Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, article power, home stager, Home Staging, Rhonda Conchola

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

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, Company Name, USP

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

Internet Article Marketing

Distilling Fine Articles from the

Fruits of Your Mind

You have decided to use the power of internet article marketing to draw eyes and back links to your web site. Good idea. Article marketing can be a very effective tool to accomplish both objectives. But where do you start?

Good Question.

Just as a distillery needs to first gather grapes and then run them though a series of steps before turning them into a fine brandy, you must first gather your ideas, before you write your article.

Before you begin

Whether you are brewing a single article or a series of them, the prerequisite is deciding what your topic is, and understanding why you are writing.

Your writing will enjoy greater clarity of purpose when each article has a clear singular keyword or phrase. Whether writing one or multiple articles it’s best to identify each of your keyword phrases in advance before you begin. They will help you form your thoughts, and may encourage you to explore nuances you may have otherwise ignored.

When writing an internet marketing article, your objective is to get eyes and or back links to your site. To do that, you need to get accepted into an internet article directory and then get noticed and republished by ezine editors before you’ll get read by end users. That’s a lot of different audiences. While you know what’s in it for you, begin the writing process thinking about what’s in it for your ultimate reader as well.

Now that you are clear on your topic and why you are writing, you are ready to begin the next phase.

Brainstorming

As you mull over your keyword and topic, ideas will come to you. That’s the main benefit of the prior exercise. Once your conscious mind is clear on the task at hand, so too is the subconscious. It will send you flashes of brilliance that may surprise you.

You want to capture those ideas. Even the bad ones, but search out the brilliant ones. Bad ideas can morph into good ones. Don’t judge, record. Write them down. Use whatever system that works for you. Long hand, computer, voice recorder, whatever.

Think about possible titles. What would grab people’s attention? Remind yourself of your readers. Who are they? Why would they want to read your article? What do they want to know?

What is the essential one element of your article? If it had to be just one sentence, what would it be? What are the key facts you want to share? Write them down, or list where you will look them up.

What will your call to action be? What do you want them to actually do when they are done reading your article? How are you going to get them to do it? What are you going to tell them that will make a difference in their lives?

This process can take days or 30 minutes. The results will vary by the amount of time you can devote. If you can, daydream about your topic while driving or doing other work. Your subconscious can be a powerful tool. What every time you have, use it to enlarge your topic.

In the next step, you are going to tie it down and begin to do some pruning.

The Outline.

We’ve all been taught the writing outline format since grade school. They are easy. You already know the main parts to your article. It will have a title, an introduction, a body and a close. And in the case of internet article marketing it will also have a resource box.

See, you are half done already. While it may vary, let’s assume there are three main points to the body.

• Title
• Introduction
• Body
o A
o B
o C
• Close
• Resource Box

Review your brainstorming notes. Pick the three most important ideas that must be in the body. If you have more that three, which can be grouped together?

If you absolutely cannot fit everything into three groups, add or subtract. It’s your article. By trying to nestle ideas into groups, you define the essence of your article.

You then assign an order within and among the groups in your outline. Once that’s done, you’re done with the outline. You can always add more, but at this point, you have captured and ordered the essence of your thoughts. If this were a book, rather than an article you would perhaps need to get more detailed. But it’s not, so it’s time to write that first draft.

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, Article writing, back links, outlines, SEO

Do Your Internet Marketing Articles Meet this 5 Question Test?

If you ignore the five essentials to effective internet marketing article writing, you may as well not waste your time. Article writing is a powerful tool. When done well, it will attract a lot of eyes and back links to your web site. Do it poorly, and your results will be meager.

1. Does your title attract the right reader’s attention?

Ideally, it should let the “right” readers know the information in the article is for them, and it should intrigue them to at least take a look. The goal of a headline or title is to get the reader to read the first line. If they don’t, your article fails its purpose.

Specifically, you want to catch your ideal prospects attention. A too cute title may catch a lot of attention, but if the people attracted aren’t candidates for what you are selling, in the final analysis you are just wasting their time. So while you want to be provocative, focus on that which would be appropriate for your specific audience.

Once you have them reading your first line, make sure it’s powerful enough to carry them into the first whole paragraph and beyond.

2. Is your article properly focused?

A good internet marketing article is succinctly focused on one topic. That topic may have multiple parts, but they are all specifically tied to one idea. As internet marketers, that idea should be a single Keyword or Keyword Phrase.

People will search for articles in article directories by keyword, and so you want them to be able to find your article. When they publish your article, you want to get back links to your web site based on that keyword. Thus it is imperative that you decide specifically which keyword you are trying to rank for, before you write the first word.

It goes without saying that the keyword and the article should be directly related to the site you are referring people to, or again you would be wasting everyone’s time.

3. Have you effectively used your keywords?

If possible you should include your keyword in your title. This will resonate with people who are searching for articles on your keyword. But don’t force it. Your primary objective is to get people to read your article. Including the keyword is a distinct plus, but not mandatory.

You want to use the keywords as often as possible within the article, but again don’t overdo it. Too many internet marketing articles are overstuffed with the keywords to the point that they don’t read well. So rather than trying to meet some artificial keyword density, concentrate on writing a readable article but do try to use your keywords wherever appropriate.

4. Is your content worth reading?

Provide your readers with value. If an internet marketing article is to get picked up and republished elsewhere, it will be because it caught an editor’s eye and delivered content worth sharing with their readers.

People respond well to facts, figures and statistics as long as they are not overwhelming. Anecdotes and stories that make a point enliven articles. Rather than adding a lot of adjectives to an article, focus on your verbs. Active verbs and a positive message are always welcome.

5. Does your resource box deliver?

The goal of an internet marketing article is to drive people and robots to your website. Your resource box is therefore critical to the success of your article. If you are not allowed to include anchor text in the article itself, it is essential that you do so in the resource box. Repeat your keyword and link it to your target site. But do so creatively.

As much as possible, develop your resource box as a continuation of your article. If it flows as thought it were a continuation of the article above it, a larger portion of your readers will read it as well. And then be sure to include a call to action. Let your readers know what step you want them to take.

If you have been able to hold their attention from start to finish of the article, it is only logical that they will want to follow on to the next step, by visiting your web site, blog or take whatever additional step you desire.

If you write your internet marketing articles with these five questions in mind, you will be rewarded with lots of traffic and back links to your web sites.

—-

[Below is a sample of a resource box I will be testing when I post this article on the article directories.]

To learn more ideas and tips on how to ensure your internet marketing articles grab tons of new traffic and backlinks to your sites go to http://ArticleMarketingHint.com. The author Earl Netwal also publishes a blog for small business people called http://MicroBusinessSpecialist.com/blog

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, back links, internet marketing articles, resource box, traffic

How to get to the top of the Search Engines, XIII

So far in this sequence I have stressed the need to get your on site ducks in a row if you want your web site to appear at the top of the search engine rankings. This is a critical first step that most people never get around to. Have you? If not, I still offer my Wart Services to analyze your site. Then make the changes. They matter.

The second part of my sequence has been focused on back links and how to get them. We’ve talked about anchor text, and several social networking sites you can use to build backlinks to your site. The advantage of these sites is your own ability to custom create your own backlinks. This give you control over the actual keywords used in the anchor text and where they link on your site. This latter control allows you to direct links to internal pages, which bolsters your standing in the eyes of the Search Engines.

Article Marketing

Today, we start a series on the most important way to build links and traffic to your web site, article marketing.

I will explain how it works tomorrow, and then in subsequent posts explain the four things all articles must have, how to create an outline for your articles, easy ways to get you creative juices flowing, what to do before submitting to article directories, and some red hot tips on how to get your articles read, and perhaps most importantly, how to write a resource box that makes people click. I may even offer suggestions on what to do if you hate to write.

Article writing requires a bit of work and it’s like slow feed fertilizer. The results of article marketing take time to build. The plus of article marketing is that it does ultimately flourish and will generate an exponential growth in the number of back links to your site. And as we have demonstrated, backlinks matter.  They matter even more when they are coming from a wide variety of places and grow over time.

The essential mathematics of article marketing comes from posting a single article with an article directory service.  Once it is accepted there, you have a back link to your site from a generally high ranking resource. But even better, as first a couple and then many more people find your article and post it on their blogs, newsletters etc, you start getting back links from many different places. So instead of having one back link, you may now have six or sixty.

There are thousands of article directories, some of which are very large. You can post the same article to more than one directory, multiplying again the number of potential backlinks you can create for your self with one half hour of writing. Since these articles stay on the directories indefinitely, it’s possible that an article you write today could be published off and on over the next five or ten years.

A disciplined approach of writing an article a day or even an article a week can over a period of a year or two lead to thousands and tens of thousands of backlinks. That level of backlinks could put most people on the top of their respective niche even in highly competitive niches. And put them there to stay.

The best part of article writing is that it is essentially a free way of building your standings.  Although as we will learn, there are some worthwhile paid services that can be real time savers.

One last tidbit for today. You don’t need to be a great writer to effectively use article marketing. So if the thought of writing scares you, don’t despair. The power of article writing is too significant to allow your lack of skills or fears to get in the way. We will discuss some options that will allow you to be successful without writing a single word.

Technorati Tags: anchor tags, Article Marketing, backlinks, WART Analysis

In my last post on Active Rain and in several other posts here, I have advocated that Home Stagers expand their use of article marketing. In the process I have twice suggested that you consider buying an eBook from a mentor of mine, Doug Champigny.

Doug is an accomplished internet marketer, author and lecturer and one of the top marketers in Canada. I am in contact with him almost daily on the internet despite the fact that we have never met in person.

He is aware of my work with Home Stagers and suggested to me that this overview report he has written might be of interest to you. Even more useful is his willingness to let me share it with you for free.

While much of his material is oriented to people who make their living online, the value of article writing extends to main street businesses as well. And it certainly does to you who rely on the internet for at least part of your business leads.

Thus I am pleased to offer you the following link to download Doug Champigny’s Article Marketing Overview. The download includes a pdf version and an MP3 version as well. I have added in a few free bonuses as well.

I have an article writing mini course that I will send to you as well. If you decide you don’t want the article email course you will be able to stop it at anytime by clicking on a link that will be at the bottom of each post.

Claim you copy here: Article Marketing Overview

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, Doug Champigny

Home stagers interested in attracting more clients and buidling their web presence are wise to post on active rain.  They get a couple of beneifts. First Active Rain is a relatively high ranking site in terms of Google Page Rank and backlinks from Active Rain to your website carry greater weight. This is good in terms of your ability to rise in the Google Listings.

The second advantage of active rain is that it exposes you to Realtors in your market who may also use active rain.

What Active Rain is less good at is reaching beyond the Active Rain community and into the home selling market at large. That’s an area where traditional article marketing has some potential.  I’ve written before about eZine Articles.  They are probably the biggest article directory online, but there are hundreds of others. A post on one of these directories has a chance of being picked up by any of thousands of other blogs and ezines around the world.

Such an article has a far better chance of doing some good missionary work on behalf of home staging than an article on Active Rain.  There are far more people who don’t know about home staging than do out there. And article marketing is one of the best ways to slowly reach out to tell the home staging story.

Beyond prosletizing, while a backlink from Active rain is positive to your google Ranking, after the second or third time the “Google Juice” it provides diminshes rapidly.  Google would rather see you get incoming links from a variety of sources and not just one.

This is where article marketing shines. Many of the article directories also have high page rankings, and just putting an article on their site can do as much as a post from Active Rain.  And when one of your articles is picked up by a number of other users, it multiples the effect. And that’s what Google wants to see.  Not one or two sources linking to you, but first tens and then ultimately hundreds of sites. When you do that, you will virtually lock yourself into top ranking in your market.

In the process you will be building the national and international market for home staging. And while that may be hard to quantify, in the long run it will come back and benefit you as well as everyone else.

Now the big secret here is that you can often use the same material and articles you write for Active Rain and post them on the article directories.

One of the best educations you can get on article marketing is Understanding Article Marketing by Doug Champigny.  While written to address the article marketing needs of online internet marketers, the lessons he teaches are directly applicable to home stagers and most any small business.

Don’t get mesmerized by the hunt for points and ranking on Active Rain. While it matters some, in the long run you will do yourself and the home staging industry more good on the mainstream article directories.

Technorati Tags: Active Rain, Article Marketing, eZine Articles

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.

* 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.

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

Writing a good article is an excellent way to demonstrate your expertise and showcase your business in a local newspaper or online.  An article in a local paper of course will bring you some immediate attention in your home market and that is a powerful way to build your business.

The benefits of online article marketing may not be as clear nor as immediate, but it too can be a powerful way to market your business.  Each article posted online can contain backlinks to your web site. These backlinks are one of the factors Google and others use to decide where your web page appears when someone searches for a home stager in your community.  The more back links you have, the more likely you are to get top billing. And you want top billing.

A lot of articles will also make it more likely that the local media in your community will find you and seek you out, when an editor decides to do an article or newscast on home staging.  If a newspaper article is good for business, a minute or so of exposure on local TV is golden.

Article writing comes naturally for some and less so for others. But whatever your situation, it’s worth doing. But once done, there is no reason why you should submit it to only one venue.

The article is yours, and if you post it to Active Rain that’s great. But if you have gone to the trouble of writing the article why not get double and/or triple duty out of it?

Actually you can do a lot better than triple duty. Let me explain.

There are tons of people writing newsletter, blogs and ezines on the internet. Some write all their content themselves, but this gets to be time consuming and a royal pain for most. So, rather than writing everything themselves, they will go to one of hundreds of different article directories that exist and find suitable articles they can use for their publications.

These directories are always looking for fresh content to offer to these bloggers and editors. So they are willing to take your article and post it on their site so newsletter editors can find it.  To make it worth your while, they stipulate that anyone who uses your material must include your resource page.

Your resource page is a brief statement at the bottom of you article that you write that says who you are, and allows you to include usually two links to your web site and or other site you want people to go to.

When I write articles I might include a link to one of my blogs and maybe another to an eBook I am selling.

The article directories make money on the advertising on their site, the people using your article get fresh content to use in their publications.  It’s a classic win-win-win situation.

The Granddaddy of all article directories is www.ezinearticles.com. If there were just one place you wanted to post you article it would be there.  It is free to sign up as an author.  And almost everyone I know who is serious about internet marketing uses them. But as I said earlier, there are hundreds of similar article directories.

Now understand that each of these has their own set of rules, and it can be a bit frustrating at first to understand their different editorial requirements. But If you are capable of writing an article a week or even just an article a month, but are able to commit to doing so on a regular basis, it will be well worth your while to learn your way around these sites.

One of the biggest shortcuts out there are some of the article directory submitters. These are services that will take your article and submit it to multiple directories at once.  Some of these are pretty pricey for occasional users.  I use a service developed by Brad Callen called Article Submitter.

It too is designed for the professional.  It’s top level service the platinum allows you to submit your article to over 250 directories with the click of a single button. That’s a big time saver compared to going to each site and copying and pasting your article, title, resource box, and other items like keywords directory by directory.

But I don’t use the platinum version myself.  Frankly I started out with his Free version and later upgraded to the Gold. These take a little more effort, but once you have the basics down you can upload the same article to a lot of different directories. I usually submit to about 25 different directories for each article I write.

That gives me a lot more chances that my articles will be picked up by different newsletters and bloggers. Now this may be especially valuable to home stagers.  That’s because a lot of Realtors use newsletters to keep in touch with their farms or prospect list. (Home stagers should as well – that’s why you need something like market maker to build your own lists)

Since home staging topics will be relevant to many of these newsletters, I would guess that you would have a good chance of getting relevant article picked up. And while most will be from markets outside your market area, each will include a link back to your web site and do you some good.  And sooner or later, you will find a local Realtor or two using them in your own market, with any luck at all.

Article marketing is a powerful, if slow working tool to build a significant marketing advantage in your local area.  Article marketing is one of the topics that will be part of the monthly marketing calls we will be doing as part of the Market Maker Program.

PS: if you are interested in the free version of the Article Submitter,  look for the four tabs at the top of the page and click on article submitter.  That will take you to the free version.  If you can afford it, and plan on becoming a regular article writer, the Gold or Platimum versions are more powerful.

Which ever you use, once you have taken the time to write an article it make sense to distribute it as widely as you can.  The more directories you post on the more editors that will see your work and the more likely it will get published. It multiplies the benefits of your efforts.  Check out Article Submitter.

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, article submitter, eZine Articles, Market Maker

I published part 1 of this the other day, so I will follow up with part 2 today. Normally I would show case another home stager’s articles. Debra Gould doesn’t need a lot of extra promoting because she does it so well herself. But then again, this is one of the ways she does it. And that’s just one of the lessons I am trying to share with you.

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Home Staging Marketing Tactics That Will Put You Out of Business – Part 2

Many design-oriented individuals decide to become home stagers without any kind of business training or marketing knowledge. While they mean well, they often stumble into some terrible marketing tactics that will likely put them out of business faster than you can say, “What were they thinking?”

In part one of this article series, I discussed why using sex appeal and inappropriate humor are awful ideas for home stagers trying to build their businesses and be taken seriously.Today I’ll share another marketing tactic that will probably put your home staging business under:

Offering a guaranteed sale

It’s surprising how many ways home stagers can find to bankrupt their businesses. I recently heard that some home stagers are now guaranteeing the sales of their clients’ homes.

In a tough economy and slow real estate market, one can guess why a home seller would want a guarantee when they’re investing in home staging services, and one can see why a home stager would be tempted to provide it, knowing how effective staging is in getting a quicker sale and wanting to do anything to attract new business. But, if a stager is in business for the long run, they really have to explore the business rationale behind providing a sales guarantee.

I am against home stagers making any guarantee of a real estate sale from their staging because of the numerous factors involved that the stager has no control over. No matter how well a home is staged, there are several factors that will help determine whether a home sells or not.

For example:

* Is the house being listed in the right season? (Christmas and Spring Break are known for being poor times for real estate sales)
* Is the house priced correctly for its location, size and market conditions?
* Does the house have the features buyers are looking for in that area? If it’s a one bedroom home in a family neighborhood, it’s going to be a tough sell no matter how well it’s staged.
* Will the agent do an effective job of marketing the property?
* Will the home seller maintain the home in showing-ready condition 100% of the time?
* Is the home seller going to make it easy to show by not requiring lengthy notice, preventing showings during certain times, etc.?
* Will the home seller keep the house sparking clean and odor free during all showings?
* How are the agent and home seller going to handle offers they receive? Negotiations break down all the time for different reasons.
* Will the home seller accept any offer? More goes into an offer than the price.
* Will the home pass inspections?
* What if the buyer doesn’t get financing and the deal doesn’t close?
* What if there’s a natural disaster, political or economic event that interferes with the real estate market when the house is listed?

A home stager can guarantee that a house will show better when it’s staged, but they can’t guarantee a sale unless they’re prepared to buy the property themselves! It’s a much better business practice to gather statistics from past clients about the average amount of time properties remain on the market after you stage them and how that compares to similar properties in that price range at the time.

Collect testimonials and be prepared to share your track record and show off your knowledge of the local real estate market, but don’t guarantee a home sale.

In the third and final installment in this article series, I’ll discuss why giving away free advice can sink your home staging business.

Students of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program learn how to operate a profitable home staging business. Creator and expert home stager, Debra Gould, has been an entrepreneur for 20 years. She has taught more than 1000 people from across the world how to start and professionally market their home staging businesses

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

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, eZine Articles

Sailing beyond Active Rain, don’t miss the boat.

[Many home stagers post on the Active Rain Blog site. While this is a great forum and brings home stagers and Realtors in close proximity, it shouldn't be the sole marketing focus. Instead, if you post there learn in the article below how you can leverage your efforts.]

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Listen to Sailing Beyond Active Rain on Podcast

Sailing Beyond Active Rain – Home Staging Business Tips

Posting on ActiveRain has many benefits but if that’s all you are doing, you are missing the boat.

Active rain is a good place to share with other homestagers, to learn from them and to get exposure of your business with other active rain members. But most Realtors and home stagers are not on active rain, so don’t let yourself spend all your marketing efforts there.

Instead, multiply your results.  Post articles on your own blog and on article directories and not just on Active Rain.

This will significantly boost the number and value of back links to your web site. It will accelerate your rise in the search engine results and win the top ranking in your market.

A post on Active Rain, puts some wind in your search engine rankings because the Active Rain site is seen by Google as an authority site. It has a page ranking of 6 which is pretty good, and a link from active rain back to your site gets more credit that a link from your cousin Mary’s occasional blog.

That said, if your only back links are coming from Active Rain, there is reason to believe that each additional post is less and less meaningful from Google’s perspective.

To really fill you sails, you want to get back links from dozens and then hundreds of other web sites.  And it’s easy to do. Particularly, if you are already posting regularly on Active Rain.

There is no reason why you can’t post the same article you intend to put on Active Rain on your own blog first.  I highly recommend that you set up a either a free Blogger Account, or better yet a free WordPress blog. There are a lot of reasons for this, but most notably, having your own blog sets you up as the expert and allows you to develop your own identity.

The second additional step is to register with eZine articles, and begin publishing your articles there as well.

These steps work in combination with each other, and capture the wind of your effort like a three masted ship captures the same wind three times over.

The same article with a few tweaks can be used for all three. And the results are a swifter voyage to the top of the rankings.

Let me explain it a bit more.

Your own blog makes you an authority in the eyes of those who come to it. Be they past or prospective customers, other homestagers or realtors or the media and general public.
This increases your status as the go to person in your market on home staging.

You have an article idea.  You write it up and post it on your blog.  You then take the same post and share it on Active Rain. You get Active Rain points, and rise in their listings. Plus you enjoy all the other benefits of participating in the active rain community.

Once you have it up on your blog and active rain, your rephrase it slightly to appeal to the general public. You then post in on one of hundreds of article directories. I recommend eZineArticles as the place to start.

Once posted on eZine Articles, your post is available to be reprinted by bloggers and ezine writers around the world. The bargain is that anyone can post your article, but they cannot change its wording and must include your resource box.

The resource box is where you put a brief blurb about yourself, and a back link to your blog and to your main web site.

As your article is picked up by blog writers, you get more and more back links. It builds slowly at first, but as time goes on it grows into a gale of a windstorm sending tens, then hundreds, and then thousands of back links to your web site.  Before long, Google realizes that you are an authority, and blows you past the finish line as the regatta winner and top ranked homestager in your market.

The beauty of this system is that you go yourself to the article directory and find other home stager’s articles from other markets and print their articles as entries on your blog.  That way you can add new material to your blog on a regular basis without having to write it all yourself.

For Example, I posted this article on Active Rain, and a modified form here and as a broadcast to my Home Staging mailing list.
You should do the same thing.  You write an article a week, and post one or two others from elsewhere on your blog. It sets you up as an expert.

You take the one article you wrote and with minor revisions as necessary post it in three places.

This provides you with a great deal of leverage, and will make you captain of your own destiny.

When you become a member of Market Maker, which will be opening next week, I will be sharing other ideas and techniques that will help you maximize your return on effort as you market your home staging business. Marketing can be challenging, that’s why it’s a good idea to put as much as possible on auto pilot, and then leverage the work you do so that it has maximum benefit.

Market Maker is a limited membership program. Members will have access to some innovative marketing tools that will put them on top of their local markets and provide a genuine competitive advantage. It is highly recommended that you sign up for advance notification of the start date as only one home staging company will be allowed to join from any given market place, and initial membership will be limited to only 30 companies.

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

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, home staging marketing, search engine optimization, SEO