought after best in category badge. You can check which badges are available to you by going through to the goodies section of your profile. You can also obtain the html code to implement it here. Another method to gain valuable credibility and increasing your rank is to gain reviews on the site. With the Pro+ plan, you can print off customizable review documents that the client can send back to Houzz to be included on your profile. Alternatively previous clients can add their review via the website. As with other review system the more reviews you have and the better the average score; the higher your company will rank in the Houzz search results. A good suggestion is ask every client for a review when you have concluded a project with them. If you have completed a good job and have been very communicative with them; they are likely to respond with nothing but praise. Houzz Help Houzz provides a series of videos to help you with each area of functionality on the platform. Click on the title below to learn more. They include, Uploading Photos - Learn how to easily add photos to your profile, and understand file size requirements in order to get the maximum exposure for your work. Reviews - Learn how Houzz helps you request reviews from clients and colleagues to add credibility to your profile and build your brand. Organizing Projects - We show you how to optimize your photos for Houzz search results and make your profile look great using the project editor. Tagging Products - Learn how to answer questions about your photos proactively by tagging photos in your portfolio with product information. Collaborating via Ideabooks - Learn how to use the private ideabook features to collaborate and communicate with multiple clients throughout the building, remodeling or design process. Webinars - Learn from Houzz experts and professionals in the community how they are using Houzz to communicate with clients, increase exposure, and grow their businesses. All videos can be found by clicking here. 5
Conclusion Setting up your profile on Houzz will take some time and attracting a following is about consistent posting of projects, responding to questions and being patient. However, you can complete a lot of the work early on. A better profile leads to higher ranking, which generates better leads and higher sales. Once you have set up your profile it should only require weekly maintenance of about a half an hour or so to keep your profile fresh, up to date and to keep the interest of potential clients. If you find that maintaining a Houzz profile takes you away from what you like to do best, give us a call. We can manage it for you. Means-of-Production is a marketing agency. We build brands, create inbound marketing plans, and develop advertising campaigns that grow revenue. Content marketing generates leads by providing information that educates those who are most interested in your products and services. It starts with search engine optimization and a website that gets prospects to request your marketing. By providing valuable information and promoting it through social media, keyword rich blog entries, and public relations initiatives, you will attract people who are genuinely interested in your company and are ready to buy. Through 6
automated marketing your company can remain top of mind with your prospects without having to remember of the email blast went out. We build marketing systems that improve efficiencies are effectively and include analytics that show you the results of your efforts. We're passionate about helping businesses improve their bottom line through great design, thoughtful copy, and concept driven marketing that targets the right audience and gets results. Start targeting your best prospects with efficient, measurable, creative and most of all, effective marketing. Give us a call today: Interruptive marketing is dead! Sure, Snuggles the Fabric Softening Bear still exists but his days are numbered and if you use annoyance as a mnemonic device your company is being remembered for all the wrong reasons. If you're new to this type of marketing philosophy and have questions about it, we would be happy to show you exactly how it works. We ll also take a look at your existing marketing strategies and compare them to your competitors. We'll show you how to immediately improve your marketing. We provide personalized help that takes your marketing to the next level. We'll set up your lead nurturing campaigns, improve key marketing messages, and create your calls-to-action. We're here to help you crush the competition with thoughtful, automated, inbound marketing strategies. 7