9 Tips For Writing An Interior Design Blog Post

SEO

[This post contains affiliate links. Click here to read my full disclosure.]

 
 
 

Today I want to share my step by step list for writing a blog post. It’s as much about efficiency tips for content creation as it is a basic list of “how to write a blog post” steps.

I’m not gonna lie, writing content quickly doesn’t come easily for me. I’ve been blogging for two years now on my home and garden blog, and the struggle is real.

Yes, I’m known for writing long, thorough posts that rank well, but still. I know I’ll never be able to crank out a post in 1 hour flat, (how is this possible and how does such a post ever rank so what’s the point…?) but I have learned some tips and tricks along the way that I want to share with you today.

Whether you’re writing your very first post or have been doing it for a while, these steps will guide you through exactly how to write an interior design blog post and do it efficiently so you can be as productive as possible.

  1. Keep a list of content ideas

  2. Be strategic - CTAs

  3. Be strategic - keywords

  4. Outline your post

  5. Write your introduction last

  6. Don’t edit your first draft

  7. Content hierarchy

  8. Create a blog SOP

  9. Repurpose your content


 
 

Write Your First Interior Design Blog Post (The Right Way)

Before we get going, if the whole point of blogging isn’t clear to you, I recommend first reading Why Blogging Is Important For Designers & Architects. It will give you an overview of why the heck we’re bothering with all of this blogging stuff. (Hint - it’s not because we just loooove to write.)

Keep A List Of Content Ideas

“What am I even going to write about?” A common enough concern at first, but soon - no more!

Whether you have trouble coming up with ideas about what to write about or you’re like me and have too many ideas, either way it’s a great idea to keep a list of ideas somewhere. I keep a list in my Asana called “Blog Post Ideas” - very creative name, I know.

Where to get ideas?

  • First, just do a general brainstorm - no editing or judgement, just any and all ideas. Think about your ICA (Ideal Client Avatar) and what their pain-points are. What would be helpful information for getting them where they want to be?

  • Another great source are questions you get from clients (especially when different clients ask the same questions).

  • Also, DMs on your social media, questions in Facebook groups (goldmine!) and comments on blog posts are all great sources of content ideas.

  • Do some research on your competitors. What are they writing or posting about, and what’s generating engagement from their own audience? How could you put your own unique spin on that topic?

Once you build up a list, you’ll never be staring at a blank computer screen again wondering “what in the heck am I going to write about today?”

Figure Out Your Design Post’s Purpose (CTA - Call To Action)

First, you could certainly do this before picking a particular topic. If you have a goal of promoting a product for example, then you may already know the call to action you want your readers to take; like click through and purchase after reading your post.

But if you’re excited to write about a particular topic but are more murky on it’s actual purpose, stop for a minute to think about how it’s going to serve in your business. If your goal is simply to “drive traffic",” that’s great, especially when you’re new to blogging. You’ll want to do all you can to help it rank well in search and promote it heavily on social media.

You still need to answer the question of what action you’d like your ICA to take as a result of encountering your post. Is it to book a discovery call, purchase a product, sign up for your newsletter? Then consider how you can strategically encourage that action via your post.

If it’s to sign up for your newsletter, include a newsletter sign up form at the bottom of the post for sure, but also elsewhere if appropriate. For example, in the section above about about keeping a list of blog post ideas, I discuss drilling down on your ICA’s pain-points to come up with ideas. Below that section, I included my newsletter sign up form with an “Identifying Your Ideal Client” freebie in case a reader isn’t clear on who their ICA really is. That was no accident. 🤗

Choose Your Interior Design Post’s Keywords

Choosing keywords goes hand-in-hand with determining your post’s purpose. I recommend you put together a list of keywords you want to try to rank for.

What are keywords? Here’s how I like to think of them: If my target audience has a question about the topic I’m planning to blog about, how would they type in that search in Google or any search engine?

Keyword tips:

  • Generate a list of overall keywords for your business and also more specific ones for each blog post.

  • Again, ask yourself “How would my ICA search for the answer to that question?” (e.g. - how would they type in the question?)

  • One of the best free ways to keyword search is type your question into Google as you imagine your ICA would and check below for similar popular searches.

If “keyword research” is generating a giant question mark in your head, check out this post for an introduction to keyword research and ranking.

Writing a blog post without strategizing to rank with search engines is almost pointless. It can certainly serve your immediate audience when you email it to them in your weekly newsletter, but let’s face it, most of us don’t have humongous existing email lists. Instead, we’re looking to build our lists. Am I right?

So how do we generate subscribers? One of the best ways is through a quality blog post that answers a question or pain-point your ideal client has.

The goal is they will do a search to try and answer this question and find your post because you crafted it to rank for certain keywords associated with your ICA’s question or pain-point. In other words, you’re speaking their language.

Then they will read and love your post, decide they want to hear more from you, and entrust you with their email in exchange. That’s the goal.

This post isn’t about SEO (search engine optimization) - that’s a whole subject unto itself, but are a couple tips:

  • Incorporate your top keywords into your blog post title and the first 150 words of your opening paragraph.

  • Incorporate your keywords naturally into your H1, H2, and H3 blog post headers (don’t “keyword stuff”, but incorporate them where appropriate).

My search for “how to design a kitchen” shows popular similar searches according to Google.

Outline Your Interior Design Post

So you’ve figured out what you’re going to write about and identified your post’s CTA and keywords? Great! Now it’s time to outline your post.

For a while after I first started blogging, I used to just dive in with a “let’s just see where this thing goes” type of attitude. And I will say, this can be perfectly appropriate.

Especially when you’re first starting out with blogging, I think it’s important to give yourself creative space to write what’s on your mind without constraint or structure just to get yourself acquainted with the blogging process. (Let’s face it, some of us probably haven’t written this much since school days!) Trying to impose too much structure at first can be stifling when you don’t even know what this whole blogging thing is about.

I tend to be really structured, but I allowed myself this freedom and some great posts came from it including How To Create A Mood Board For Interior Design. This post eventually ranked Google page 1, position #1 as a brand new under-six-months-old blog, and got the attention of LinkedIn Learning. They reached out to me to create a mood board course for their online education subscription service which I did.

The only reason I wrote that post was because I felt I had to “get my design process off my chest” and so I did. However, as time goes on, I recommend you be more intentional about your blogging.

By outlining first, you keep your topic and intention on track and reined in. It can be very tempting to want to cover everything under the sun in a single blog post. (I’m 100% guilty of this at times, especially early on.) But I can tell you from experience, it’s better to keep to a specified topic or outcome.

If you cover too much, your risk your reader becoming overwhelmed and not taking any action. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. You want your reader to find actionable tips in your posts so they can get a quick win.

What to do with those related topics you’re tempted to include in one giant mega-post but you know it will be too much? You add them to your Blog Post Content List and write them up on their own, fully fleshed-out with all the attention they deserve in a separate post.

This happens to me all the time - I’m writing a post and find myself delving down a rabbit hole. Before I know it, I’ve written up a couple paragraphs about something I realize is too much of a side-topic to cover in my post. So what I do is copy/paste the “rabbit hole” info I’ve already written into a new post to write up later where it sits as a draft in my Squarespace blog. Voila! I have a new topic to write about next time. (For the record, I’ve already done that with one of the sections from this post.)

Outline your posts first so they stay on topic, aren’t overwhelming or confusing, and are actionable to give your audience a quick win.

Write the Introduction Last (same goes for the title)

This is an important one for me. I used to start a post and logically begin (so I thought) by writing the introduction. But I found I’d get really hung up on it, taking waaay too long to generate something that’s just, well, an intro.

Finally I read a recommendation to do the introduction last. (Pretty sure it was Brian Dean of Backlinko) I think this is a great call.

When you think about it, it’s very logical to write the introduction last. As you can imagine, it’s pretty hard to introduce a blog post when you don’t really even know what you’re writing about. So why sit there spinning your wheels?

Outline and then write the meat of the post first, then go back and write the introduction. I think you’ll find it comes to you much more naturally and takes less time.

Blog post introduction tips:

  • Avoid fluff. Make the intro short and sweet.

  • Include a Pinterest-optimized graphic (1000 x 1500 pixels) either above or below your intro and include an image description using your keywords if appropriate for SEO purposes.

  • Write the title last too for the same reasons, and don’t forget to include your keywords.

Don’t Edit Your Writing on the First Draft

This is another huge one for me. My perfectionist tendencies are never stronger than when I write. This means I used to constantly edit for a perfect sentence as I went along. I’ve since decided this is a huge no-no.

Half the time I end up changing things in the post overall in a major enough way that whatever sentence editing I fussed around with initially gets chopped or moved elsewhere. (Like breaking up a long section out into two sections for example.)

This means my *perfectly edited sentence* (as if) isn’t even relevant and needs to be changed anyway because it’s being used somewhere else or for a different purpose.

Don’t waste your time on this. Go for “big picture” content writing. Then step back, take a look at your first draft, and make any content-related changes. Then you can go back in and polish your writing and edit for your brand voice.

General blog writing tip:

  • Make the paragraphs short. Avoid walls of text. Limit paragraphs to three sentences max. It’s easier on people’s eyes and attention spans.

Write first, then do any affiliate links and graphics [my “content hierarchy”]

This is similar to writing and outlining first and editing later. It’s what I’m dubbing a “content hierarchy.”

The writing is typically the most important part of a post. (An exception though would be a “reveal” type post - your client’s new kitchen project that’s finally completed and photographed, and now you’re presenting your wonderful work to the world. Those rely on images first and text is often secondary.)

Again, before you spend time on affiliate links or graphics, you want to make sure the core content is set. So write that first draft, then look at it again and make sure it’s what you want it to be about. Once that’s done then it’s time to include any affiliate links or graphics that support your post’s content with the time you have left.

Make sense? Do graphics and affiliate links last to make sure you only spend time on those that support your core content.

Create a blog post SOP (Standard Operating Procedure)

Once you’ve written a few posts and have a feel for your blogging process, I recommend creating a blog post SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) to keep as a reference outlining every step for creating and publishing a blog post.

I created one I keep in Asana, and I make sure I look at it after writing every post and before I hit publish. (Although some steps like pinning to Pinterest need to take place after publishing).

Believe it or not, I just counted and it has 45 steps in it! Most of these aren’t related to actually writing the post (although “outline post first” is one of them). It’s much more about steps to take after the bulk of the writing is done. Steps aimed at optimizing my post for SEO (search engine optimization) and content promotion.

Do I read each and every step and put a check next to it? Not at all, but I absolutely skim my SOP because while most are routine by now, it can still be easy to forget something here and there. And again, the whole purpose is to get as my eyes on my post and my business as possible, so I want that post to rank and be promoted in the best ways possible.

Repurpose your content

If you don’t know what to post about on your biz’s social media accounts then you must not be blogging. 😅

Once you’ve hit the “Publish” button, it’s time to promote your post so it gets in front of as many eyes as possible in the most efficient way possible. It’s time to make that post of yours work overtime and squeeze every bit of usefulness out of it.

Seriously, any blog post should be repurposed for multiple promotional uses on all your social media.

And honestly, isn’t coming up with Instagram captions tedious enough? Might as well make it easier on yourself by using done-for-you prompts taken from the blog post you labored over!

Here’s some back-of-the-cocktail-napkin content repurposing ideas:

  • Always pin your post to Pinterest using your 1000 x 1500 pixel graphic at the top. I also include one at the bottom of each post with a CTA reminding my readers to pin it.
  • A blog post can generate at least 3 Instagram posts! Just pull out key points from your blog post and create IG captions paired with eye-catching graphics or video.
  • Use graphics taken from your post or quickly create beautiful new ones using Canva - it seriously saves me so much time!
  • Create an IG story or reel based on blog content and repurpose it for TikTok and as a video pin for Pinterest.
  • Publish or link your blog post on LinkedIn.

There you have it - your first blog post is done and you’ve hit the “Publish” button! Be sure all of your ideal clients know about it, give yourself a pat on the back, and then rinse and repeat!


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Other creative business-building posts you’ll love:

 

Don’t forget to Pin it for later!

 
 

If you have any questions or comments, please drop me a note below. Be sure to check back for my response (I always respond) since no notification is sent.

 
Tina Flint Huffman

Websites • Marketing • SEO for Service Providers - Go From Overlooked To Overbooked

https://tinaflint.com/
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