You’ve made major progress when you take care of your on page SEO issues.

Your page factors again are your title tags, keywords and description in the hidden meta tag area, and use of H1 tag, and appropriate keyword usage on your page and at least 425 or more words of text on you landing page.

For some people that will by itself be enough to get your site to the first page.

For others, in more competitive markets it won’t be enough all by itself. For example one of my most recent clients Ann Alderson from Tampa is trying to do business in a market that has almost as many home stagers as it does Realtors.  Well maybe not, but it seems the various schools are having frequent classes in the area resulting in a lot of competition, especially for web site ranking.

In today’s economy the various schools are having a hay day, as more and more people are looking for supplemental income.  And that means more competition for you.  And more web sites trying to climb to the top of the search engines.

In Ann’s case we were able to raise her from somewhere in the deep dregs of page 23 or so to #35 overall just by making changes to her onpage factors.

Her site is located at Home Staging South Tampa which is a good example of an anchor text using her keywords of Home Staging and Tampa. (And she just got another backlink)

She uses GoDaddy as her web hosting service. It took them 3-4 days to turn around and do what she wanted, but it did have an immediate effect.

But it’s not good enough by itself in her case and perhaps in yours as well.

That’s why you need to pay attention to the off page factors. And they come down to one phrase. BackLinks, Backlinks, Backlinks to paraphrase our Realtor friends.

Your first step should be to set up an account and post on Active Rain. By putting a link to your web site on your posts, you will create your first back link.  Now ideally this should be an anchor link as I have explained in past posts.

But while Active Rain is a great site, you need to get links from many different locations.

My next set of recommendations is to set up an account at Squidoo and Hub Pages.  www.Squidoo.com and www.hubpages.com.  Just signing up and creating a profile will give you a backlink if you include you web site in your profile. But what really counts is when you set up a page on their sites.

These need not be works of art. They don’t need to be long. They should be about Home Staging in your town.  And your town name and home staging should be in the title.  You have two possible audiences, Realtors and homeowners.

Make two pages to start. One for home owners and one for Realtors.

Do it first on Squidoo.  Write a lens on the Top Three Things a Minneapolis Home Owner Needs to Know about Home Staging.

Then do it.  If  you want make it the top 5 or 7. Feel free to buy my guide on Squidoo Basics if you need help, although they have tutorials on both sites.

Then publish your first Squidoo lens, and immediately start another.

Write a lens on the Top Three Things a Minneapolis Realtor needs to know about Home Staging. Once you get the hang of it, you should be able to get one done in 30 minutes, but plan on spend a couple hours the first time.

Make sure both of them have a link back to your web site.  If you have a separate page on your web site for Realtors, make sure your Lens on Realtors links back to that page.

Once you have these two lens done, go to Hub Pages.  If you’re lazy, use the same text all over again but put the three hints in a different order. Ideally you would reword the entire thing.

The more effort you put into these the better. But you are better off with many short Squidoo lens and Hub Pages than with one or two comprehensive ones.

There are three reasons why you are doing this.

First, they will give you added stature and credibility. Second, these Squidoo lens and Hub Pages sometimes get higher rankings than your web site intially, so it’s quite possible they may get to the top of the search engines before your main site does. That means real potential customers who may never have heard of Squidoo or Hub Pages may find them and you.  The third reason is that the backlinks from these sites carry more weight than many other sources of backlinks. So you want to get them set up for you as soon as possible.

Once you are done with these, you may want to switch to article marketing.

The Good part of article marketing is that your articles can become viral. Once you publish them, they can be posted to hundreds of different blogs each of which will create a backlink to your site.

Most will be from smaller sites, without as much clout as Squidoo or Hub Pages, which is why we start with them. But in the long run, the article marketing effort is what will not only move you to the top of your local search engine results, it will keep you there.

With all the newbies entering the market, that’s one idea you may well want to consider.

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, hub pages, squidoo

Getting to the Top of the Search Engines 2

There are two main areas of attention when discussing how to move your website to the top of the search engines.  The first are the on-page factors and the second are the off-page factors.

The on-page factors are the easiest and quickest to deal with and are where we will start to focus our attention.  They are critical but not the most important. The off-page factors will in the long run carry more weight. But that said, if your on-page factors aren’t set up properly you can and will lose much of the benefit your off-page efforts could supply.

We will talk about 10 on page factors. Of these four are invisible, and of the six that are visible, one may already be cast in stone for better or worse.

The invisible elements are the Meta Tags. The meta tags are in the hidden code that the search engines can see, but your visitors normally don’t see.  You will learn how to see them, and anyone else’s when we discuss them in detail in our next section.

The meta tags include your title tags, your description and your keywords. The fourth of the invisible items is called an H1 tag.  The results of it are visible, but since it’s also HTML code (of the simplest kind) I am listing it as one of the invisible factors. Almost all of you will be able to make improvement to these elements on your web page.  For some of you this alone will make a significant difference in your page ranking. So stay tuned.

I’ve been surprised at how few websites I’ve reviewed have had adequate meta tags. Even those done by expensive web designers are often poorly done or in some cases missing altogether.

The visible elements include your first 50 words specifically, and the total number of words altogether. The total keyword count within your text and the percentage of the whole they comprise. We call this keyword density. The visible elements also include the internal links you have on your site and the way you link them, as well as the originality of your content.

The one item that may already be locked in stone is your domain name itself. As we will discuss, you will do better with the search engines if your web site includes you main keywords in it. If your site is already up and established you may not want to change it. That’s understandable. But if you are just now starting up and or are considering a complete makeover of your web presence, give serious thought to including your keywords and geography if appropriate in your new domains.

In our next article we will focus in detail on the hidden items. That will be followed by a look at the visible elements. Once we have covered those we will move on to discuss the off-page strategies.

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P.S. I have just launched a new service I call the WART Analysis and Consultation

I have been testing it over the past week or so with home stagers and it has been very well received. I’ve got the service rock bottom priced for a short while, but will be raising it soon, so check it out now and take advantage while the price is so low.

Technorati Tags: SEO

Yesterday, I described a problem that a lot of home stagers and other businesses have. When your web site starts out with a splash page, and/or your site uses a lot of flash coding you can become invisible to the little bots Google and others send around the internet to index sites. And that means your competitors have an advantage over you in terms of their ability to out rank you on Google and the other search engines. That costs you opportunities, and that means less jobs, and less money.

Today, I will briefly share more on what you need to do to mitigate the situation short of redesigning your entire web page. The “on page” factors that the Google Bots look for are just a part of the equation. And while lacking all the umph! having them would provide, you can still get yourself some traction using “off page” factors. There are a variety of off page things to do, but they basically boil down to getting BACK LINKS.

You do this by posting on other peoples blogs, writing articles, posting on web 2.0 sites like Squidoo and others.  When you do, you don’t want to link to your splash page if you have one. Instead link to your home page, or another page on your site that is relevant to the topic.

So, picking on my Friend Allegra again, I would have her sign her posts as “www.styledandsold.com/home.html” rather than “www.styledandsold.com”  It may look a bit odd at first, but it will take google to the page that matters and will count as a backlink in many cases. (not all but that is too long a discussion for now.)

Better yet, are situations where instead of signing with your URL you are able to use an anchor tag.  For example, if you are writing an article to post in an article directory instead of using your url, say Allegra Dioguardi is a Hamptons Home Staging Expert.

In this case, the keywords Allegra wants to rank for on Google is “Hamptons Home Staging”.

If she is on a Blog Site like Active Rain that has a Link tool (Looks like three links of a chain) in its WYSIWYG editor, she would highlight the words Hamptons Home Stager, and then insert her URL as the link, using the /home.html version.

That way when the bots find the link they provide not only a backlink but also identify the keywords at being relevant to the site. This process starts building keyword status for your website.

If you are on a site where you need to use html code you would build the link with a standard opening

<a href=”   and then insert your url, again with the /home.html (Or another page on your site) and end it with a   “>  Once that’s done, you add the keyword you want to rank for—  Hamptons Home Staging and a closing code which is  </a>

So the completed phrase in HTML is <a href=”http://www.styledandsold.com/home.html”>Hamptons Home Staging</a>  When this is put in the HTML of a site, anyone reading the phrase once published would only see:Hamptons Home Staging The words would be highlighted and most people will recognize them as a link. If they click on the link they would be taken to the page.

By virture of this post, Allegra now has a back link to her site.  You want to get as many of these as you can from as many different sites as possible.  Some sites are more valuable than others, but we will cover that in the future.

Focus on your major keyword. For home stagers, the number one word is Home Staging. But as I did for Allegra keep in mind that there are over 6 million web sites with the words “Home staging” in them. You want to rank for Home Staging and your town or what ever the dominant regional term people in your market would be likely to use.

I will be starting my new series on getting ranked by the search engines soon. But since I had several questions on this point I thought I would answer it now.

Technorati Tags: anchor tags, Keywords, Linking, SEO

Here is another article written by a home stager on a topic that most anyone of you could write about.

In addition to encouraging you to write articles on your own, you too can borrow articles like this to share with people on your mailing list. What, you don’t have an email list to mail to? If that’s the case, you really need to sign up for Market Maker. Actually, you eventually should develop two lists. One of prospective clients who could use you home staging services and a second of area Realtors who could be using you to help build their careers. At any rate, as long as you include the resource box at the bottom, you can use these articles, which means you don’t have to write each and everyone yourself.

This article is by Katie Mudd of Fredericksburg, Virginia Discusses Curb Appeal.

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Did you know that a buyer has developed an opinion of your property within 15 seconds? I have pulled up to many homes with clients who did not want to consider a property simply because the exterior needed some attention. The following ideas will help your homes exterior make a great first impression:

* Make sure the street and, sidewalk, walkway and porch are free from litter and debris
* Reseal a worn or stained driveway and repair cracks in the walkway
* Re-Paint the Shudders and front door
* Apply new door hardware and a brass kick plate
* Replace the house numbers
* Put a flower box with seasonal flowers alongside the door
* Install a new front light fixture and check that all exterior lights are in working order
* Have a cleaning service wash the siding
* Clean windows and replace any cracked or broken glass
* Replace any missing or broken shingles on the roof/If the roof is very old consider having it replaced prior to showing the property
* Make sure the gutters and downspouts are in good repair
* Mow the grass weekly and keep weeds under control
* De-clutter the deck or patio

Creating a cheerful, clean, neat entrance is one of the best investments of time, money and effort you will ever make. Don’t let a potential buyer slip through the giant crack in your walkway! Fix the crack and keep the buyer! I hope these tips for preparing the exterior of your home are helpful and I will post some interior home tips in a future article.

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Katie Mudd, Realtor/CSP Visit http://www.katiemudd.com to find out your home’s value, obtain a free list of foreclosure or affordable luxury homes or conduct a property search
Katie Mudd is a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Elite located at 5444 Jefferson Davis Hwy in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Licensed in the commonwealth of Virginia. Each office is independently owned and operated Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Katie_Mudd

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Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, blogging, eZine Articles, Homestaging Tips

Home Staging Marketing: Winning Over the Null Set

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If you remember the null set from your school days, or as likely from your kid’s math homework, you might recall it being used to describe those who did neither a or b but nothing at all.

You put a lot of effort into marketing your home staging services and sometimes get undercut by your competitor, and that hurts.

Marketing is essential in our competitive world, particularly in adverse times. Most people realize it’s all the more important to invest in marketing when times are tough. But do they realize that sometimes the biggest competitor isn’t the gal down the street with that “other” designation, but rather the null set.

In this case, the null set includes the people who come to your web site because they are considering home staging, but then decide to do without.

That’s one of the reasons the little gift or bribe I wrote about yesterday is so effective. If you offer visitors something of value on your web site and then follow up with them; you have a far better chance of getting them to use staging and most importantly your services to stage their home.

If you don’t, it’s like betting your business on one cut of the deck, high card wins.  They either are sold on your services when they see your web site or not.

In contrast, with a little gift, and follow-up you have a chance to continue that conversation for days, until they either say yes or no. You get multiple chances to share with them the value of staging and win their business. You won’t win over the entire null set, but you have a better chance at getting more of them to use your services.

This process is at the heart of the Market Maker system.  Market Maker will be launching very soon. You want to be part of it.

http://homestagingbusinesstips.com/MarketMaker/ComingSoon.html
Now I confess I have been stressing the need to sign up before your competitor does in most of my posts.   And while it’s true that market maker will give you a distinct advantage over your competitor, a good part of that advantage will be in turning members of the null set into customers.  People who otherwise might not have staged at all.

Effective marketing isn’t just about beating your competitor to the job, it’s about getting more people to use your services.  Market Maker does both.

That said, it’s still true that only one home stager will be allowed to join the program from any one telephone area code.  So it’s important that you at least take a good look at Market Maker as soon as possible. And then decide to join or not.  Don’t let your friendly competitor take your option to join away from you by beating you to the punch.

Home stagers who sign up on the advance notice list will get a half hour head start to join and advance notice of the actual start time.  Word to the wise, I would sign up for that head start today.
Market Maker
http://homestagingbusinesstips.com/MarketMaker/ComingSoon.html

Earl Netwal
Micro Business Specialist
www.HomeStagingBusinessTips.com/blog

To get on the advance notice list register your company at
http://homestagingbusinesstips.com/MarketMaker/ComingSoon.html

Technorati Tags: Home staging marketing tips, marketing

We all like things that are free and pretty and/or delicious.

And if it’s something that is also related to what our web visitors
are looking for and the product or service we wish to offer, it’s
very much all the better.

In recent articles we’ve been looking at what it takes to get
people to find your web site. There are a whole host of tricks
tweaks and tactics collectively called Search Engine Optimization
that can help build traffic to your web site.

But once they are there, what are you going to do to get them to
pay attention to you?

You are going to give them a sucker, a popsicle, an ice cream cone
just like you did your kids. Only in the adult world we are going
to give them something of value, related to our mutual interests.

Presumably they came to your web site because they were at least
somewhat interested in Home staging.

You want to be able to give them something they can use related to
home staging. Something for free. Something they can take with
them, right here and now. With no fuss or muss. With no obligation.

If you do and no one else does, you will be ahead of the game. What
you want to give them is a free report of some sort that they can
download. A Gift.

To get it they will need to give you their email address so you can
send it to them. That way you will know who they are, and how to
get a hold of them again.

That will allow you to send them another gift in a few days. And
another.

And if you keep it up, they will end up calling you when they are
finally ready to make up their mind and hire a home stager.

If you have a pretty thing to dangle on your web site, and no one
else does, you are going to get their attention and eventually
their business.

It might not be nice to bribe your kids to get their attention but
it works.  It works with prospective customers as well.

Market Maker is coming and coming soon.  Market Maker takes the
ideas of Search Engine Optimization and what we call ethical bribes
and much more and wraps it into a unique marketing plan
specifically designed for Home Stagers. It’s a marketing plan on
auto pilot that pays for itself.  Membership in the plan is limited
and you should be sure to sign up for advance notice as not
everyone will be allowed to join.

Technorati Tags: ethical bribes, Internet marketing, Market Maker, marketing

Tasha Moody got me see colors with this useful article she has posted to the eZine Article Directory. I bet it gets a lot of use in real estate and other blogs. Each time it gets used it will send Google Bots back to her web site and even if no one takes her up on her offer for color swatches, or lives in the Atlanta area, she will benefit by way of a higher search engine placement in the Atlanta Market. Plus should someone in her market see it, they will recognize that she is knowledgeable, maybe even an expert, and that will help raise her status in their eyes.

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Paint Colors That Sell – 7 Tips to Choosing Colors Buyers Will Love

There you are, touring a new listing in the perfect location, with the right number of bedrooms and the best school district. It’s the only one in your price range, and while it’s clean and new and generally de-cluttered, you just can’t get past the master bathroom seeming uninviting and the finished basement feeling a bit dark. As much as you’d like for it to be, it just isn’t “the one.” No offers today.

Unfortunately what that seller failed to realize is that a simple change in paint colors would have been the missing link to clenching an offer, all for the cost of a can of paint. Choosing the right paint colors is a critical step in preparing a home for sale and is one of the biggest players in the emotional connection (or lack thereof) that a buyer makes with a property. What are those perfect paint colors for helping sell houses? Well, that’s the million dollar question that can be very difficult to answer if you don’t know color. Read on for some basic tips that will get you on the path to choosing the right colors for staging a home:

1. Neutral is great, but all beige is boring
A common real estate misconception is that painting the walls white or beige throughout the entire home will give the buyers a “blank slate.” Problem is, it usually turns out to be a very boring, unmemorable blank slate that rarely results in increased profits or a faster sale. While beige is much safer than super bright or very bold colors, having a variety of color within the right palette is ideal. However, using a warm beige or tan such as Shaker Beige by Benjamin Moore in the common areas (hallways, stairwells, foyers, etc.) is recommended.

2. Stick with earth-toned varieties of tan, green, yellow, blue and grey
For example, when looking at greens stay in the sage, celery or rosemary ranges. Or when thinking of yellow go with the more buttery or golden tones as opposed to the brighter varieties. Look to the types of tones and shades you see in nature most often and mimic those in your color choices.

3. Either the walls or the décor should take the stage – but not both
If your living room has dark brown leather and walnut-toned furniture, you’ll need to go with a lighter tone on the walls to balance. Likewise, if you have a maple dining room set and white fabric upholstered chairs, you’ll need a warmer color on the wall and complimentary place settings/centerpiece to ensure the room doesn’t appear washed out. Consider your furniture, cabinetry, artwork, flooring and countertops when choosing the shade of paint.

4. If in doubt, go with the lighter option
If you’ve narrowed your options to two or three colors and all would make great choices, a rule of thumb is to pick the lighter option when going to sell. While deeper tones can make fabulously enticing rooms, they can be tricky. If you aren’t working with a home stager or color consultant it’s better to air on the side of safe, rather than chance overwhelming the seller.

5. Green, red and yellow are appetizing colors
Sage green, apple red and golden yellow are great colors for dining rooms and kitchens because they evoke appetite. Red is definitely the trickiest of the three to use effectively without overwhelming a room, but if combined with the right furniture and accents it makes for a very appealing color. Yellow is a cheery color that encourages conversation. Green is a combination of appetizing and soothing, making it popular with many different types of people and in several different rooms of the home.

6. Cool colors like blue and green have soothing, spa-like appeal
Use a gray-blue in a bathroom with an orchid by the sink and a stack of fluffy towels by the tub, or sage green in a bedroom with white bedding and dark wood furniture for a soothing, harmonious appeal. Some studies have shown that blue and green actually have healing properties such as lowering heart rate and blood pressure! Try “Iced Marble” or “Mosaic Tile” by Benjamin Moore.

7. Order a sample can
When you have decided on your colors and picked the shade you feel is best, always pick up a $5 sample can of paint and test it on a decent-sized area of several walls with different lighting in the room to ensure it works on the grander scale. This small investment will save you a lot of time and energy in the end, as tiny paint swatches can often be deceiving.

Good Luck!

Tasha Moody is a certified Home Staging Expert and President of Simply Staged, an Atlanta home staging company. Go to http://www.PaintColorsThatSell.com to learn about the 27 BEST staging colors that consistently help sell the listings Tasha stages. Order your own paint fan of the colors with oversized swatches and details of which room the color works best in for just $25 so you can start recommending paint colors with confidence! Choosing beautiful paint colors has never been so easy.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tasha_Moody

Technorati Tags: colors, Paint

Listen to this podcast, Chased by a Bear:

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Chased by a Bear!

There is a story of two people in the woods, being charged by a hungry bear. One stops to tie his shoes, the other scoffs, “you can’t outrun a bear.”  “I don’t need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you.” His companion replied.

So too, with marketing in a local market.

You don’t need to be the best in the nation at marketing, you just need to be better than your local competitors.  That may be easier than you think.

With notable exceptions most home stagers spend very little time thinking about their marketing. Some may even feel it contrary to their nature. But if you are serious about your home staging business, you must give some serious thought to how you are going to attract your next customer and then the one after that.

That’s one reason you have a web page. But many of you make a mistake and think a web page is all about selling a potential customer on your staging skills. The purpose of a web page is to get prospects to call you.

I will discuss that more in a future article, but many of you have a bigger problem and don’t even know it.

Many people looking for a home stager in your town can’t find your web site.

In past articles, I’ve touched on two things you can do to remedy that problem. One is to change your page title tags to include relevant keywords.  Another is to change the Meta Tag description on your web page to also include relevant keywords.  There is one more major step to take in the meta tags area, that will greatly increase the chance that prospects looking online actually find you.

And that is the formal meta tag keywords.

There are over six million web sites that show up when someone searches for the term “Home Staging” in Google. That’s way too many, so most people when confronted with so many responses do a second search.

And in that second search they may try another keyword, like “home stager,” but more likely they will use the same keyword and add a geographical term.

When my son searches for pizza on the web, he adds his zip code. For a less common business like home staging, he might use his telephone area code, or the town name.

I’ve written about this before, but I am amazed at how few people actually take the time to make this simple change to the keywords they have in their meta tags.

If you do, and your competitors don’t, it’s like you putting on a pair of tennis shoes. Hey, they may even be a slightly better home stager than you. But if you are wearing geographically based keywords as your tennis shoes, you will get ranked above them in the computer search engines.  You will get seen, they won’t. Or if they do, they will be listed under you in the rankings.  You will get first chance to stage more houses. And they won’t know why.

Now I know some of you aren’t into competition, but this is business. If you want your phone to ring. If you want to be doing two to four more home stagings a month, you need to pay attention to your marketing.

You need to change the keywords in your web page’s meta tags. You need to include terms like “Home staging in Minneapolis”, “St. Paul Home Stager”, “House Staging in 612.”

In the first article of this series, I told you where and how to look up keywords. You need to find the top keywords people actually use, and then mix and match the appropriate geographical references for your market place.

It’s a chore, but not hard. It will make a real difference, and will allow you to outrun your competition.

Next week, the Market Maker program will be launched. All of these changes and much more will be handled by Market Maker for you. Market Maker is a unique program designed specifically for the Home Staging industry.  It will put your web based marketing on auto pilot and will pay for itself.

Membership will be limited, particularly at first. So if you want to sprint to the front of your market place, make sure you sign up for advance notice of the release date.

To do so go to http://homestagingbusinesstips.com/MarketMaker/ComingSoon.html

Best Wishes,

Earl Netwal
MicroBusinessSpecialist
http://www.HomestagingBusinessTips.com/blog

Technorati Tags: homestaging, Keywords, marketing, Meta Tags

I’m color illiterate. Thus I found this article on choosing colors buyer will love to be worthwhile. It’s another in my series of articles prepared by home stagers. These tips and tricks spread out on the the internet are helpful to the posters and to the general public and to home staging in general. I may sound like a broken record, on the topic, but article writing is one of the best things you can do to build the industry and your own business. I hope you enjoy this article by Tasha Moody. I did. I like the idea of putting a little color in things.

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There you are, touring a new listing in the perfect location, with the right number of bedrooms and the best school district. It’s the only one in your price range, and while it’s clean and new and generally de-cluttered, you just can’t get past the master bathroom seeming uninviting and the finished basement feeling a bit dark. As much as you’d like for it to be, it just isn’t “the one.” No offers today.

Unfortunately what that seller failed to realize is that a simple change in paint colors would have been the missing link to clenching an offer, all for the cost of a can of paint. Choosing the right paint colors is a critical step in preparing a home for sale and is one of the biggest players in the emotional connection (or lack thereof) that a buyer makes with a property. What are those perfect paint colors for helping sell houses? Well, that’s the million dollar question that can be very difficult to answer if you don’t know color. Read on for some basic tips that will get you on the path to choosing the right colors for staging a home:

1. Neutral is great, but all beige is boring
A common real estate misconception is that painting the walls white or beige throughout the entire home will give the buyers a “blank slate.” Problem is, it usually turns out to be a very boring, unmemorable blank slate that rarely results in increased profits or a faster sale. While beige is much safer than super bright or very bold colors, having a variety of color within the right palette is ideal. However, using a warm beige or tan such as Shaker Beige by Benjamin Moore in the common areas (hallways, stairwells, foyers, etc.) is recommended.

2. Stick with earth-toned varieties of tan, green, yellow, blue and grey
For example, when looking at greens stay in the sage, celery or rosemary ranges. Or when thinking of yellow go with the more buttery or golden tones as opposed to the brighter varieties. Look to the types of tones and shades you see in nature most often and mimic those in your color choices.

3. Either the walls or the décor should take the stage – but not both
If your living room has dark brown leather and walnut-toned furniture, you’ll need to go with a lighter tone on the walls to balance. Likewise, if you have a maple dining room set and white fabric upholstered chairs, you’ll need a warmer color on the wall and complimentary place settings/centerpiece to ensure the room doesn’t appear washed out. Consider your furniture, cabinetry, artwork, flooring and counter tops when choosing the shade of paint.

4. If in doubt, go with the lighter option
If you’ve narrowed your options to two or three colors and all would make great choices, a rule of thumb is to pick the lighter option when going to sell. While deeper tones can make fabulously enticing rooms, they can be tricky. If you aren’t working with a home stager or color consultant it’s better to air on the side of safe, rather than chance overwhelming the seller.

5. Green, red and yellow are appetizing colors
Sage green, apple red and golden yellow are great colors for dining rooms and kitchens because they evoke appetite. Red is definitely the trickiest of the three to use effectively without overwhelming a room, but if combined with the right furniture and accents it makes for a very appealing color. Yellow is a cheery color that encourages conversation. Green is a combination of appetizing and soothing, making it popular with many different types of people and in several different rooms of the home.

6. Cool colors like blue and green have soothing, spa-like appeal
Use a gray-blue in a bathroom with an orchid by the sink and a stack of fluffy towels by the tub, or sage green in a bedroom with white bedding and dark wood furniture for a soothing, harmonious appeal. Some studies have shown that blue and green actually have healing properties such as lowering heart rate and blood pressure! Try “Iced Marble” or “Mosaic Tile” by Benjamin Moore.

7. Order a sample can
When you have decided on your colors and picked the shade you feel is best, always pick up a $5 sample can of paint and test it on a decent-sized area of several walls with different lighting in the room to ensure it works on the grander scale. This small investment will save you a lot of time and energy in the end, as tiny paint swatches can often be deceiving.

Good Luck!

Tasha Moody is a certified Home Staging Expert and President of Simply Staged, an Atlanta home staging company. Go to http://www.PaintColorsThatSell.com to learn about the 27 BEST staging colors that consistently help sell the listings Tasha stages. Order your own paint fan of the colors with oversized swatches and details of which room the color works best in for just $25 so you can start recommending paint colors with confidence! Choosing beautiful paint colors has never been so easy.

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