Home Staging Marketing:

Anchor Text Variations

In past blog posts here and on several articles I’ve shared on Active Rain I have explained the value and use of anchor text.

Everything I have said about anchor text as a major asset for home staging marketing results remains true.  However a recent change in Google’s algorithm may have negatively affected some of you in highly competitive markets.

While this is probably relatively few of you, I wanted to share some insights into the recent “Penguin Update,” that has thrown the SEO world into a bit of a tumult this past week.

First let me remind you what I mean by anchor text, then I will tell you what Google seems to want and why, and finally suggest the obvious steps you may need to take in case your home staging marketing efforts were negatively affected.

The key to effective home staging marketing from an online perspective is getting your business to show up on the first page of results when a prospective customer does a search for your services online.

You have four options as I explain on another web site of mine addressed to dentists but worth a quick look if you want to understand all four.  Click here.

For most home staging marketing that means getting your web site ranked by Google higher than that of your competitors. There are two major aspects to winning this battle. On page factors and off page factors.

The off page factors center around the quantity and quality of backlinks to your website.  In my discussions of anchor text I instructed you to use your main keyword, “home staging ________” with the blank filled it to be your home town, or other geographical name you want to do business in.

Thus if you posted an article on Active Rain, did article marketing, or blog posting on other people’s sites you would include the anchor text phrase in your posting and then hyperlink that phrase back to your web site.

This process told Google that your site was about “Home staging Minneapolis” or what ever city you are in.  This is still true and still powerful.

However, as more and more people learned of the importance of the technique, people began in the larger internet marketing circles to over do it.  So much so that Google has now started to penalize sites that have most if not all of their backlinks specifically linked to the same keyword(s).

It is far more natural in Google’s eyes to see people link with ‘naked’ urls such as http://minneapolisseweranddraincleaning.com used by a local vendor in my area.

And we have all seen a lot of  “Click here’s” in our internet experiences.

Turns out that if you have followed my advice too well and created a ton of backlinks to your site that all use the same anchor text, Google will see that as unnatural.

They would expect to see more “Click here’s,” and naked URL’s and at least a reasonable number of “Minneapolis Home Staging” versus “Home Staging Minneapolis,” etc.

So if this past week, you have all of a sudden seen your web site drop from neat the top of Google in your local area to the bottom or worse yet on a second page or worse, you need to take action. You need to restore some more natural balance to your backlinks.

What is the right balance? Lots of speculation on that. But the preponderant thinking is that you want 40-60% of your anchor text to be for your primary keyword phrase. Do another 20% or so on major variations. And then mix up some naked url’s and click here’s and lesser keywords that are clearly related for the balance.

Such efforts should help restore your balance in Google eyes and help you regain your top position faster than you may have otherwise.

In the long run, the best course of action for home staging marketing is to build backlinks anchored to your site by doing blog commenting on other home staging sites, writing articles for article directories and posting on relevant sites like Active Rain.

Home Staging Marketing Consultation

Feel free to contact me, if you would like a professional assessment of your web site and of your competition within your marketplace. I work with a wide variety of locally based businesses throughout the US and Canada.

I enjoy working with home stagers who are serious about building a real business via online home staging marketing.  It’s where I first started my local business consulting practice some years ago.

enetwal @ gmail.com  Put “Home Staging Marketing Consultation” in the subject line

Technorati Tags: Home Staging Marketing, Marketing Home Staging, Home Staging Business tips, Marketing online

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Technorati Tags: Home Staging business tips, home staging marketing, Marketing Home Staging, Marketing online

Why Market Maker? Podcast

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The Market Maker program is now live and available for Home Stagers interested in getting more business from their existing web pages.

I did a survey of home stagers last year. One of the things many expressed disappointment in was how little new business they got from their web pages.

Since then, I have held a tele-seminar, and written dozens of articles on how to turn that around. Yet relatively few home stagers have applied the secrets well known and taught in professional internet marketing circles.

I recognize the problem in myself. I often know what to do, but doing it is often another story.

Properly setting up your web page to get customers isn’t about nicer and fancier before and after pictures. It’s about attracting people potentially interested in home staging from YOUR market place, and getting them to identify themselves, so you can directly market your services to them.

The steps required include: changing some techie things about your web site; adding an opt-in box, which used to mean you needed to redo the front page of your web site; writing a special report; and then a long series of email marketing pieces.

Now none of these are too difficult, if you know how to do them, and seemingly impossible if you don’t.

And so, most people didn’t.

That’s why I developed Market Maker. Market maker will do all this for you. Develop new Meta Tags for your web site that will help more people from your town find your web site. Create an opt in form that doesn’t require you to redo your existing web site. It provides a great “ethical bribe” that will encourage people that visit your site to let you know they were there. Let you know they are interested in home staging and most importantly giving you permission to tell them more about you and your services.

Market Maker will dramatically boost your business.

Market Maker improves your marketing in two ways.

First it helps your home staging company stand out among your competitors. You will be the one that catches and keeps your prospects attention. This will get you a larger percentage of the existing business in your community.

Secondly, not everyone who thinks about using a home stager ends up doing so. With Market Maker, a larger percentage of them will, and when they do decide to use a home stager, it’s highly likely they will pick you.

To get more information go to Market Maker

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Technorati Tags: Home Staging, home staging marketing, Market Maker, marketing

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

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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

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

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