This page presents how a cabinet making business can transform with the help of a professional SEO services and digital marketing. It is a very special project that I undertook as it is a project I undertook for my brother. Having a profitable business making custom furniture these days is not an easy thing to do. The mass furniture production competition is very strong and lowers the prices of furniture so much that it is hard for a cabinet maker to find new project. Hard but not impossible as it will be shown as we move forward explaining how a cabinet business can become extremely popular. If you are interested in starting your own cabinet maker business or you are trying to find ways to promote your cabinet making services contact us and we can arrange a 30min free call to discuss with you the details of your project. We know how to promote such type of businesses efficient and effectively.
Business Location: Thessaloniki Greece (Local business)
Business Industry: Cabinet Maker Business
Website Language: Greek
Project Assigned: Jan 2018
Transforming a Cabinet Maker Business: The Story
My brother is a cabinet maker with approx 20 years of experience in this business. He makes furniture on demand and he makes a lot of different types of furnitures. I made the first website for him in 2004. Back then the internet reality was very different than what it is today and I was just a beginner trying my fresh skills in website development and also experimenting with SEO. Since then I updated his website two times. Once in 2014 and the last time it was in Feb 2018. Both times I completely recreated it. It took me a lot of time to find the way to promote his custom furniture making business mainly because initially I did not have the experience needed for such a difficult project and later on because I did not have the material / (his furniture portfolio) that would convince the users. I was trying to convince him for years to take photos of the furnitures that he was making…. Finally he started doing it and only after this I was able to connect all the pieces together and prepare his latest website which is the first website I have built for him using WordPress. The first one was all with manual HTML and CSS and the second with Drupal CMS. But definitely WordPress CMS was a better choice for this project.
Having already some knowledge about this business (this is a family business – my father was making furniture on demand as well) I had to find ways to present it in a very professional manner in order to give the users a feeling that my brother’s business is offering a competitive advantage in this field. That it is offering something that makes it prevail from the competition. So, I did my SEO marketing research and then thought out of the box and connected the pieces together. Out of the box in this case means, make a website that will present his services in a unique way.
The project difficulties
- Very small budget
- Very strong competition from other businesses who produce furniture on demand
- Very strong competition from importers of ready furnitures
- Market that switches to cheap ready made furniture
- Strong SEO competition for words related to furniture
The project strengths
- Experienced cabinet maker that can make very difficult furniture projects
- Good communication
- Trust in my proposals 200% 🙂
What we did
- Changed the domain name
- Made a completely new website based on the SEO marketing research results
- Wrote all the content in the website – which is a service I offer only special cases
- As soon as we launched it, we promoted it the website with Google Ads
- Made a facebook page to keep some communication in the social media.
- Made a google my business account.
- Optimize the website for SEO on weekly basis.
Services we continue offering to the client:
- Professional SEO services
- Google Ads Services
- Digital marketing consultation services
- WordPress website support
The results
I was extremely surprised with the results because the came almost immediately after we launched the website. As I mentioned already this has been a very difficult project due to the strong competition and I am very happy that I managed to find the way to pass the right message to the target audience. In the past very rarely users who entered in my brother’s website were contacting him to request an offer and I was extremely surprised to see in the new website a leads conversion rate close to 10-12% depending on the keywords. The highest organic traffic in the website (traffic that come from SEO services and mainly Google search users) so far is 60 visitors per day but it is increasing almost on a daily basis as we are adding content very frequently. My brother receives 3-4 calls per day and December 2018 was the first month he could not cope with the demand and he had to reject projects due to long production times. For a small businesses like his success in SEO means that he has to run to adjust his production possibilities accordingly. But this is something every small business in such position is happy to do.
Below you will be able to see how the 2nd version (2014) of his website was looking like (Version 2). These version is still live here. You will also be able to see how the latest version of the website looks liek (Version 3). You may access it by following the link tsenekidis.gr or by clicking on the image.
Old website (Version 2)
Latest website: (Version 3)
Website Traffic by Channel
The graph above illustrates how the total traffic in the website has evolved (blue line) in comparison with the organic traffic (orange line) and the Google ads traffic (purple line) and the referral traffic (green line). The graph shows that the paid traffic (traffic from Google Ads) was higher at the beginning as we needed to bring results fast. At the end of July we stopped the Google ads because he had many projects and he did not need more. Then we started again in October but only to promote specific furniture types that can bring big projects but they take time to mature and become orders. The organic traffic from the other hand started slowly in the first months and is increasing more and more as the months progress. To be noted that for his business this is not normal as the winter months are not so busy as spring, summer and autumn but this is because we have been optimizing the website for SEO and because we add content on a weekly basis. My expectations are that in January 2019 the website will reach approx. 1100 organic visitors. With a 10% lead conversion rate this will be equivalent to 110 leads. 110 leads may be 3-5 projects with a 3-5% lead to actual project rate. I am counting here only projects that he has to make furniture with minimum profit per project 500euros. I am not counting small projects that he has to repair furniture or to assembly furniture which are smaller value projects but still bring a valuable income.
To be noted that an organic traffic of 1100 visitors per month in Greece for his keywords is equivalent to 250-300 euros paid ads. Thus, with the SEO services he is now able to save this money (plus the money he would have to pay to a Google Ads expert) and invest them in his business. Or, invest them in running remarketing campaigns which will bring him even more customers.
Lastly, after studying this business market a lot I would like to mention that cabinet makers are facing decreasing demand in producing custom furniture comparing with the past but there are opportunities in other areas (like repairing furniture, restoring furniture and also assembling furniture). Custom furniture makers can also be a better match for online furniture shops that operate with dropshipping logistics or logistics similar to dropshipping. It is important to re-position themselves in the market in order to sustain their businesses and help them grow.
Current status
The website at the moment has on average minimum 60 users per day and maximum 110 users coming from organic traffic only after searching on important keywords for the client’s business. Simultaneously we run Google Ads every month and occasionally facebook ads. The client wanted to focus mainly in full home renovation projects as his services are more competitive in this industry. Thus, he usually undertake big projects that contain a combination of services (kitchen remodeling, bathroom remodeling, bedroom remodeling, room additions, roof isolations, wall isolations, floor remodeling, hydraulic and new electrical installations, interior design etc). He is extremely busy and receives calls and form submissions from the website on a daily basis. The website is ranking at the top 7 positions for all important keywords in his industry. It has been a very successful project that has the potential to become even more successful. Startups, also need time to cope with the excess demand and find ways to absorb it while keeping the quality of their services high.
Client Testimonial
Usually in this section I add the customer’s testimonial but because in this case the customer is my brother I will not. With the results presented above I believe it is clear that any customer in this position would be very happy let alone that this client is my brother.
How to promote your cabinet maker business / custom furniture maker business
If you are getting ready to open your own cabinet maker business or would like to grow your existing business and you would like to promote it successfully contact us and we can organize a free 30min call to discuss with you your project.
More SEO Services by TrySEO
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SEO consulting services per website type
You might be wondering if all the websites require the same type of SEO consulting services and how these services might be different per website. From my experience all these years I can say that the SEO principles are the same but the effort and continuity that is needed for sure are different not only per website type but also per business industry, size, location and even the CMS that is used. If you would like to learn more please follow any of the links below.
