SEO – the basis for advertising a furniture store

It is impossible to hide – nowadays, in many furniture stores you can find very similar or even the same goods at very similar prices. Even if you propose something unusual, it will be very difficult for you to break your offer among a huge number of products and sellers. How do customers find furniture stores? Often via Google. Sometimes they search on the basis of very general terms (eg “Los Angeles furniture store”), other times more precisely (eg “modern New York furniture”, “Boston-sized kitchen furniture” or even “eared armchair with a footrest”). Usually they click on the first few search results, rarely (only about 25% of the time) looking at their second page. Therefore, a high position in Google results is something every seller should strive for!

This is what website positioning is all about. It is a set of activities aimed at improving the visibility of the website on the Internet. Positioning is carried out on the basis of a well-defined list of keywords and a carefully developed strategy. These words should be skillfully placed in the content of the page, its meta tags and attributes. It is also worth making sure that links to it from other websites, preferably reputable and thematically related to it, are directed to it.

Keywords (phrases, queries) should be selected in a specific way. Although the company’s main goal may be to be in the first place in the search results for the phrase “New York furniture”, positioning your site only for this phrase will not bring you tangible results. Long tail keywords work much better, i.e. detailed, several-word queries similar to those mentioned above. They are much less searched, but at the same time much less competitive. This in turn means that it is easier to get to the top of the results. The positioning strategy for long tail phrases has one more benefit. They are entered in the search engine mainly by people determined to buy, including those looking for specific products. Therefore, if you can offer them a favorable offer, there is a high probability that they will take advantage of it.

It is best to hire specialists to conduct positioning. You can create a new position in the company or decide to work with an agency. It is worth remembering that the latter solution is usually much cheaper. However, it is important to carry out all activities systematically and thoughtfully – positioning is definitely not something that can be done “by the way”, especially in a serious company. How to make your website more visible? It is a combination of different types of activities. However, an important role here is played, among others, by content marketing, i.e. content marketing. The website of a furniture store is an ideal place to run a blog about interior design, trends, popular materials and their properties, arrangement styles and other related topics. It is quite easy to smuggle in many keywords in published articles, which affects the position of the page in the search results. One should only make sure that the website does not contain duplicate content, which will disqualify it in the race for good visibility on Google. In order for the advertising of a furniture store to be even more effective with this method, it is worth keeping your finger on the pulse when it comes to the latest trends and topics that interest customers. Thanks to a variety of online tools (including, for example, the free Google Trends service), you can check which topics and terms are most frequently searched for.

In addition, the very structure of the website is of great importance for positioning, so it should be constantly optimized, including in the field of code order, structure, appearance and content. You should also not forget about the exhaustive descriptions of categories and product descriptions in the online store (if any) and internal (between individual subpages of the website) and external linking.

SEO for a furniture store – why is it worth it?

Taking care of SEO should be a priority for every store and company that cares about a good image and attracting new customers. Positioning also plays an important role in advertising a furniture store. It is worth taking care of seriously mainly due to:
– the ability to reach customers looking for specific information and products,
– increasing brand recognition and prestige, which can be extremely important in the marketing of a furniture store,
– long-term effects – a well-positioned website helps to constantly acquire new customers,
– side effects in the form of a well-structured, optimized and user-friendly website and valuable content on the website and company blog.

Thanks to positioning, you will build a strong brand and reach your potential customers. It is now a primary marketing tool and a foundation for other activities that we will discuss below.

Google Ads – effective advertising of a furniture store on the Internet

Google Ads is another good solution for advertising a furniture store. The platform offers a number of paid promotion opportunities that are useful for both stationary and online activities. What tools can be used?

Google text ad (sponsored links)
Ads that appear just above or in between and look very similar to organic search results are sponsored links. Placing such a link in the search engine costs nothing in itself. However, you will pay for each redirection to the store’s website – i.e. for clicking the link. This is called Pay Per Click (PPC) settlement. The price of a single click varies greatly – it depends on the competitiveness of the keyword, i.e. how many people want to advertise within a given query, but also on e.g. your ad quality score. The advantage of a text ad is the possibility of obtaining immediate results comparable to those provided by careful positioning.

Product Listing Ads
Sometimes, ads for specific products along with a photo, name and price also appear in the search results. This is called Product Listing Ads (PLA). It is worth using them to promote specific goods from the offer. In this case, you also pay in the PPC settlement, and the customer redirected to the store often makes a purchase, which is why PLA campaigns can be very beneficial. In fact, it is currently the fastest growing advertising channel for online stores.

Graphic ad (display, banner)
When browsing various websites and websites, you often come across graphic ads, often related to your interests or previous Google queries? This is the banner campaign. Advertising of a furniture store conducted in this way may prove useful in the context of building brand recognition. Campaign settings allow you to refine the target audience of your content, which increases its effectiveness.

Remarketing
Remarketing is similar banners targeted at those who have already visited the store. Depending on the selected settings, they can show up to former customers or only to those who have not made a purchase. If you run an online store, you can use dynamic banners. Then, the recipients of the advertisements will be shown previously viewed products or other similar products (e.g. from the same category).

Google Ads in advertising for a furniture store – why is it worth it?

Google Ads is used by both novices and the greatest representatives of the industry – including those who managed to achieve the highest positions in search results. Why? Because it just pays off. In addition, advertising for a furniture store with Google is:
– several types of campaigns,
– immediate results,
– the ability to reach a well-defined target group and customers looking for specific products,
– favorable settlement model – Pay Per Click,
– the ability to analyze the effectiveness of the campaign thanks to statistics and conversion path tracking.

These types of campaigns can produce really good results. Condition? Consistent and skillful actions. Therefore, advertising for a furniture store via Google should be supervised by professionals.

Advertising of a furniture store via Facebook Ads

Facebook is a very important medium, but still remains underestimated by some companies. Your competition is definitely there, so it is definitely worth joining. Importantly, users often look there for information that is relevant to them. The company profile on the platform is a tool for communicating with customers and a determinant of its authenticity, so it is certainly not worth giving up.

Your own Facebook page can be used to publish news, present specific products and collect opinions or suggestions directly from customers. In addition, it enables paid advertising of a furniture store. You can use it to direct users directly to the store or to your fanpage, as well as gain new “fans”. There are many possibilities, also in terms of targeting. Thanks to this, promotional content can go exactly where you want.

Facebook Ads for a furniture store – why is it worth it?

Facebook Ads allows you to reach millions of potential customers. It is perfect for advertising a furniture store, as well as many other types of business, mainly due to:
– several campaign formats,
– affordable prices and no minimum budget for advertisers,
– the possibility of precise targeting, i.e. reaching a specific target group,
– various billing methods – e.g. for clicks or impressions,
– the possibility of creating the company’s image.

Facebook ads can be very effective, especially when done wisely. In addition, being on the platform will be useful for establishing and maintaining relationships with customers and increasing brand awareness.

Competition in the market is growing year by year – no matter what industry you operate in. Therefore, it is obvious that you are looking for newer and newer methods that will guarantee that the customer will reach you and not another entity. You win primarily with the good quality of products or services. However, this is not all. After all, a customer needs to:

A. be aware that your brand exists,
B. know that you offer solutions that they need (and feel the need to reach for them),
C. be convinced that your products meet his needs and are better than what the competition offers.

That is why marketing is such an important element of the sales process. However, the question remains: what? In modern terminology, two types can be distinguished: inbound and outbound marketing.

Outbound marketing vs inbound marketing

In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about inbound marketing – it has become extremely popular and is increasingly used in the digital space. Outbound marketing is somehow contrasted with it – often as less beneficial or outdated. But is it really so? Not necessarily. It all depends on how you approach it.

Before we go into a specific analysis, however, it is worth explaining both concepts to understand the difference between them.

What is outbound marketing?

Outbound marketing is outbound marketing (this statement does not hide anything from us), i.e. any activity in which the company addresses the client, directly encouraging him to take advantage of its offer. The initiator of the entire process is a brand that has a whole range of tools at its disposal.

As you may have guessed, inbound marketing is inbound marketing (this statement does not hide anything from us). In practice, it is about communicating with the market in such a way that the customer himself expresses his interest in your offer, and then lead him down the sales funnel to the finalization of the transaction.

At first glance, the inbound strategy seems to be more attractive and effective. Indeed, in many situations the “inbound” direction is the best one to choose. However, not always.

What are the advantages of outbound marketing?

The key advantages of using an outbound strategy are:

– full control over the course of communication
Inbound traffic is focused on interaction, to a large extent relies on the reaction of recipients to the message. This is where you speak more, waiting for specific actions from potential customers.

– the ability to achieve quick results
Inbound strategies are usually long-term in nature. But what if you want to carry out a quick sale in your e-shop? Then you reach for a specific, direct advertising message and direct it to a wide audience.

– possibility of application on a large scale
Outbound are activities that you can address to a mass audience – e.g. to radio listeners or to all recipients of a given website. Contrary to appearances, you also have the option of targeting, but of course it will not be as accurate as in the case of the Internet.

What about the disadvantages?

Like any advertising strategy, this one has two sides of the coin. So you need to remember that outbound marketing messages:
– can be considered disturbing and undesirable – if the campaign is not carried out properly,
– can be ignored – it must be remembered that the huge number of advertising messages that reach us has made the recipients used to “filtering” them,
– can be expensive – requires active actions throughout the campaign, its carriers (television or press) are usually expensive, and moreover, the target groups are less targeted, which means that the investment is less effective.

Therefore, you must use the tools in this range wisely. However, this does not mean that outbound marketing is a thing of the past. On the contrary! There are many ways to use it effectively!

What are outbound marketing tools?

The tools used in this communication strategy are basically all techniques that are aimed at advertising the product and encouraging the customer to take advantage of the offer. However, you can very specifically indicate the most commonly used among them. Here is their overview – both in digital and traditional channels.

Let’s start with the most traditional forms of outbound marketing – outside the world of the Internet.

ATL
All “Above the Line” channels in traditional media. It is mainly about: TV and radio advertisements, outdoor advertisements, advertisements in the press.

… All those that are well known and widely used both by large concerns and local companies. Their disadvantage may be the high cost of publication. The advantage – wide coverage and reputation.

Direct marketing
We are talking here both about direct contact with the customer, conducted by sales representatives, but also about telephones contact – when the telemarketer calls with a specific offer.

POS, leaflets etc.
Any catalogs, advertising leaflets, folders and the like are also a direct offer to encourage the customer to make a specific product.

Outbound marketing on the Internet

Of course, outbound techniques are also commonly used in digital advertising. There are many tools that you can use in this area. Here is an overview of the most widely used.

Paid advertising (PPC and PPV)
The most popular form of promotion on the Web – consisting in the publication of various types of banners and other messages. This group includes all ads that are published on websites, but also in search engines and social media. It is about, for example:

– Google Ads – and therefore paid promotion in search results, in the form of sponsored links, but also promotional banners,
– Facebook Ads – and therefore about ads that are displayed both on the wall and in the side panel of the website,
– banners and (recently less popular) pop-up ads.

It is worth remembering that there are different accounting systems. The most popular are pay-per-click, where you pay only for ads that have been clicked, and pay-per-view, where payment is made in relation to the page views of the message.

It may seem that the challenge for this promotion system is the fact that many people use software to block such advertising messages. Nevertheless, more and more portals encourage their recipients to unblock promotional content or protect themselves against it by preventing access to the content while using a blocker. Therefore, reasonably prepared outbound marketing ads create an opportunity to effectively reach the customer.

You cannot forget about remarketing, i.e. the strategy of displaying personalized advertising banners, based on the user’s cookie files. It is a very effective outbound tool that directs a potential customer straight to the offer they were already interested in.

Mailing
Mailing is often viewed in terms of inbound promotions. Indeed, it is often the case that a company obtains leads from potentially interested people, and then sends e-mails encouraging people to read blog articles etc. ? What if the messages are purely advertising? While many of these messages can be classified as spam, some will “make it through”. So when such messages are sent on a mass scale – and this is a relatively cheap solution – there is the prospect of profit.

SMS messages
Although in order to receive them, you must subscribe to a specific SMS newsletter, it is a typical form of outbound advertising. The recipient usually receives very specific advertising messages, with information about current promotional campaigns or discounts available to him. The company therefore directly encourages to take advantage of its offer and aims to obtain a quick conversion.

Is it working? This form of promotion can be beneficial, for example, when the target group includes many middle-aged people. They are still attached to sending traditional SMS messages in exchange for communication using Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

On-site advertising
So, all those that appear directly on the company’s website. The website itself is obviously a promotional tool. However, you can use additional tools to increase conversion. Those from the outbound catalog include, for example:

– pop-up pop-ups – e.g. those with messages about promotions or with a discount code for purchases,
– on-line chats – they also appear on the website, not called by the recipient, to encourage him to contact,
– web push notifications – i.e. pop-up notifications for the client or “flashing” page header in browser tabs.

These types of messages can be highly effective and carry a lot of sales potential.

How to conduct outbound marketing and what mistakes should be avoided?

Outbound marketing, as you can see, can be an effective sales tool. Nevertheless, the method of conducting activities must be adapted to the expectations of a modern recipient.

Remember: times of intrusive communication, in which the client might feel pressured and persuaded, are a thing of the past. That is why in outbound communication it is worth focusing on:

– relative personalization of communication – wherever possible. When preparing each advertising message, its purpose should be precisely defined, the expected reaction of the recipients, as well as the characteristics of the target group,
– advisory tone – modern sales is about accompanying the customer in making decisions, and not about persuading him by force,
– skillful selection of outbound channels – others will be suitable for running a nationwide campaign, and others for promoting a niche e-shop.

And finally, the most important thing: if you want to achieve marketing success, mix inbound and outbound strategies. If you are not sure how to find the balance between the two tools, get help from experts.

Why is it so important? The answer to this question is simple. Specialists:

– they will analyze your market situation as well as what you have to offer to your customers,
– define what the target group of your recipients looks like – outline their personas, thanks to which you will know who and in what form to address,
– they will adjust marketing tools to your budget and the time range of the goals to be achieved,
– prepare a specific advertising publication plan – with the selection of media, tools and specific messages,
– they will watch over the effectiveness of campaigns and report their results.

Thanks to this, you will be sure that the funds invested in the inbound and outbound promotion will work for themselves and return in the form of an expanded customer portfolio.