Creating a successful interior design blog that attracts thousands of visitors each month takes strategic planning and execution. Mostafa Khames' site ALDECOR has gained over 40,000 monthly visitors in just a couple of years by focusing on SEO and keyword optimization.
This in-depth case study will analyze how he grew ALDECOR from a small personal blog to a leading Arabic-language interior design site. It covers the beginnings, growth strategies, SEO tactics, content plan, and future outlook that have made ALDECOR a traffic leader in its niche.
The Interior Design Blogging Landscape
The interior design space is highly competitive for bloggers. Established sites like The Spruce and Apartment Therapy dominate search rankings with millions of monthly visitors. Rising above the noise requires finding an underserved niche and optimizing content specifically for it.
For ALDECOR, that meant creating an Arabic language resource for Middle East and North African audiences. The site has effectively positioned itself as the premier destination for interior design content in a previously overlooked niche.
The Beginnings: Identifying the Niche
ALDECOR founder Mostafa Khames originally ran a personal interior design blog in English but struggled to gain traction against bigger sites. Analyzing the competitive landscape, he noticed a lack of credible Arabic language sources covering interior design.
This presented an opportunity to launch a blog tailored specifically for this demographic and become the trusted source of information in the region. The niche targeting allowed ALDECOR to avoid direct competition with English sites.
After identifying the niche, Khames purchased a fitting domain name and designed a logo to establish the brand identity. The next step was building out the site itself.
Choosing the Right Platform
Many options exist today for creating blog websites without needing advanced coding skills. ALDECOR opted to use WordPress for its balance of ease of use and customization potential.
WordPress offers a wide selection of plugins, themes, and features that allow the site to grow over time. It also avoided the higher long-term costs associated with custom development.
For e-commerce businesses, Shopify is often the best platform choice. But for content sites like blogs, WordPress provides flexibility to start small and expand capabilities down the road.
On top of WordPress, he also uses tools like Cloudways for hosting, WordFence for security, Yoast for SEO, WP Rocket as a caching plugin, and MailChimp for email management.
Focusing Efforts on SEO and Keywords
With the underlying site infrastructure in place, growing an audience became the priority. ALDECOR focused on SEO and keyword optimization to drive visitors from search engines like Google.
Several factors make SEO particularly well-suited for niche blogs versus other marketing channels:
- SEO attracts targeted visitors actively searching for related content. These visitors have a higher intent to engage than social media or display advertising.
- Ranking high in search results gives credibility and authority to content sites.
- Organic search converts visitors into regular readers who return frequently.
- Content, links, and keywords all serve dual purposes of attracting search traffic while also providing value for readers.
Khames committed to an SEO-driven strategy early on for these reasons. The site structure, content creation, and promotion all centered around optimizing for keywords.
Selecting Profitable Keywords
Not all keywords deliver the same value. Finding ones aligned with searcher intent and business goals is crucial for SEO success. For interior design content, keywords around specific products, styles, DIY projects, and so on cater to what readers are looking for. Long-tail variations with 3 or more words provide more targeted traffic too.
Using tools like Ubersuggest and Ahrefs, ALDECOR identified thousands of untapped Arabic keywords related to interior design and furnishings to target.
The blog then created content optimized around ranking for those profitable keywords. Each post focused on a primary keyword, with related secondary keywords interwoven naturally throughout.
Creating High-Quality, In-Depth Content
Search engines reward websites for publishing better content than competitors. ALDECOR focused on lengthy, comprehensive posts over 1000 words to provide value. Short-form or thin content fails to satisfy searchers' needs. In-depth articles with actionable advice establish expertise and authority that earns links and rankings.
For niche sites especially, detailed content on specific topics wins over general overviews. ALDECOR's posts highlight knowledge through:
- Specific how-to tips and actionable advice
- Detailed product reviews and comparisons
- Case studies and expert interviews
- Thorough explanations and research
On-page optimization like formatting, images, videos, and internal links further enhance the content. But putting in the effort to create truly useful content formed the foundation.
Promoting Content Through Links
Links remain one of the strongest SEO signals for Google's ranking algorithm. Earning links from other high-quality sites boosts search visibility.
Interior design blogs have natural opportunities to gain links from relevant sites through:
- Roundup posts linking to projects or designs from around the web
- Interviews with influencers in the niche
- Contributing as a guest author to complementary sites
- Industry website mentions when referenced or quoted as a source
ALDECOR built an internal linking structure to interconnect related posts as well. This amplified visitors' time on site and signaled to search engines the relevance of the content.
Ongoing Optimization and Expansion
SEO is an ongoing process, not a one-time effort. ALDECOR continually optimized existing content by updating designs, adding related keywords, and refreshing posts that were already ranking well.
Expanding the content library with new optimized articles also provided more pages to potentially rank in search. If the first version of a post gained traction, publishing a follow-up or series on the same topic offered more optimization opportunities.
Monitoring Metrics for Improvement
Analytics provide the necessary data to refine SEO efforts. ALDECOR tracked keyword rankings in Google Search Console and tweaked content to improve positions.
Tools like Google Analytics informed site optimization decisions as well. Fast page speed and mobile friendliness became priorities to please both visitors and Google's mobile-first ranking algorithm.
By constantly inspecting metrics and results, ALDECOR iterated on content and site performance to boost organic search traffic. The numbers demonstrated the positive impact of its SEO focus.
Proof of SEO Success
Within just a couple of years, ALDECOR's SEO content strategy led to phenomenal results:
- From 0 to over 40,000 visitors per month
- 90% of monthly traffic from organic search
- High Google rankings for thousands of keywords
- Increased revenue from digital services like B2B marketing
This growth came almost exclusively from SEO. The proof of success cemented SEO's role as the long-term growth driver, guiding content planning and development accordingly.
Expanding the Content Foundation
ALDECOR discovered thousands more relevant Arabic keywords that remained untapped, representing future opportunities to expand the content foundation.
The site aims to establish itself as the definitive resource for interior design information in the Arab world. To fulfill this vision requires scaling up the successful SEO approach even further.
The content team brainstorms new article ideas based on keyword research. Existing posts also inspire follow-ups or series to build upon.
For each new piece of content, the focus remains on optimizing for specific keywords and related terms from the outset. This process has worked well, and leaning into it more aggressively positions ALDECOR to strengthen its authority.
Localization Opportunities
As traffic grows across the Middle East and North Africa, ALDECOR plans to create country-specific versions of the site. This localization strategy would involve building content and teams tailored for each of the 22 Arab countries.
Country sites would produce content optimized around keywords in the local dialect as well as address country-specific needs. This expands the relevance beyond pan-Arab resources to more targeted content.
Introduction pages customized for visitors from each country could route them to the appropriate version of ALDECOR. This level of personalization and localization would provide better value to readers while also boosting organic search performance.
The Outlook Remains Bright
In just a couple of short years, ALDECOR's focus on SEO helped the site become the leading Arabic language interior design platform. It succeeded by:
- Identifying an underserved niche for the target demographic
- Optimizing content for SEO and keywords from the outset
- Creating high-quality, long-form content that engages readers
- Promoting content through internal links and guest posts
- Expanding the content foundation continuously
- Monitoring analytics and iterating based on data
This SEO strategy has delivered phenomenal organic search growth. ALDECOR now looks to expand its content foundation further and localize for individual Arab countries.
Expectations remain high for the site to achieve its vision as the premier interior design destination across the Middle East and North Africa. If ALDECOR continues pursuing its SEO and content expansion plan, the future looks bright for cementing its authority in the region.
