Squarespace for Interior Designers
A LITTLE NOTE: As clients have full ownership and control of their site after the project is finished, I don’t link to the live sites as I cannot guarantee they will still accurately represent my design decisions.
Is Squarespace suitable for interior designers?
Yes! Squarespace is definitely suitable for interior designers! Squarespace has many built in features that are perfect for interior design websites: full-bleed images, a whole host of gallery layouts, built-in portfolio functionality and a range of clean, uncluttered templates – just to name a few. Since starting to exclusively offer Squarespace websites in the context of my web design business, to date I’ve built no less than 6 interior designers’ websites as part of my white-glove web design service and they are some of my favourites!
As design professionals, many interior designers have a clear idea of their own design aesthetic and translating this into a digital format, to communicate with their ideal client, is a challenge I relish. Moreover, interior designers always have a great eye for space and colour and are used to experimenting with ideas and improving upon a draft design themselves, so it’s a ton of fun to collaborate during the revisions stage and try different things out… not to mention, all those high quality, fabulous photos of their work make for great ‘ingredients’ to work with.
What to include on an Interior Designer Website
I work with clients closely to figure out exactly what they do (and don’t!) need and how we can make their website work harder for them. Your interior design website should be a reflection your unique brand but there are a couple of essential pages you’ll want to ensure you include.
An Awesome About Page
Your About page is a window into your business. This helps your ideal clients know you are the one for them.
When a potential client visits your About page, they’re looking to find out more about the business. They want to know if they can trust you. They want to get a feel for how you work. They want a peek behind the scenes at the person or people they’ll actually be working with. The quality of your work will be evident from your portfolio and an outline of your services and offerings are probably listed on a separate page. But your About page can, quite often, seal the deal and make a client feel confident in approaching you to discuss their project. Your other pages are often about your clients – past, present and future – your About page, is about you.
About Page Ideas
Share your backstory.
How long have you been in business? Are you a solo operation, a small team or a large one? Has your business changed or grown?
Stand out.
Why should a client work with you over anyone else? What do you bring the table that others don’t? Embrace what makes you unique and celebrate it. There’s no need to be all things to all people and trying to do this waters down what makes you special.
Set parameters.
If you work in a specific geographical location or with certain types of clients (building contractors, retail & leisure spaces, families with kids, etc) mention this on your About page.
Introduce the team.
Whether your ‘team’ consists of 1, 5 or 50 members – give us some insight. Introducing the business owner or a few key team members helps to build familiarity before a potential client reaches out. This helps build the know, like and trust factor.
A Peek Behind The Curtain.
In all aspects of life, we buy from people and companies we know, like and trust – it’s why huge companies with insane advertising budgets and Superbowl commercials still pay teenagers on TikTok to promote their products. It’s why celebrities, who have more money than the rest of us, get given the free stuff. If someone we know, like and trust thinks something is great, we believe them.
However, this know, like and trust factor is particularly apparent when we hire someone to provide services that intimately affect our lives. You can bet that designing someone’s home, a project that not only costs a significant amount of money but will have a lasting effect on the client’s quality of life for years to come, is a BIG decision. Finding an interior designer they feel a connection with, that they trust to handle this very important and personal project and who they think they’ll be able to get along with, is a big deal. Giving your visitors a little taste of your personality, or life away from your business, can be a great way to stand out.
My client Rachel Usher, has a short bio for each of her team members, including the two office dogs!
A Perfect Portfolio
Show off your best work and do it in style! All of interior design website clients have had different portfolio needs. Squarespace provides a number of options for displaying projects, galleries and portfolios. These can be customised further with a little custom code to really make something special. Some ideas you may want to consider:
Is your work split into categories?
And if so, do you want to lead visitors to view only projects in the category that’s relevant to them? Loam and Chi, use a simple page to direct clients to Residential, Commercial and Hospitality work.
How will you describe your project?
Some designers give each of their project a name such as ‘Kenwood House, Battersea’, this means something to you but maybe not to your visitor, perhaps on your website the project should be title ‘South London Family Home Renovation’ … (by the way, this is much better for your SEO, those words in the second title will make it much easier for someone looking to renovate their family home in South London, to stumble across in Google!)
Do you have a few stunning images you’d like to ensure everyone sees?
My client, House Nine Interior Design, has an animated logo to greet visitors to their site, that then opens onto a full-screen slideshow of their favourite projects.
Interior Design Website Examples and Ideas
Communicate Your Design Style
How To Keep Your Interior Design Website On-Brand
Using the font and colour options in Squarespace wisely will help to communicate your business’s distinct personality and design style. Just look at these two examples from my previous clients: Rachel Usher and Danielle Lancaster.
Rachel’s design style is masculine and quite minimal. She uses darker hues and slicker textures in her design palette, so this is reflected on her website. The site is fairly monochromatic but with an off-white, rather than pure white, to soften the look. Her pages are sleek and uncluttered, just like her finished rooms, with little flourish – just lines and the essential text.
Claire, who focuses on architectural design and works on the exterior of most properties, uses natural and earthy tones. Her site is also clean and uncluttered but has a warmer vibe than Rachel’s.
Danielle, on the other hand, has a bold, maximalist style. She is not afraid of colour but also uses lots of deeper and darker shades like Rachel. Her site has deep green and navy with earthy pink and yellow accents. Unlike the clean lines and spacing of Rachel’s website, Danielle’s has overlapping elements and irregular sizing as a nod to her bright, bold and quirky designs.
Include More Than Just Photos
How Use A Blog as a Portfolio in Squarespace
Portfolios don’t have to just be a gallery of images. Especially if you’re working in a niche market or only have a few projects under your belt, or don’t have the most perfect professional photographs, a case study can elevate your portfolio. Using either Squarespace’s blog feature or built-in portfolio feature, you can write alongside your images of the finished space. Stuck for ideas?
Give a brief overview of the client’s situation and needs
Perhaps include before photos
Explain how you helped the client and what choices you made for their space and why
Did you overcome and particular challenges?
What was your favourite part of the project or the final outcome? The client’s favourite?
Is there anything else they could have done? Maybe on this project you did X but another option could have been Y
Include a testimonial from the client
Don’t forget to include a link or button for anyone reading the case study to discuss their own project
Customisation: File Uploads
How to Add File Upload Field to the Squarespace Contact Form Block
When working with my interior design clients, a request I’ve had more than once if for website visitors to be able to send or upload files through a form. Sadly, this is not an available feature in Squarespace but with a little help from Michael at SquareWebsites and his brilliant Uploaded code, we were able to make it happen. House Nine required clients to be able to send images of their room in its current state when filling out an application form for their e-Design service. Similarly, Claire Totman Designs wanted clients to be able to send her architects drawings and elevations, plus inspiration images, when they made an enquiry. This involved a little tweaking on my part, as we had to get the form to accept the specialist CAD files used by professional designers, but the finished result means an easy, streamlined and professional experience for website visitors and a lot less hassle for the interior designer themselves!
If you’re interested in installing Squarespace Uploaded by SquarespaceWebsites on your existing website and you’d like some help, this can be done for you at a daily or hourly rate.
How To Use A Squarespace Blog to Market Your Interior Design Business
Danielle has jumped feet first into blogging since I built her website. When. I hold consultations with clients to build their new website for them, many shrug when asked fi they’ve ever thought about blogging. “I’m not a interior design blogger. I’m a working interior designer, I’m running a business here!” But did you know, blogging can be one of the most successful marketing tools there is?
Blogging gets eyes on your website
The most blog posts you have, the more pages you have indexed in search engines and the more likely someone is to come across your website. If you
Blogging is like catnip to Google
Google loves a regularly updated blog! Not only does it signify to the Google Ranking GodsTM that your website is updated regularly and contains fresh, relevant content it also gives you the chance to target various different searches. Rather than simply showing up in search results for “interior designer near me”, “interior designer Austin TX” or “interior designer period properties” – you can target dozens, if not hundreds, more search terms using your blog posts. Someone in another country who finds your “How to choose a kitchen sink” post (that’s one Danielle wrote!) might not be placed to hire you as a designer but they are spending time on your site, which means The Google GodsTM will know how great and important your content is and push it more toward everyone who is a potential client for you.
And not to mention, who says you can’t serve these blog visitors for a fee? A short course helping people on a budget to make their own interior design decisions? A paid one hour Zoom call to discuss their decorating ideas? An e-design service? These are all profit making services you could sell to your blog visitors who might not be right for your 1:1 design service.
Blogging positions you as an expert in your field
Aside from anything, blogging gives you credibility. When someone in your town opens 4-5 local interior designers websites, and one has a blog packed with helpful tips and articles, what are they going to think? “Wow, look at all these posts, she really knows what she’s talking about! That article she wrote about decorating a nursey that’s gender neutral but not boring is exactly the problem we are up against! I should shoot her an email!”
Need a little help?
Have your interior designer website built for you. My signature service includes assistance with planning your site’s features and content as well full training to maintain the website yourself once it’s live (or if you prefer, I can do that too).
Up-level your existing Squarespace website with my undivided attention for a day or half-day.
Book a Zoom Strategy Session to get personalised advice on your DIY web design project.
