I have been preaching SEO for some time, in may various ebooks and tele-seminars. I have also posted a number of articles from my friend at Leads Leap.
This is link to the last episode of Lead Leaps popular SEO tutorial series.
In this concluding chapter, they do a case study of a successful website that is doing very well in Google search results.
Below is a good article by Karen Schaefer. I particularly like the comment she makes about naming your company, which is particularly applicable if you want to be found online in a Google Search. Her USP is also a key concept. You must have a great one that you can use to communicate with prospective buyers in an instant. There is no law against using hers for your own, but you may well be able to come up with a better one for yourself.
And once again, look at the free publicity I just provided her. All because she wrote a good article. I am sure I will not be the only one reprinting this. This gives her traffic to her site, credibility and more. You should be doing the same to promote your business. -etn
How to Combine Creativity With Business
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Karen_S_Schaefer]Karen S Schaefer
The number one request that I get from all of my clients, whether they are from my Home Staging Training Company, Marketing and Networking Business, one of my Speaking Clients, all of them, are always looking for a way to be more creative, or at least add more creativity to their marketing efforts and effectively combine it with business. For some reason, we have been conditioned that the two don’t go together… but they MUST!
Over the years, people have constantly told me how “Creative or Imaginative” I am. Funny, I never thought of myself as such, but I am a self-professed dreamer, and I love letting my imagination run wild…which can be good, and of course, bad as well!
But, I think ultimately that you have to have a set foundation in every type of business, no matter what it is. You have to have a solid vision, a way to implement the plan or vision, have a strong team, a goal or intention and of course the marketing, direction and management to make it happen.
Rarely can this happen without a “Creative Department.” Most small businesses don’t have the luxury of an entire department, so it is up to YOU to be the Creative Leader of your Business, so that your Business is presented as a Creative, Productive, and Effective Company to your Client.
As Home Stagers, we all have a natural inclination toward creativity. Most of you explore that creativity each time you do a staging job. I know I do because it is almost a release for me. It is a creative outlet, a way to vent any frustration, and it also allows me to constantly flex my creativity muscle. I am able to in turn get better each time (and most importantly, offer more creative advice every time to my nationwide team of APSD Certified Home Stagers).
But, in business, we can’t simply be creative in what we do; we have to be creative in what we say and how we present ourselves and our services. In other words, your Marketing must be creative if you want to stand out from the crowd and catch the attention of your potential client.
That is why the first thing I always teach all of my clients is:
1) Name: What is the name of your company or Service? Does it say what you do and where you do it?
I know you are thinking, “Karen, to just say ‘Los Angeles Home Staging’ is boring. I want to say ‘A feather in your cap Sales.’”
Now, I would agree that the ‘Feather in your Cap’ is far more creative, but it does not tell me anything. When you come up with a name, people will search under categories, which is why, in this instance something “practical” comes in handy.
Even today, if I were naming my own Home Staging Company again, I would not name it Simple Appeal. I love the name, and it speaks to me, but for people that don’t know me, they are only going to search for Home Staging Services in Colorado-not Simple Appeal.
2) USP- Once you have figured out your name, now is your chance to be creative. A USP is a “Unique Selling Proposition.” Sometimes you can use this as a tag line, like I do, “Anybody can make your Property pretty, we make it Sell” or as a unique way to capture the attention of your customer. In other words, use your creativity, and figure out a way to say something about your service or business that makes you more compelling than any other person in your industry in the eyes of your client.
The best way to approach this, which you many already know if you follow me on Twitter, is to tell your client what they WANT to hear vs. what they NEED to hear. And say it in such a way that makes them think “I HAVE to have it!”
You can have so much fun with this and when you hit the nail on the head, your lead generation will explode. It is the perfect way to combine creativity with business.
3) Position- So, now you have a name that opens up the door for good and easy search criteria. You then have mustered up all of your creative resources and developed an extraordinary USP. So, you have burst open the door on your new lead generation. Now, you have to correctly and effectively position yourself in the market place so that you can convert those leads into sales, thus increasing your business’s bottom line.
My USP, “Anybody can make your House look Pretty, we make it Sell” is not only a great USP, but it also offers me great positioning in my market place. It is good marketing. The reason that I chose this USP is that I wanted to position myself in the market place as the Home Stager that actually knew how to stage a home so it would sell. I did not want to just be about decorating, accessorizing or rearranging…I wanted to be about results.
So, what you have to do… once again is be creative. What do you want to say about your business? And, how do you want them to envision you and your services?
All of these steps require creativity and with that, you will find that new doors will readily open for your business. The key to success is to combine your creativity with your business skills, because although they can each stand alone, the fact of the matter is that you could increase your business 10 fold over night by adding just one effective touch of creativity. And, let’s face the facts; it sure is whole lot more fun to be creative!
Keep in mind that creative marketing and positioning is just good business. So for those of you that immediately assume you are not good at business, by implementing the 3 steps above, you will now be 3 “business” steps ahead of any other Home Stager in your area.
In the future, I will offer a business program, but for now, follow the information above and you will be amazed at the results.
To your greatest joy,
Karen Schaefer
Founder, APSD
Your Worldwide Leader in Home Staging Training
By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. Through Karen, you can learn more about [http://www.apsdmembers.com/membership.html]home staging, [http://www.apsdmembers.com/homestager/directoffer.html]marketing houses and selling houses quickly.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Combine-Creativity-With-Business&id=3571566] How to Combine Creativity With Business
I’ve covered much of this material one way or another in the past, but my friend Ken Koh of Leadleap fame has added another posting in his ongoing series on getting people to find your web site.
It’s surprising how many home stagers and others think that they can just put up a web site or have one put up for them, and expect to get traffic and jobs from that alone.
You need to get you page set up right, with both on and off page tactics to raise your web sites visibility online.
I recently read a Blog Post on Leads Leap discussing the value of back links. I’ve preached on this topic before, but thought it might be worthwhile to share another person’s take.
While you as a home stager might not think that the internationally famous panelists that are participating in the program have anything to offer a small business like yours, you would be wrong.
I took a ton of notes last night, and got a lot of actionable ideas in the process. One I will share with you today is the understanding that people buy emotionally, and that they are motivated more by fear of loss than by hope of gain.
As an example a person is far more likely to take action to avoid suffering a $20 loss than they would be to gain $20.
What this may mean to a home stager, is that your clients are more likely to respond to a pitch that focuses on their risk of having to pay double mortgage payments, than they are to the hope of getting a higher price from a well staged home.
They may similarly respond to a pitch that details all the work they will have to do by themselves and the drudgery entailed rather than to the freedom they may enjoy by letting you do it for them.
That doesn’t mean the positive doesn’t matter, but rather that the loss elements are more effective in selling your services.
Now there was a lot more that I pulled out of last night, but I thought I would share that one. It’s up to you to think about how you could apply that knowledge in your own interactions with prospects.
Replays of the League of Extraordinary Minds sessions are not available, as they are being turned into paid products. But you are able to sign up and listen in to the remaining sessions for free, if you register at League of Extraordinary Minds. The next session is at 8PM, your time, next Thursday, no matter where in the world you are.
I encourage you to register and to listen in. There have been two sessions so far and 7 to go. The first two have been very powerful, and have lead me to make several changes to the way I do things. I am confident that you too will find value in each of them as well.
Push the Arrow to Hear the 1 hour 2 minute presentation.
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Last week I did an hour long presentation for Allegra Dioguardi’s new home staging curriculum. Staging Training by Design
In it I covered three different major topics. The first section dealt with some basic decisions most people make before they have enough information to do well. That includes picking their url, web host and decision as to whether to have a blog or web site.
The second topic covered includes a discussion of how to make your web site more search engine friendly and also how to generate back links need to raise your standing in the search engines.
The third section, dealt with how to get more of the people that find your web site to do something.
These are topics I’ve dealt with before, here and in my two eBooks. My challenge was to condense all the information into a single 60 minute presentation. Turns out I ran about 2 minutes long.
But if I say so myself, I did a pretty good job of covering all the major points you should be aware of when setting up your internet marketing campaign for your business.
Now while I would advocate that most people should learn how to manage and run their own web sites, the reality is that most will not. Therefore I discussed these topics so that people would know what they wanted to accomplish, so that they would be better equipped to tell their computer people what they wanted, and why.
Thus while the conversation was directed to home stagers specifically, the comments apply to almost any locally based business wishing to attract more customers by internet marketing.
In support of the audio, I have created a resource page of links and resources. It is pretty rudimentary at the moment, but I will be developing it as time goes on.
Allegra Dioguardi, Interior Designer and president of Styled and Sold Home Staging is now offering training and mentoring for aspiring and seasoned Home Stagers alike.
Allegra is a Parsons School of Design graduate. And her sense of design is the missing element in many home stager’s education. It’s one thing to declutter and establish some focal points, it’s another to tie everything together with a sense of style.
Allegra has had decades of experience that predates the home staging revolution. She has worked and taught many people how to stage model homes, long before the term Home Staging was coined.
She has invited me to prepare a module as part of her course on websites and search engine optimization. I am looking forward to it. It will give me another chance to distill the essence of my two eBooks, Why Most Small Business Web Sites Stink, and Main Street Climbs to the Top of the Search Engines.
I anticipate that I will revamp both my WART Analysis and Market Maker programs in advance of the course presentation. My goal will be to provide affordable support and training for Home Stagers who want to take a hands on approach to controlling their web sites.
I will use this preparation process to devise the easiest way to train home stagers to get more people to see their web sites, and then to get more of the people that do see them to actually do something.
In the meanwhile, I am very interested in hearing from you. What issues do you have with your web site that I can help you with?
What lessons have you learned that should be shared with other home stagers in the area of web site, and email marketing?
Hearing the word spyware tends to evoke an image of popups for most internet users. It would probably surprise most to learn that almost every internet user has at least some spyware or adware on their computer. The reason for this is that these parasites can hide in parts of the computer that you can’t normally access.
The biggest problem with these parasites is that most users don’t know just how dangerous they can actually be. Sure they cause your computer to slow down (a lot), install things you don’t want, and more, but they also do much worse things. Having spyware or adware on your computer compromises your privacy to a very dangerous level.
How often do you enter personal information on the internet? For most people, this will be very often. Many of these parasites will track everywhere that you go on the internet and report it back to it’s creator. It doesn’t stop at that though. Not only will it track everywhere you go, but it will track everything you type and click at these locations as well.
What this means is that if you enter sensitive data such as your social security number, credit card number, bank password, or anything else of that nature, a stranger also has that information. To make matters even worse, this information is often sold to even more people; this means that hundreds of people could have access to all of your personal information.
If you want to keep your privacy on the internet, you’ll need to rid yourself of any spyware and adware that inhabits your computer. There is a free report named “Adware Removal” which outlines everything that spyware and adware do, as well as how to get rid of it. Remember, the report is completely free and definitely worth a read.
Yesterday we talked a bit about the “Inspection” blog post. Today we will cover “Insights” and the “Index” type of post.
2. The INSIGHTS Blog Post.
Quick tips are great “in between” posts since they are so short. They are normally between 100 and 250 words. If there’s a great bit of information that you want to share with your niche but it doesn’t really warrant a full blog post, you can post a quick tip. The tip should be focused on one key area of the niche. For example, “How to Grease a Muffin Pan” is a perfect quick tip article for a cooking blog.
For a home stager, it could be on Where to store valuables during a house showing, or How to dress up your front door.
If you put you mind to it you could probably generate a list of 50 such tips in no time. Write the titles down, and use them for infill when you are busy.
The third I is for “Index” which is just another word for a list.
Blog readers love lists! If you’ll look at the most popular blogs you’ll see that they make good use out of this type of blog posts. You can make lists fit any niche topic imaginable. They are great ways to convey information online because they can easily be scanned by web readers who like to skim over information.
You can create resource lists that will help your readers find information on your niche. You can also create lists of different ways to accomplish a goal in a niche, like “5 Things to Do Before a Showing.” The possibilities are endless.
How about a list of things to do, room by room? Or perhaps a list of X things to pack away before you begin to stage their house.
Blog posts come in many different forms and lengths. If you want to keep your blog fresh and interesting, you should post often. Creating different types of blog posts will help to keep your audience interested. It will also keep you from getting bored with your blog.
Blogging can be done as an adjunct to your business, to help attract customers or it can be a sideline of your business designed to generate revenue, as well as attract customers to your Home Staging enterprise.
If you are going to invest time and effort on your blog, why not use it as a profit center as well?
The five types of blog post are the
1. The INSPECTION Blog Post.
2. The INSIGHTS Blog Post.
3. The INDEX Blog Post.
4. The INTERVIEW Blog Post.
5. The INSTRUCTION Blog Post.
1. The INSPECTION Blog Post.
Review blog posts can help you monetize your blog. You “inspect” – take a closer look at – a product. When you review a product and include an affiliate link, you’ll make a commission off of each sale generated with your affiliate link. Review blog posts should go over some of the major plusses and minuses of the product. Even if you loved the product, you should keep your review balanced by mentioning a few things that could have been improved. Your audience will appreciate your honesty and be more likely to trust your recommendation.
What type of a product could you as a home stager comment on? How about paints, cleaning products, furniture stores, etc.
While there is no reason why you couldn’t do a blog on any vendor you choose to without compensation, why not find a product that has an “Affiliate Program” and join it.
One of the easiest ways to identify such products is to join one of the major affiliate market places like Commission Junction. It’s free to join, and once you do, you will be able to search from thousands of vendors to find products relevant to Home Staging that you could review and comment on.
Such recommendations, if done honestly and forthrightly will be well received by your readers, and could potentially add a new revenue source to your business. Not a bad idea to market yourself and make money at the same time.
To learn more about commission junction go to www.cj.com.
In the next couple of days I will go into more detail on this and the other four types of blog posts. By combining these ideas you can add a lot of reader interest in your blogs.
2. The INSIGHTS Blog Post.
Quick tips are great “in between” posts since they are so short. They are normally between 100 and 250 words. If there’s a great bit of information that you want to share with your niche but it doesn’t really warrant a full blog post, you can post a quick tip. The tip should be focused on one key area of the niche. For example, “How to Grease a Muffin Pan” is a perfect quick tip article for a cooking blog.
3. The INDEX Blog Post.
Blog readers love lists! If you’ll look at the most popular blogs you’ll see that they make good use out of this type of blog posts. You can make lists fit any niche topic imaginable. They are great ways to convey information online because they can easily be scanned by web readers who like to skim over information. You can create resource lists that will help your readers find information on your niche. You can also create lists of different ways to accomplish a goal in a niche, like “5 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Sales Letter.” The possibilities are endless.
4. The INTERVIEW Blog Post.
Although these require a bit of preparation, they can be very valuable to your blog. You can interview someone in your niche and share the results of the interview with your blog readers. This will not only help provide valuable content for your blog, but you can also get more traffic to your blog. Likely, the person who you are interviewing will publicize the event on their blog and around the ‘net which will bring more traffic back to you.
5. The INSTRUCTION Blog Post.
Like quick tips, how to posts help you provide valuable information to your readers. However, unlike quick tips, these posts go into detail on a certain topic. Some how to posts are even separated out into two or three part courses. For ideas on what to create how to posts about, look at the most frequently asked questions in your niche and develop posts around those topics.
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January 26, 2010 
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