Should My Business Be On Houzz?

Updat­ed 9/29/2016: This blog was orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten in ear­ly 2013 when Houzz was still pret­ty new to home­own­ers and the build­ing indus­try. They also just start­ed their adver­tis­ing plat­forms. As you can see, there are quite a bit of com­ments about peo­ple’s expe­ri­ence with adver­tis­ing on Houzz. To save you some time, please note that adver­tis­ing on Houzz is not for every­one. I think for the small ser­vice busi­ness­es, Houzz will most like­ly dis­ap­point you. You will not get a good ROI if you invest in Houzz Pro+. It will also depend on how much com­pe­ti­tion is already adver­tis­ing in your mar­ket, the reviews they have and over­all portfolio.  I think if you are a larg­er com­pa­ny or are look­ing at brand­ing in a lot of dif­fer­ent areas (have a big­ger bud­get) invest­ing in Houzz Pro+ has some val­ue. I have a num­ber of my clients (annu­al rev­enue over $1M) that typ­i­cal­ly invest $250 – 500 a month with Houzz. This is a long term deci­sion for these guys to make sure they are seen more and more in their mar­ket, on and offline.  Below is my orig­i­nal 2013 post. 

Pin­ter­est and Houzz Intro

In 2009, a lit­tle web­site called Pin­ter­est popped up. Pin­ter­est is a social media site that allows peo­ple to ​“col­lect and orga­nize” things (pic­tures) they love. The buzz words for Pin­ter­est are ​“pin,” ​“repin” and ​“boards.” This site has grown pop­u­lar for the female audi­ence, near­ly 80 – 90% of its users (as of late 2012). My wife uses Pin­ter­est almost dai­ly to get ideas for dec­o­rat­ing, orga­niz­ing, gluten-free recipes and more. It was not long after I start­ed test­ing out Pin­ter­est when I heard of anoth­er social site called Houzz​.com.

What Is Houzz?

When I first stum­bled upon Houzz, my first thought was, ​“Houzz​.com is the Pin­ter­est for the design and remod­el­ing indus­try.” Instead of ​“pin­ning” a pic­ture to your board, like you do in Pin­ter­est, a user will add the pho­to to an ​“Ide­abook.” So one might cre­ate Ide­abooks that are called ​“Cab­i­net Ideas” or ​“Nurs­ery Room” etc. A per­son will find a col­or that he or she likes and slide it into the prop­er Ide­abook. The cred­it for that pho­to always goes back to the com­pa­ny that uploaded it. A year ago, most remod­el­ers, painters, design­ers and archi­tects did not know what Houzz​.com was! Today, almost all of them do and so do a grow­ing num­ber of home­own­ers. Houzz is an inter­nal search engine for the design and home build­ing mar­ket. A home­own­ers can type in key­words such as ​“cab­i­nets,” ​“green walls for bed­room,” ​“murals for kid’s room,” ​“hard­ware ideas for mod­ern kitchen” etc. Then pic­tures that have been prop­er­ly labeled with key­words and descrip­tions begin to show up in the search results. It is a very cool idea! The oth­er thing Houzz does is allow home­own­ers and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als to look to hire a pro. Houzz has cre­at­ed a busi­ness direc­to­ry for a grow­ing num­ber of met­ro­pol­i­tan cities. Houzz busi­ness pro­files also allow your cus­tomers to post a review about your com­pa­ny. [cap­tion id=“attachment_1779” align=“aligncenter” width=“813”] Exam­ple of a pho­to of a painter who uploaded this pho­to of a project recently…and it has been added to over 6,000 ide­abooks and counting.[/caption]

So Should My Busi­ness Be On Houzz?

Yes and No! It takes a lot of effort to get involved with Houzz. If you are an inte­ri­or design­er, a design build firm or an archi­tect, I think Houzz is cru­cial for your busi­ness. If you are a paint­ing con­trac­tor, Houzz is also a good idea but will require a bit of a time com­mit­ment. One has to take good qual­i­ty pho­tos, have a plan for upload­ing those pho­tos on a reg­u­lar basis (not just once), has to enter key­words for the best pho­tos and get involved in using all the oth­er fea­tures Houzz has to offer. Houzz has rolled out spe­cial adver­tis­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties as well. I’d rec­om­mend build­ing up your port­fo­lio with a good amount of pho­tos and then start look­ing at the cost of ads. You can also spend time answer­ing ques­tions peo­ple have about their home. This is a good way to engage with peo­ple and help brand your com­pa­ny. This is a very brief blog arti­cle on Houzz. There is lots more to know! Curi­ous though, who is using Houzz now? Any results from your efforts?