Interior Designers: Make Your Website Findable
What Makes Interior Design Websites Rank on Google & ChatGPT?
Interior design is a visual business. Pictures of your past projects get potential clients excited about how you’re going to transform their home & their lives.
But…interior design websites that prioritize “pretty pictures” over search - SEO & GEO -visibility fail to turn visitors into client leads.
Top designers like Zoe Feldman & Shea McGee balance visual sophistication with keyword-rich project descriptions, service pages targeting location searches, and consistent content creation. This approach to web design & content creation is exactly what Google, ChatGPT & Perplexity are looking for when they scrape the internet looking for "interior designer [your city]".
In this episode of the Interior DesignHer podcast, I chat with Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing - about how you can turn your website into a 24-7 salesperson that gives search algorithms exactly what they need while also getting website visitors excited about working with you.
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Key Takeaways:
Beautiful doesn't mean findable: Minimalist websites with stunning photography but the wrong text content makes Google & ChatGPT search bots grumpy. And land you on page 8 of any web search.
Portfolio storytelling matters: Transforming photo galleries into detailed project narratives with location keywords, service descriptions, and client problem-solving creates content that serves both human visitors and search engines.
Consistency beats sporadic efforts: Designers who invest in marketing as "punctual projects" (website redesigns, magazine features) struggle compared to firms treating marketing as ongoing strategy with consistent social media, content creation, and business development.
Word-of-mouth success creates vulnerability: Seven to eight years of referral-based growth leaves firms exposed when economic conditions shift. The designers thriving during slower markets had already built consistent marketing systems and diversified client acquisition.
Design and SEO can coexist: Top designers prove you can add keyword-rich content without sacrificing aesthetics through text hierarchy, punchy headings, strategic photo placement, and thoughtful layout that balances form and function.
Service adaptation accelerates success: Firms navigating challenging markets successfully combine consistent marketing with adapted service offerings like design days, virtual consultations, and smaller project options that meet current client needs.
Read the Transcript:
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Hey, Daniela. Welcome back to the podcast. You know, maybe not everybody caught our, earlier conversation. So, can I get you to tell us a little bit about yourself and about findable, digital marketing?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah, thanks for having me again. So, yeah, my name is Daniela, a consultant, writer, and speaker on all things digital marketing for interior designers and architects. I've got a digital marketing agency. We're a small team, small but mighty team of five.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And we help interior design firms increase their online presence, but also their inquiries. We've got a track record of doubling inquiries for clients through SEO, social media, email newsletters, and, having a holistic marketing strategy.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay. So for some designers, designers I've spoken with, the past year has been slower than they would like, and, making themselves findable, obviously, is something that's very important. How do you help interior designers become findable?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: I think it really starts with, having a clear positioning. Trying to be everything to everyone makes it really difficult to do marketing. So one of the first things we challenge interior designers to do when we work together is define Your focus, Do you want to grow the commercial side or the residential side of your business?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Do you want to grow beyond in Toronto or Calgary or a specific suburb? And even within residential and commercial, that's still quite broad. And so narrowing it down, that's really the key. In other words, define your target audience.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And then from there we work backwards, to optimize you for Google. Figuring out what the keywords people are searching for for that specific service or target audience and then creating content that reinforces that.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Not just blog posts, because that's what people typically think of when I say SEO content. But not just blog posts, also portfolio pieces, your service page, social media content, video content, anything that we can reinforce your target audience, your niche, your focus, your specialization, whatever you want to call it.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: In our, previous conversation, the reason I had you on at that point was because I really liked how you handled designers portfolio pages. How it wasn't just a, series of beautiful images, there was story behind it. And, recently you did a LinkedIn post which got me super excited on, Zoe Feldman's new website launch.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And I mean, I'll let you talk about it without me rambling on.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah, yeah. Actually, speaking of the portfolio storytelling. So since we last spoke, we've had a few more clients really like the idea and get and given us the creative reins or the trust to redo their portfolio.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And I can send you some examples to you and your audience to check out of how we approach portfolios through a storytelling or case study lens. And Zoe Feldman does that. Zoe Feldman, I think is super interesting because she's already a leader in the industry.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: She's a top designer in the US she had already a pretty effective website aesthetically and for sales function. And then she completely redid it. And it makes you think a lot about the standard when it comes to digital marketing and website design in this space.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And, and she's really practicing what a lot of designers preach, which is balancing form and function, not just prioritizing a pretty website, but making sure it's strategic. And I think that's what this new website does.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay, so like you said, I mean, established designer, good career, was her old website bad or, or like, what did you find wrong that you wanted to change?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah, it was a beautiful website. It was well branded, had beautiful photos, it was clear, but it was very minimalist. It had very little copy. So trying to rank for keywords is quite challenging. When you don't have a lot of copy or keywords.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: To begin with, her portfolio did not tell stories. It was just a photo gallery. So. So you had to guess kind of what she did. You had no idea. Did she just furnish the place or was a full gut renovation? Her about page, for example, didn't list her entire team.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: It was just her. And she didn't have ongoing content. I think towards the end, she did launch a blog post or a blog series, but didn't she have a lot of contents? And because I'm a nerd and I spend so much time looking at the back end of websites, I did realize that she had these hidden pages targeting specific cities like the suburbs of D.C.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Alexandria and Virginia. And those, those pages targeted keywords. So, like, it would target the keyword interior designer, Bethesda. But it was not visible from the navigation.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: It was a page that they created that was indexing on Google, but it was quote unquote hidden, from the navigation. And they were ugly. Like, they, they checked the algorithm. Right? They did what the algorithm wanted to use those keywords, but they were not well designed.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Now with this new website, she still has that beautiful design. It's well branded. She still has beautiful flower photos, but in summary, she's got more text. And when people, when designers hear that, they're like, oh, no, I love the minimalist design.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: I like the photos to speak for themselves. I don't want it to look stuffy and robotic and crowded with text. But Zoe, again, she applies design, and so she's got a hierarchy of text. She's got a mix of, of headings and subheadings, and she makes headings punchy and engaging and she breaks it up with photos and illustrations.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And, and so she, she's as a leader, as the industry leader. She is, she's showing the industry how you can take the, the best practices that all the digital marketers are saying, but apply good design to it to make it make sense for interior designers
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Which is obviously easier said than done.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah, right.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah. Are those pages, those, those sub pages, are they still hidden? Like, is that, is that still an acceptable practice?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: She's, removed. Well, on her site, she's removed it. It is an acceptable practice. It's not actually hidden. It's. I'm trying to Describe it in layman's terms. They're indexed. So if they're indexed, it doesn't mean that they're hidden.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: They're indexable pages. If you look at the back end, you can see them clearly. If I Give you the URL. Anybody can access them. They're simply just not listed in the main navigation menu.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, so it's hidden to the casual observer, but not hidden to the Internet.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Exactly.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay, got it, got it. Just wanted to be clear about that. I'm. I'm curious, what the conversation would be like. Like, when she approached you, like, she didn't approach me.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: I want to say, as a disclaimer, I do not work with Zoe Feldman. I'm.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay, sorry, that's my mistake. It's just an awesome example.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yes.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah. Okay, that makes more sense because, I mean, like, you know, I've always, appreciated the work you do for designers. And, so when you started talking about that, I thought that was, I'm like, oh, this feels exactly like something you would do. Yeah, it is something you would do. Right?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: It is exactly something I would do. And Shane McGee from Studie McGee is another example. I think I may have mentioned this in. In a previous conversation with you in the last podcast is, these are, like, concepts that are the things that I'm talking about, right?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Like using keywords on your website, talking about your team, telling the story behind your portfolio projects. Like, these are not foreign. Like, it's foreign to the industry, but they're not revolutionary. I'm not saying anything new.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: If I went to a marketing conference and I said this, everyone would look at me like, duh. That's like the ABCs. But in this industry, it's makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable. And so when I first started in this industry, one of the reasons why I wanted to specialize in this industry, because I saw there was an opportunity to make an impact and to change and apply these principles.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: But I didn't see a lot of people doing it. So I remember in the first couple of years, I would pitch a marketing strategy to an architect, and I would show examples of what I wanted to do, but then they would say, but they're not architects or they're not designers.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And I was like, well, yeah, but, you know, it still works. And they're like, well, can you show me examples of what my peers or my competitors would be doing? And that was a common, objection. Was quite challenging to get people to buy in or to be on board.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And then when I came across these industry leaders, like Stevie McGee or Zoe Feldman, it was a breath of fresh air because I now I finally had industry examples I could use that I could show people. And on top of that, they are exceptional at what they do.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: So there's even more credibility because then people go, oh, well, I love Studie McGee. I want to be like Studie McGee. And if that's what she's doing, then that's what I'll do. Now that's, that's quite sad that it comes to down to that, like, you have to copy other people and be.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: In order to be open to new ideas. It's a little bit frustrating, but that's what it takes. That's why I keep using these case studies.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah. And I mean, I'm assuming that a large part of that kind of mental block is due to the visual nature of what designers do. I mean, we see that, like, Instagram is far and away the largest social media platform for designers.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And Instagram was designed for images. I mean, it's shifting more to video. But designers haven't taken to TikTok the way they've taken to Instagram. And so there may be a real kind of psychological aspect to that.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Right?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah, I really think it's, As humans, we like to think that, we are different, that our tribe, our community, our type of people is, is unique and different. And sometimes we are. But more than often than not, we're pretty similar to one another.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And we're also. We don't like change. Typically, we're very resistant to change. Although we're exceptionally adaptable creatures, we, we are resistant to change. And this is a service where it's very high price.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Right. It's not cheap. We're not selling $20 T shirts and tacos. It's extremely personal and customized. And our interior designers face a lot of, distrust and objections when they're selling their services.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Right. People need a lot of trust in order to hire them. And so they apply that same sort of, mentality to their own practices. It's just so. Everything in this industry is so high risk. The stakes are always high.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And so, yeah, taking a different approach, it's safer to do what everyone else is doing because, you know, there's a blueprint, you know, it works and it's, it's scarier to take risks. But if you want to stand out and if you want to be a leader, you have to take those risks.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Right. And I mean, if the, if getting, homeowners, potential clients to your website is like one of your major goals, Right. Whether that wherever they have found you from, whether it's word of mouth, whether it's social, media, you know, whether it's an article from something years ago, who Knows you want to get them to your website.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Why? You have to remember that we're designing the website for the homeowner, not the designer and definitely not other designers. Who cares what they think about your website?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yes, absolutely. And again, like I said, just because the other design, other designers are not doing it doesn't mean that it doesn't work. Other businesses are doing it. It's working for them. But read any marketing book and you'll find these principles there.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And we can talk about this later. But that's what's called boundary spanning when you're willing to look beyond your own boundaries, your own comfort zone and learn from other businesses. Like it could even be as simple as looking at other types of designers, like graphic designers opposed to other interior designers.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, that's actually that's where I wanted to go completely because you brought up other industries. So where, where would you look to if you were, if you were, you know, pitching this idea to me to change my interior design website? What kind of examples could you draw on that you might use to help me see the light?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah, every industry has its strengths and weaknesses. I think the architect, interior design, construction industry is exceptional at collaborating with other disciplines, project management, you know, especially long term projects in a.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Really, really good at nurturing relationships. Everyone in this industry seems to be a pro at putting together a referral strategy and executing it and nurturing relationships over the long game. And I think other industries can learn from the interior design industry about relationships.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: But other industries have other strengths that we can learn from. For example, the medical industry is really, really good at educating consumers or patients in their case through content.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: So like you'll, you'll see, you'll find a lot of doctors or medical professionals. They'll have pamphlets and guides and educational material. The healthcare industry is also really good at making you pay for, for a diagnosis before giving you the treatment plan.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: In other words, if we transfer that to the interior design industry, you know, you don't get the proposal for free. You don't get, you pay for the consultation they visit. You know, we visit your job site, we assess, but then we give you a plan and that's all paid for.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Just like when you go to a doctor or a dentist, if they physiotherapist, you pay for the, the assessment, they do a one hour assessment or one hour checkup and then they give you the treatment plan or the, or the diagnosis. Right. So that's one example we can learn from the healthcare industry.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: We can also learn from the tech industry. They're really, really good at creating funnels and lead nurturing campaigns. They understand that people need a lot of touch points before you speak to them. And those touch points don't have to be in person.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: They could be again, content. Another example would be, let's say Hollywood. Hollywood is really, really good at building up suspense and anticipation, giving you teasers of a film, in order to buy on a specific date.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Right. It was actually Hollywood that came up with this idea, of, I don't know if you ever heard it, people say that you have to see an ad seven times before purchasing. Hollywood came up with that. Hollywood came up with this theory that you have to see a movie ad seven times before you'd actually go to the theater to buy a ticket.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Those are some examples. I can give you more, but I'll.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: So if we come, if we come back to, if we come back to the port portfolio old, the websites that you said designers should not be relying on where you've just got beautiful pictures.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Right.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: If, if, if I'm a homeowner and I go to visit a website of a designer like that, I can scan through the entire website, see these pictures and I mean there's a possibility that just I am struck by the awesomeness of the designs and I reach out and make a phone call right then and there.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: But I would assume more often than not these are people who are in the collecting information phase and they've probably got a million questions in their head. They, they don't, they don't even know all the things they don't know. And if all you've got is beautiful pictures, how do you answer those questions?
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Homeowner might not even know they have. Yeah, right. And I know, I mean a lot of Designers have an FAQ page with a list of, you know, 10 or 15 different questions that they think homeowners need to know.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: But you know that first visit to the website. So you're right. I guess there's going to need to be numerous touch points before someone is willing to, you know, start that process.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah. And the touch points don't have to happen all on the website. Like I'll give you some, some stories or examples. We did a, market research project for a client. They're a very high end architect firm outside of Toronto.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Their minimum fees are a hundred thousand dollars to give you an idea of how high scale they are. And I say that not to brag, but I say that because Sometimes I hear, well, we're too luxury to put ourselves online. Often not.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Sometimes people think that if you're luxury then it's tacky to be online or that the consumer is not online, which is false. That's why I say this client's price point to be able to just show that this works for any price point.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: But anyways, we interviewed 19 of their clients so picked up the phone and we had a 20 minute conversation with 19 of their clients asking them, how did you find this architect? Did you ask people, did you Google online?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And then when you found them, what were you thinking about? What were you, what questions did you have? What were you looking for? What was your impression of them online before you went in to meet them in person? And 80% of their clients found them through word of mouth.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: But 100% told us that they visited their website or their Instagram before booking a call. They went online to see them. And some of them, there was one in particular I remember he was a gc, he works in construction.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And so he knew about this architect because they're in the same industry. And he had followed him for years on social media before he was ready, before he bought his property, was written to renovate. And he never thought about hiring this architect because he knew that this architect specializing in modern architecture.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And he wasn't, wasn't really sure he wanted modern architect for his own home. But there was one social media post that, that the architect put out on Instagram that was a modern twist, it was a, it was a mix between modern and traditional.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And it was that post that got him thinking. Oh, you know, I wasn't considering him, but maybe I could consider him. And that post is what led him to go on the website and find that particular project.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And luckily this architect did tell the story he had like on if you go on his website he, he has his projects and there's a story behind each one. He's even taken videos and he scanned his original drawings and he really does a great job of telling the story stories and he read that and it was that, that pushed him over the edge of you know, booking it a call.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And mind you, this is someone that he knew personally already but it was not on his radar to contact him. So yeah, it just goes to show how important it is to talk about your work. Do it consistently. Put yourself out there. Website is not enough.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: You got to use social media, email, all the different platforms, because what you do is very expensive. People need A lot of information. And not many people. I've, bought a. You know, they pay. How many times do people hire an architect or an interior designer in their lifetime?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: They need an education. And your. Your digital presence is one way of educating them. But also. And this could be a whole other podcast is once they inquire. Right. Your sales process needs to educate them. And that's why I referenced the healthcare example, because you can give them all.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: You can have all the content, but not everyone is going to read it. Some people will, but not everyone. Will. And you can pay for that. You can charge. Sorry, you can charge people, to educate them through your sales process.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: So website and Instagram, I would assume almost every interior designer has those two things. But you brought up email.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And I'm wondering, how many interior designers that you've ever worked with or spoken with, you feel use email to its fullest potential.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Okay. The way I feel about email is how I felt about websites. You know, years ago. It's like I had very strong opinions and a vision for how the industry could use websites, but I didn't have enough examples until I started coming across, like, Zoe feldman and Studio McGee's new websites.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And I was using that, and I was saying, everyone, look at this. Let's do the same thing. Now I have, like, all of our clients. For every single client, I redo their service page in their portfolio section as, per the recommendations I'm giving in this podcast.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And it's easy. It's an easy sell. Now I'm on email newsletters. I'm trying to pitch email newsletters to clients, and they're like, no, our client, our peers are not doing that. And so I'm in the same spot now. I have to create case studies or examples or look for industry leaders that are.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: That's doing email well, and then present it to them as a way to build trust. So I can only think of one. I have one interior designer who was like, you know what? You know, I took your recommendations when it came to SEO. It's brought me so many results.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: I'm so sorry. I was resistant in the beginning. Whatever you tell me now, I will do without hesitation. And so I told her email. And, she just started. So I don't have any, like, case studies, any stories I could tell you, but her name is Rebecca Merritt, Merit Design Company.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And so if you want to, like, follow along. But, she's got her niche quite down, so she does coastal interior design along the coast of South Florida she even has, she knows her cities, the ones that she's targeting. So she, all of her social media and blog content is about coastal interior design and she gets quite niche like I saw one of her blog posts is about how to choose windows that are resistant to salt water spray when you're living by the coast.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: You know, like it's really niche like that. And so she's got this email newsletter and her goal is you know obviously to be the go to in coastal design whether you're in Florida or not. Even apparently. I mean she's trying to make this email news that are applicable to people that are all across the US like the coast of U.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing:. So I think it's a really effective tool to she, she's really, she's being really broad with it. She wants to capture everyone. But I, I think that it's a really effective tool for referrals, nurturing past clients, industry relationships.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Like if you have relationships with vendors or contractors, or inquiries that are not quite ready yet and they, they need some time to make a decision. I think referrals are, I think the email newsletter is a great way to show people the projects that you're working on. You go straight into their inbox.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: No algorithm between you and, and them. And and you don't have to use keywords you can write at your own liberty. Because again there's no algorithm you're not trying to rank on on an inbox. Although you don't want to use spam filters I should say that maybe
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And if you have a referral program, your email newsletter is a great place to put it. And I can tell a story. I've got tons of stories so.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Love stories.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: There's one, interior designer, her name is Natasha from Common Good Studio. I think I like the way she does her email newsletter and I don't take credit for it. I'm just an admirer. She's at the bottom of her quarterly email newsletter. She has a section called if you know, you know.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And what she does every quarter is she finds a chef in the city and collaborates with them. And she puts the picture of the chef and says to her email list this quarter our chef is Bob from whatever restaurant.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: If you refer a friend or family member to us, we will get you, we will make a reservation for you at Bob's restaurant and you will be. I have a chance to meet him. So she's not giving you money, she's giving you an experience which is something that res in the especially residential space.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Like people appreciate if you're, if you're designing for a wealthy consumer, they're probably not very motivated if you give them like a few hundred dollars of a referral fee. But they would appreciate probably, they're probably more inclined to appreciate, an experience like that.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: I've seen. Also we have a client that tried that. It didn't work for some reason. This is another thing. I've noticed that now I'm talking about referrals over email. But it's interesting how referral strategies and incentives don't work in every market.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: I haven't quite cracked this down, but I've noticed that. And so for this client, she tried that didn't work. And what she said to me was, you know, I've noticed our clients, they don't want to tell their friends and family about us because we're like their dirty little secret.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And they don't want them, you know, their friends to have the same designers. But they do support us. They want to see us grow and they want us to see us accomplish our goals. And then I thought, oh, okay, what if you tell them what your goals were?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And for example, this interior designer, she's in Washington D.C. so she designs home in the suburbs in the city of D.C. i said, what if you told your clients that it is your goal for 2026 to design a home in Hawaii? Just one home.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: One home in Hawaii. You tell them that and you say, if you have any freedom friends that, you know, have a vacation home in our second home in Hawaii, please let me know. Because that's my dream, that's my goal to design one. And that way it's not a conflict of interest for, you know, and they can feel like they're helping accomplish a goal with you.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: They can be in the ride. And that's something you can communicate obviously in person, but you can also communicate it through an email list that is exclusively for your network.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: That sounds pretty amazing. You're, you're giving the, the former client an opportunity to do something amazing for somebody else. Not something just regular. Right. I want to jump back just a little bit about email specifically is, I would assume that email has kind of an old fashioned reputation, maybe with designers, I don't know, maybe you.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Can break it, down for me. I don't quite get. Oftentimes the objection I hear is we don't want to bother people.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Really?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Wow. Like, I mean, I ignore, I'd say 99 of my emails.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And I think that's why I think most people say, that what I hear is I don't. I barely read email. Email newsletters. I find them.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Why do it?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: But so who else? Who's going to read mine?
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Well, I mean, to be honest, I read your newsletter and, and there's a few I do. I mean, I follow a ton of different people. And you're right, I mean, and I, and every once in a while I have to go through and unsubscribe, from a bunch of different ones that I don't read.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: But, I would assume also now then, as you're helping them craft titles and subtitles and all of that kind of stuff so that, you know, their, their open rates are higher, I kind of see it.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: I mean, you can see the same thing about social media. You know, there are some people that, like, I have one client who tells me I'm not on social media. Like, I, I'm, I'm 57 years old and I have an Instagram account.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: I probably look at it two times a year. I just. She just does not use social media. But email is her thing. And for someone else it could be the opposite. Like, I think the. Maybe if we think of it like you're not trying to, don't try to expect everyone to, see every social media post, every email newsletter, but you want to increase the chances that they're gonna see something on a regular basis.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Right.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Quite frequently I've spoken with designers who, they'll say they have somebody who reaches out to them and they follow their process on trying to get the ball rolling towards signing a contract and starting a new project, but the, person just doesn't respond.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Like, they ghost them, they move on. And I would guess that when you're, in regards to email, there would be a different process for people who are just approaching you and what kind of email flow you could do with that versus established clients, repeat clients, and all that kind of stuff.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Right, because, you know, once if somebody's called, you've had a conversation with them, you think the conversation went well and then they completely ghost you. Now you're like, well, how do I follow up with that? And email, to my mind, feels very easy, as opposed to getting on the phone call by calling them up every two months or three months.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Hey, remember me? We. Right. Whereas email is a little easier.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah, interesting point. You know, I actually had something like this happened very, very recently. I think last week a lead came through in the Beginning of the year. I can't remember how she found us. I don't know if it was the interior design show or Google or what it was, but she, she, I remember she reached out in the beginning of the year.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: We had a discovery, call, I sent a follow up email and then she just disappeared. She just didn't respond. And I was like, okay. And then in my sales software I just put her as ghosted, you know, and I just moved on.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And then last week she reached. Oh, she was on my email newsletter. I put every single, every single person that inquires gets on my email list. And so I kind of moved on and forgot about her. But she was actually on my email list reading my, most of my emails on, on every week.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: So I was still on her mind or within her radar because of my email newsletters. And then last week she reached out and said, hey Daniela, sorry I ghosted you earlier this year. Things were, I was really busy, I had a lot of my plate, but now I'm ready to pick this back up again.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Can we move forward with that consultation? And I said sure. And she paid that, the invoice for that consultation the same day. So yeah, I don't know. What do you, what do you take out of that when I tell that story?
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Well, going back to what you said earlier about like having seven touch points or whatever, right? So if, if, if she's been, whether she's looked at every single email newsletter you put out or just you know, here and there, something obviously pushed a button that she needed pushing.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Or maybe like she said she was just super busy and now she's less busy. But whatever it was, but, but you weren't hopping on a phone call and pestering her personally like that feels very personal. But emails, you know, there's a little bit of a lower barrier to entry maybe and the newsletters are perfect as opposed to you emailing her, like sending her a note saying, hey, just, you know, touching base with you.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: She just gets this newsletter and doesn't feel pressured. If that makes sense.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah, I know some people would, you know, see that lead, come back and be like, God, screwed up, you know, like they didn't respond to. I don't know, I don't take those things personally.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: So yeah, I was on a discord chat with some big time AI nerds and we were talking about social media and with the amount of AI slop and fakes that are now showing up on Instagram and tick Tock and Facebook and all over the place.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: There are some people in, in the AI world, but also the social media world that are worried that, that people are going to start backing off of the Instagrams of the world if you can no longer trust what is on there as being like human.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And so they're, they're legitimately concerned and who knows how this all plays out and what their, their belief is that people are going to kind of retreat to safe zones. Right, Safe zone, maybe I hate that word, safe spaces.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: But like your newsletter, if they know Daniela, and if that's an area where people can kind of congregate around for good, solid marketing information for interior designers as opposed to. I can no longer trust social media.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: So maybe AI, I mean, maybe email becomes like a much bigger thing than it is now. Maybe newsletters become a bigger thing maybe, or, or communities where they can kind of, you can trust what you're, the information you're getting.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: I think a lot of people go to substack for that reason. They were kind of saturated with, overwhelmed with the amount of information on Instagram. So there are a few people that they like, they like their work, they want to hear from them on a regular basis and they join them on subs and then they don't have to, they can cut out all the noise.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: But I also think these are trends. We go through these cycles of when we have more of a tolerance for social media and when we're, when we don't. And I've been hearing this for a really long time where people have go through these waves.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay, fair enough, fair enough.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: We touch. Okay. So I just brought up AI. I'm obsessed with it. I'm curious how you are using it in with your clients, if you are.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah. So, we use it almost at every phase. Some phases we use it more heavily than others.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Okay, so in the very beginning stages, we're creating a strategy. So we have our regular interviews like we, we have always been doing. We have, we interview the client about their brand, about their journey of starting, their own business and how they do things differently.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: We, we ask them about their target customers and then we'll also ask them for a list of the past 10 to 15 clients that they worked for and what they did. We take all that data and we used to come up with like a target customer profile and a brand, like I said, a brand guidelines manually.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: We feed all that information, the transcripts and all that to chat GPT and it pumps it up for us and then we create gbts for each client. And oftentimes when we create content on behalf of that client, we've already fed it the transcripts.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And we're able to create pretty good first drafts for social media captions and blog posts because we have that historical data saved. That for example, is one. We use ChatGPT internally.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: We also pay attention in our tracking. So we track in, in the early process of a project, we'll define or identify the keywords that we want to rank for. So let's say we have this one client that's in Brooklyn, they're interior designers and they do a lot of brownstone restorations.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And so we'll come up with a list of keywords like interior designer Brooklyn or brownstone restoration Brooklyn in. And different variations of that. Right? Like interior designer, interior design firm, Interior design studio. You know how it works. So come up with the list.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: We, we put it in. We use a tool called SEMrush. We'll tell stem, rush the tools that we want to. Sorry, the keywords we want to track. And then now in our reporting, not only are we trying to see how do you rank on Google Maps, on Google Organic results, but we also use these tools to see how often you're being cited in Google AI overviews or in LLMs like Perplexity or ChatGPT.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: So it's part of our reporting and we try to, that's one of our, goals is try to be excited as much as possible. Now, these reporting tools are not perfect, and that's why I always ask questions. Clients like to give you us their version of the report.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: We can tell you how many website hits and keyword rankings you're getting, but it means nothing if you don't have any inquiries. So tell us how many inquiries you're getting. And so every client has a spreadsheet, or a CRM, depending how invested they are.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And they, we must have access to that. I want to see how many inquiries you were getting and not only who the inquiries are, where they're located, what services they inquire for, when do they inquire, but also how do they find you and any notes that you can take.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: I'm so in awe. I've heard clients tell us they asked, chat gbt. And we came up and I'm like, wow, we've only been working on your site for three months and you're already like, it's just so fascinating. But I also will say, I'M going on attention again.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: It's still a minority. Like, there's so much hype about AI. I would say most of our clients get about 100, like, between 70 to 100 inquiries a year. And 1% of that comes from ChatGPT.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: The rest, the majority still comes froor word of mouth. Like, chatgpt is still. Still a very small piece of the pie, which is a lot of people surprised. Even I was surprised when I realized that when I crunched the numbers, because there's so much hype around it.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And I guess that's a really, a good reminder that we're very. In. That we're very much in the early phases of the AI adoption curve.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah, I tested before we got on. I was, I. I did a little just test on my own. And when I searched for broad interior design topics, whether it was interior designer, New York City, or something along those lines, I would get results, AI results that were very similar to a Google search where it's like, I know that name.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: I know that name. I know that. Now. If I got Nishi, like, you know, Brownstone, Brooklyn Heritage, and maybe a couple of other little points like that, suddenly it was completely different. On, On Google search, I was still getting a lot of the big names, but on the different, more AI, searches, I was getting names I'd never heard of.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Right.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And I was like, well, that's pretty cool. Right? Like that and that show. Because, I mean, that. That person that's showing up at number two now on a, On a chat GBT search. Right. They're. They're on page six of a Google search, right?
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Yeah. Okay. I want to come back to your clients specifically. So like we said, you know, we both enjoy stories, and that's how humans consume things better than just straight facts.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Say in the past year, because I, you know, I have seen a lot of designers say that this year has been a slower year. And, the. I don't know how much of that's tied to tariffs or the general feeling of, like, you know, I don't want to jump into a, you know, an expensive renovation right now until I know what's going on.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: What does the past year look like for your clients?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah, I got this question yesterday, actually, and I was thinking about it. I went back home. Okay, my, my, my perspective is a little biased because obviously, if someone is reaching out and inquiring about our services, it means that they have a bit of money put aside for growth, which means that they're doing reasonably well.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: So if you're not doing well, I'm probably not talking to you and I, I feel like I don't have a full picture of what the industry is like. So I want to, I just want to just use that preface by saying that, that I'm unbiased.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: But I can think of about five firms that I spoke to this year. They didn't end up being, oh, I think some of them pay for a consultation. But they didn't end up signing on with a long term project with us. And they came to us saying that they were struggling.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And I noticed some patterns with these five firms. Many of them have been around for seven, eight, eight even ten years. They've gotten this far because they built their business on word of mouth, friends and family, relationships with realtors.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Relationships. They invest in marketing for very like punctual projects. What I mean by that is like they'll redo their brand or their website for three months or they'll hire a PR consultant to help them get in a few magazines or apply for awards.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: It's like they do marketing in a very, as like a very specific project but not on a consistent basis. So because of those small investments that they've made over the years, they look good from the outside. Like the website is, is beautiful, the projects are performing professionally, photographed so, but then behind the scenes they're not doing any consistent business development, they're not consistently networking, consistently doing social media.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: One month they might put up four social media posts and another month they completely skip it. And that lack of consistency, I mean they never had to be consistent because they were doing so well with, with word of mouth. Another thing they noticed is, is that they will tell me they started to notice the signs in 2022 or 2023 and now it's the worst.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: So the ones I'm not, again, I only have a sample of like 5. I don't know if this is a whole industry but the people that are saying that this year has been really hard, it's not just this year, it's been like this for a few years that they're really feeling it because they haven't done much to respond.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: And then the ones that are doing well, they will tell me that, you know, think things are a little bit slower, people take a little bit longer to make decisions and they have to follow up a little bit more but they're still doing well. And I notice it's because they are consistent with their marketing or their business development efforts.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: I will say another thing. I've noticed the ones that are doing well, I've noticed they not only are they consistent with their marketing, but they also have adapted their services. Like they're open to doing small projects.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: They have a few clients this year launched what they call like a design day. So it's like a virtual consultation they offer that some of them are on the expert.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: I even have one client, he's an architect and he's selling pre made blueprints on Etsy for just thousand dollars. So I, I, I don't know, I think there, of course the economy is difficult but there are always fluctuations on in business.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: There's like, that's, that's always been around and I think the ones that are succeeding despite the, the economic challenges are the ones that are adaptable. They adapt to the market. They're, and they're adapting their services and they're consistent with their business development.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Right, for sure. Okay. So I'm an interior designer and I've watched this podcast and I am completely sold. I want to reach out to you and discuss having you help me.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Whether it's just fix my website or take on every little thing. What can you do for me?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: How can we work together, you mean?
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Exactly.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: We work together in three different capacities, depending what your budget is to be honest and how much support you need. So the easiest is our workshops. We just, this month we have rolled out a calendar of bimonthly workshops and they start as little as $50 and they're small groups of between 12 to 50 people.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: That's one. The other we could do a one time consultation. It's one hour long and we audit your entire online presence and give you a blueprint, a 12 month marketing plan out of that, that consultation. And then if you need help executing that 12 month plan, then you can hire our team, our agency and that price ranges between three to $5,000 a month.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay, how much was it for the second plan?
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: The consultation is $800.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay. All right, well that all sounds very good. I mean I'm I'm, I'm going to an interior designer event on the weekend and hopefully I'll spread the word a little bit for you.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Amazing. Which event is that?
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: It's actually out in Cambridge. I'm giving a talk on artificial intelligence for interior designers. Well, it's, it's, it's a really entry level thing. Where there's still so much fear and confusion around it.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: I just want to kind of get rid of that and let them have a clear idea of what is actually happening and where, how their skill set is unlike anything. The brand of, A.I.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: 53:01.2] we have now, the large language model, that it cannot replicate what interior designers do. There's other versions of AI that have been studied over the past 20 years that try to kind of mimic those kind of things in a better way.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: But what we've got right now, interior designers, to my mind, and I speak on a daily basis with people who understand this at a much more granular and deep level, they're like, no, that that level of expertise is what's going to make the difference for you.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: And the same thing with you in marketing. Right. I mean, you can go on ChatGPT and ask very detailed questions about how to market your interior design business, but I guarantee the results you're going to get back are going to be so much less than what you would have learned just by listening to this podcast.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: For sure, it's a great tool, but, yeah, personal experience is hard to beat.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: For sure. I mean, maybe in 50 years we're talking something different, but not. Not today.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Yeah. Well, that's exciting. I'm curious to hear how that goes for you.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Me, too. It's the first one I've done in person. It's a little.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Oh, wow, that's exciting.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: Okay. I tell you what, I really, really appreciate you coming on again, and, hopefully we can kind of circle back again in a few months.
Daniela Furtado - Findable Digital Marketing: Amazing. Amazing. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it. It means a lot to me.
Douglas Robb - Interior DesignHer: You, too. Thank you.
The Reality Check YOU Need
YOUR design talent is next level, but YOUR client acquisition strategy is mid…at best. Interior designers who built successful practices on word-of-mouth referrals for 7-10 years are discovering that what worked in the past doesn't protect them when economic conditions shift. The firms thriving in 2025+ didn't abandon aesthetics for SEO; they recognized that being unfindable is a business risk, regardless of how beautiful YOUR portfolio looks.
The Strategic Path Forward
Start with clear positioning that defines YOUR specialization, target location, and ideal project type. Transform YOUR portfolio from photo galleries into project narratives that tell the story while incorporating location keywords and service descriptions. Treat marketing as ongoing strategy rather than sporadic projects - consistency in content creation, social media, and business development separates thriving firms from struggling ones. Consider working with digital marketing experts who understand interior design businesses specifically, not generic marketing consultants who don't know YOUR industry.
The Transformation That Changes Everything
Imagine potential clients finding YOUR firm when they search for interior designers in YOUR area instead of relying solely on referrals that have slowed down. Imagine YOUR website generating qualified inquiries from people who've already seen YOUR portfolio and understand YOUR aesthetic. Imagine building a sustainable practice that doesn't depend on word-of mouth luck but on systematic visibility. The technology exists, the strategies are proven, and designers like Zoe Feldman demonstrate it's possible to maintain sophisticated aesthetics while being strategically findable. The question isn't whether YOU need to prioritize discoverability - it's whether YOU'LL adapt now or scramble to catch up later when competition intensifies.
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