fbpx

Staging Diva

Home Staging Business Report

Information, Tools + Inspiration to Grow Your Home Staging Business

5 Reasons You Need a Home Staging Blog

Written by -

home staging blogAs a home stager, you can build awareness and ultimately sales for your home staging business through blogging.

The term “blog” comes from “web log” which was initially envisioned as a diary or online journal.

Blogs can look and function very differently from each other to the casual observer, but they all share fairly similar coding, and most (like this one) are built on WordPress.

The technical details of what makes blog coding work isn’t something you need to worry about as a home stager, any more than you need to understand how your car works under the hood to put your key in the ignition and drive somewhere. So don’t let the term “blog” scare you!

5 reasons you need a home staging blog:

1. Once your blog is set up, it’s easy to add content even if you don’t have technical expertise.

Blogs are coded to allow for easy additions or “posts.” Let’s face it, the easier it is, the more likely you are to update your website, which is so important because your home staging portfolio gets better and better with every new staging project!

You can post about a particular project for example, and easily add a photo without knowing anything about how to build a webpage.

2. Search engines love blogs!

In other words, if you have a regularly updated blog, you’ll end up way higher in search engine rankings than a conventional HTML site.

Some joke that blog stands for “Better Listings on Google.”

This is why the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers is actually a blog site rather than a conventional HTML site. I made the switch from one format to the other to benefit the home stagers who participate several years ago.

And after many years of putting it off, I made the same change to the entire Staging Diva website even though it was already over 1000 pages!

3. Blogging allows you to demonstrate your expertise as a home stager.

This will eventually lead to more business as your potential customers get to know, like and trust you.

Don’t worry that you’ll only attract “DIYers”!  Yes, some people will read your free home staging tips and try and stage their homes themselves. Frankly, these are people that wouldn’t have hired you anyways even if you had no free tips. They just would have found them somewhere else.

Remember, you’re not trying to attract cheapskate clients, you’re looking for people who value your expertise and are prepared to pay for it.

4. Having a home staging blog puts you in an achievement mindset.

It’s easy to procrastinate when it comes to keeping in touch with customers and potential customers. It’s also easy to get so busy that you forget to celebrate or document your successes.

When you have a blog and a posting schedule of twice a month, you’ll be in the right mindset to follow up to get the information that leads to home staging success stories and to keep your business moving forward.

That’s because you’ll always be wondering about blog content and looking for new things to report to your audience. More on this in an upcoming post!

5. Your home staging blog attracts media attention for your home staging business.

You’ll attract media attention because the more content you write about the field of home staging, the more easily you’ll be found, and the more you’ll be seen as a “go to” source for reporters.

For example I was prominently featured in The Australian and the reporter actually said:

“In the US they call it ‘home staging’ and the queen is Debra Gould (aka the Staging Diva) who writes endlessly on the subject and runs training programs for people looking to set themselves up as professional home stagers.”

There is no way this would have happened without my blog, Home Staging Business Report.

Next Steps to Learn More For Your Home Staging Blog

This is the first of a series on home staging blogs. To bring you the most useful information and answer the questions you’re wondering about, please add your comments. Tell me the things you’re most wondering about on the subject of home staging blogs.

And, if you already have a home staging blog, post your address in the comments. I just might mention you in an upcoming post as a good example of the lessons I’m teaching.

Don’t worry, I won’t criticize your blog here (unless you specifically ask me in your comments for ideas for improvements)!

So, whether you’ve never had a blog before, or you’ve been blogging for some time, what are you most wondering about on the topic of home staging blogs? Please add in the comments below.

Debra Gould
Debra Gould, The Staging diva

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. She has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate and is the author of several best-selling guides. With 30,000+ students in 24 countries, Debra is celebrated as one of the most influential people in the home staging industry. She appears on: HGTV, CBS Radio, CNNMoney, The Wall Street Journal, Woman's Day, House & Home, Style at Home, GlobalTV, This Old House and more.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Imogen Brown says

    My blog is such a rewarding part of my business. I love writing and sharing information with people. If someone can stage their own house after reading my posts that’s great – if they realise they need me to help that’s even better! I have sections for sellers and also a section for Real estate – as, boy am I educating them too!! One of the best parts of having a blog is that it provides fresh content which I then promote on facebook and twitter and, importantly in my e-mail marketing campaigns to agents. I don’t put myself under pressure to write on a regular basis but keep notes of interesting topics for inspiration. I probably blog every 1-2 weeks. One area I’d like to improve is getting more comments/interaction

    • Debra Gould says

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts and blog address Imogen. This will really help me for my follow up posts educating everyone about blogging for home stagers!

      • Jhoell says

        Blogging helps every business connect to lots of professionals around the industry that might need services. I want to commend Debra and all of the Home Staging Professionals here for sharing their thoughts on how to be an effective blogger, not only to promote their business but inspire others how to succeed in many ways.

        Keep rocking and keep blogging everyone!

  3. Debbie Fiskum says

    A blog is a great way to feature your properties & help your investors, realtors and clients get more exposure on the net. By talking about your successes (and sometimes your mistakes), you become a “real” person to your followers and they truly do start to like you!

    Blogging can be a lot of work, because to be effective, you really have to comitt to being consistent. If you like to write (and talk), you’ll find things to put in your blogs. Give out tips, highlight other articles, showcase non-competing businesses, link to other sites – all help you to be seen as the expert. Just think about Debra Gould’s helpful articles, tips and suggestions.

    My blog has helped me get clients – usually investors or remodelers that do more than one house. Check out my blog is you like!

    Debbie Fiskum, Perfect Transformations Home Staging (PtStaging.com)

    • Debra Gould says

      Thanks so much Debbie for sharing your blog and your wisdom. I know this will help inspire others!

  6. Donna says

    I like this post Debra. Blogging is a sensational way to get found by your clients. I’ve been hired several times thanks to my blog.

    Blogs are hard work, but they will pay you back. But the thing is it will take more than casual blogging for a business blog to rank consistently well in Google. Google is so dynamic that every day you don’t blog about your topic, someone who did steals your Google ranking away from you. Whilst ever you take a casual ‘blogging for business’ approach, your blog will remain relatively obscure to all but a few people interested in your topic. Your blog will be like the proverbial candle in the wind whose light shines so brightly but sadly all too briefly.

    What I’ve come to learn about blogging is that if I want it to really work for me (and I do), I must see it as just as important as going to someone’s home and sharing my staging recommendations.

    Can’t write you say? That just ain’t true my home staging friends. If you can have a friendly conversation, you can write your first blog post. Yes, you really can!

    Let me leave you with one very important blogging tip.

    You must remind people that not only are you a blogger who happily gives lots of free inforamtion, but you’re also in business. You know you offer a home staging service but not all of your readers will get much of a sense of that. You need to remind them there’s more to you than free info on a blog. The spot to do this is at the end of EVERY blog post you write. End every post by reminding readers with something like;

    “If you want your ‘for sale’ property to feel like The One to more potential buyers, contact me at (yourwebsitelink) today and I’ll give you a quote on taking your home from good-bye to good buy”.

    Oh and by the way; WordPress.org is the way to go to get your website and blog intergrated. Try to avoid WordPress.com or blogger.com. These platforms are good for hobbyist bloggers but not for business bloggers like us. WordPress.org is used by business professionals all over the world and is a very powerful blogging platform, but is still really easy to use. My entire site is powered by wordpress.org and I can honestly say it offers a far superior ranking on Google. It also means I do not have ‘wordpress.com’ added onto my business website address.

  7. sudha says

    Excellent post!!! Blogging is all about producing quality content that people want to read. It is hard work to produce valuable content on a regular basis, but if you can then blogging can be a very rewarding career.

    I loved this – “One of the best things about having a blog, is you get to say and
    express yourself in any way you like, and one of the worse things about
    having a blog, is you can say and express yourself in any way you want.” So True, so true 🙂

  9. Lindsey Dignan says

    I share a home staging/decorating/design business with my business partner and its called DesignSquareD2.

    Thanks for all the great information you’ve posted!

    • Debra Gould says

      Congratulations on your staging business Lindsey, glad I could help! Feel free to link to my articles on Facebook of LinkedIn to share with your fellow home stagers who may not be aware of Home Staging Business Report.

  10. Janine Baird says

    Hi Debra, I like the idea of a blog, ive never been a blogger, but I see what you mean it would be like documenting all your achievements, and sharing it with the world. People would see you and notice you as you are out there on the search engines. Wow you are so good thank you. (under statement!) Just what do I do? So the website I have should be changesd for a blogging site instead? Do I just Google blogging? Sorry I seem to answering my own question…Sign of a good blogger I think!

    • Debra Gould says

      Janine, I recommend building your new home staging website as a WordPress site, then it will be in a blogging platform and have a blog component built in. I’ve written several articles on this topic under the category Home Staging Website and Social Media Tips.

      Tip: If you’re looking for home staging business articles on a particular topic, see the “category” drop down menu on the right sidebar of this page.

      I frequently do detailed “how to” tutorials on blogging in our monthly Staging Diva Dialog calls. At only $47/month (currently and members are locked into that rate when it increases), you get 60 – 90 minutes live on the phone with me in a small group to ask anything you’d like, PLUS you also get a recording of it in case you miss joining us live or want to re-listen to that month’s lesson.

  11. Lynelle Thompson says

    I think these are great examples and I couldn’t agree more. Normally homeowners will not spend a fortune in sprucing up the house. So, the home stager professional or agency must be sensible in quoting a price that will benefit the house owner in attractive a higher asking price, and inspire him to engage a a home staging agency.

  13. Lana P. says

    I think blogging is a great way to express what you like, hate, what you’ve experienced or to show your work (in these terms – staging).
    But I wouldn’t write necessarily only about staging like this, I would probably write more about other things related to staging, like interior design, real estate in general, maybe some design or decor tips so people would come to my blog more often to see some interesting content 🙂
    I love staging and looking at before and after staging photos, but I don’t think that kind of a blog would survive, there are too many of them already.

    • Debra Gould says

      Lana, thanks for sharing your comments. I agree that the best blogs combine a variety of related topics of interest to your target audience.

  14. Johanna Wells says

    I couldn’t agree more about the importance of having a blog to promote your home staging business. Both Realtors and Homesellers appreciate the helpful info.

  16. Mike says

    Great tips! Question, how do you manage the time it take to maintain a blog? I agree with your points, but struggle to find time to do it myself. Thanks.

    • Debra Gould says

      It does take a lot of time, not only in writing posts, but also coming up with the ideas for what to right about and managing/replying to the comments that come in. But worth it from a marketing standpoint.

  22. Breota says

    We offer virtual staging service. We have been posting a blog from the last 3 months. But we have not got any benefit from the blogs yet.

    • Debra Gould says

      Breota, It takes more than 3 months to get traction. It also depends how much effort you’ve been putting into getting links to your blog posts, from social media, other sites, etc. Having a blog is important, but marketing of it is equally important.

  24. Blake Riley says

    Those were some really excellent points. After reading this i feel like blogging helps in making your home staging experience better. Thanks for sharing Debra!