How Social Search Is Rewriting the Rules for Paint and Wallpaper SEO
“Self adhesive wallpaper” and “peel and stick wallpaper” describe exactly the same product. One search term is declining 6%. The other is growing 8%. The difference isn’t in the product. It’s in where people learned the phrase. “Self-adhesive” comes from product catalogues, manufacturer specs, and the language businesses use internally.
“Peel and stick” comes from TikTok tutorials, Instagram Reels, and Pinterest captions, the language real people use when they’re showing off their weekend project. This matters far more than most paint and wallpaper marketers realise. Because social platforms aren’t just changing how people discover products. They’re literally rewriting the keywords your customers type into Google.
Our latest Salience Index 2026, Paint & Wallpaper shows the sector has taken a 3% hit in organic visibility overall. In that context, a brand growing isn’t “nice”, it’s a sign they’re doing something that fits how people are actually shopping right now. One brand doing exactly that: Graham & Brown. They’ve grown their Traffic Score by 25% while the market around them softened. This article breaks down why that matters, what they’re doing differently, and what you can copy without turning your site into a Pinterest knock-off.
Social Search Is Changing the Words People Type
Paint and wallpaper is an “I saw it, I saved it, I need it” category. People don’t start with product specs. They start with a screenshot. A TikTok. A Pinterest pin. An Instagram post in someone else’s lounge. Then they go and search. Sometimes that search happens inside TikTok or Instagram. Sometimes it lands in Google. Most of the time it’s both. And the bit too many paint and wallpaper teams still miss is this: social search changes the words people type into Google, and it changes what they expect to see when they land on your site.
The keyword data tells the story clearly. The “peel and stick” vs “self adhesive” shift is the clearest example. Same product. Different framing. The framing is being set by social platforms. People repeat what they hear in videos and captions. Then they type that into search. If your site taxonomy, filters, category copy, and internal linking still lean heavily on the “self adhesive” phrasing, you’re aiming your SEO at the part of demand that’s cooling.
But it’s not just wallpaper terminology. The colour landscape is shifting too. Grey paint searches are down 18%. This matters because many legacy content and category pages were created during the peak grey demand we’ve seen in interior design over the last couple of years. If your internal linking, colour filters, and “hero collections” still treat grey as the star, you’re giving prime shelf space to what’s sliding.
Meanwhile, colour-led and use-case-led queries are doing the heavy lifting. Sage green paint is up 14%. Beige paint is up 27%. Red paint is up 33%. Satin wood paint white is up 52%. And then the properly “TikTok-coded” long tails are spiking too. “Butter yellow paint color” is up 320%. “Warm neutral kitchen wall colors” is up 375%. “Neutral paint colors for living room” is up 222%.
Why Graham & Brown Is Winning
From the Salience Index data: Graham & Brown is ranked #5 overall in November 2025. Their Traffic Score moved from 107,184 (May 2025) to 133,849 (Nov 2025). That’s a +25% change, in a market that’s down -3% on average. They’re also not doing it from a tiny base. They’re already playing in the top tier, behind Dulux and Farrow & Ball in Traffic Score terms.
When you look at their site execution, you can see a clear pattern: they treat inspiration like a product. Not a “blog section.” Not an afterthought. It’s built into the shopping experience. If you take one thing from this piece, take this: social search is powered by “save this,” “show me more like this,” and “what paint is that?” Graham & Brown build those behaviours into their site, so the jump from social to sale is short.
Here’s what that looks like in practice.
How Graham & Brown Makes Social Behaviour Work On-Site
They Pull Instagram Into the Homepage
On the UK homepage, they feature a Community Gallery and explicitly reference Instagram, inviting people to share their looks using their hashtag. This is not a random social icon in the footer. It’s positioned as part of the shopping experience. Social content creates recognition (“I’ve seen that mural before”). Recognition creates brand and product searches (“Graham & Brown mural,” “that wallpaper,” “resistance paint”).
Brand searches and product searches are the easiest organic wins to convert, because the shopper already has intent. If your brand does heavy social but keeps it separate from the site, you’ve got a gap in the middle of the buying path. That gap is where people bounce, open a new tab, and end up buying someone else’s “similar” option.
They Let People Save and Plan
Two small-but-important features show up as you scroll: “Dream Room” as a concept, and a wish list that requires sign-in (save favourites and build a plan). That’s a social behaviour. “Saving” is how people shop in this category. They don’t buy on first touch. They collect ideas. They compare. They come back.
Most paint and wallpaper sites still act like every visit is a “buy now” visit. That’s why bounce rates are so brutal on colour and style pages. You haven’t given the visitor the one thing they came for: a way to hold onto the idea. You don’t need a full account ecosystem to copy this. You can start with saving to a wish list (even without a login), email me this selection, “create a moodboard” feature, or “add to project” for trade and home renovators. But the point is the same: give the visitor a reason to come back to you, not to their camera roll.
Their Shopping Structure Mirrors How People Search
On the paint section, they make browsing by colour, room, and surface easy and obvious. This matches the keyword trend data exactly: colour-led and use-case-led searches are driving demand. It also matches how social search works. People search for “sage green bedroom,” “warm neutral kitchen,” “red feature wall.” Then the practical follow-up: “best paint for bathroom walls,” “satinwood for skirting.” Their structure basically says: tell us what you’re trying to do, and we’ll get you there.
For in-house teams, this is the bit that’s annoying but true: site structure is SEO. Not “technical SEO” in isolation. Not “content” in isolation. The shape of your category system is the shape of your demand capture. If your navigation still mirrors your technical terms (emulsion / eggshell / masonry) without mapping to “rooms” and “style,” you’re forcing the shopper to translate your business model into their problem.
They won’t.
Product Pages Actively Reduce Decision Fatigue
On wallpaper product pages, Graham & Brown include a section called “Perfectly Partnered Paint” with a set of suggested paint shades. This is a smart social-search response. Social content creates one big problem: people fall in love with a look, but they don’t know how to recreate it. If your product page answers “what paint goes with this wallpaper?”, “what else do I need to buy?”, and “how do I get the same vibe as the photo?”, you convert inspiration-stage traffic that other sites waste. This also helps organic performance because it increases internal linking depth between paint and wallpaper, and it aligns with the “pairing” mindset people have when they search after seeing a room set on social.
Practical Help Sits at the Point of Purchase
Wallpaper is high friction. People hesitate because they’re worried they’ll mess it up. On their product pages, Graham & Brown offer a “How to hang wallpaper” video and guide. That’s not “blog content.” That’s conversion content. If someone comes from TikTok search (“how to do an accent wall”), lands on a product, and then hits panic mode, this keeps them moving. This is where a lot of brands get it wrong. They separate “help” and “shop.” Or they bury guides in a generic support hub. Or they answer the questions after checkout (too late). In this category, confidence sells. The brands that bake confidence into product pages win.
The Bottom Line
Graham & Brown’s 25% growth in a market that’s down 3% isn’t magic. It’s the result of treating social behaviour as input to site structure, not as a separate channel. The language shift from social is real and measurable. The demand shift towards colour-led and room-led search is accelerating. The brands that adapt their taxonomy, their product pages, and their “help” content to match how people actually shop will capture that demand. The brands that don’t will keep wondering why their traffic isn’t growing despite “doing SEO.”