It’s important to keep your home staging business looking sharp, after all we’re in an image business!

Some home stagers say “It’s too much work to improve my business image, I’ll fix it once I have more clients.”

Here’s the thing, you can’t get paying clients unless they feel comfortable that you’ll do a great job decorating their house to sell. They judge your ability to do that in large part by the image you’re presenting of your business and what that looks like.

Even if this were not the case, do you imagine you’ll have more time to do the stuff that feels like “too much work” when you’re busy with client projects?

Your home staging business needs staging too!

It’s helpful to have someone objective look at your website or home staging blog because you just get too close to it after awhile and you can’t spot the problems that are keeping you from getting:

• Search engine rankings.
• Clicks to multiple pages.
• Sign ups.
• Reader engagement that will lead to sales.

While I know I can be objective about the websites and blogs I’m evaluating for others during a Home Staging Website CheckUp, I’m also likely to become blind to problems on my own.

I’ve also discovered that friends and team members won’t point out problems with your home staging website unless specifically asked. Even then, they might go too easy on you because they want to be supportive.

I subject my own websites to critiques by others.

Recently, I got a critique of Home Staging Business Report, my blog for home stagers. I had a number of bloggers (both beginner and advanced) take a look.

These critics had nothing to do with the home staging industry which really gave them a fresh eye. They were looking at the version you can see in the photo at the top left of this article.

The general consensus was that having columns running down both the left and right sides of the screen was too distracting. People wouldn’t know what to click on first, or what to focus on. For a comparison of the before and after with one sidebar versus two, scroll up to see the before version in the photo on the left.

Another issue was my top menu bar.

Too many of the links took people off the blog and onto my other sites. Plus there was no “About” page link at the top! I’m not sure how I didn’t notice that since I know that 30% of web visitors will click on an About page. It’s really an important part of your website and should be linked from a prominent location. Mine was buried in a list of “Pages” further down one of the sidebar columns.

You might have to try out some stuff.

While we were making changes to eliminate the left sidebar and change the top menu bar, it gave me a chance to change other things with the objectives of:

• Getting more sign ups to my blog.
• Increasing the number of social media shares through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
• Showing more stories that might interest the reader.
• Making it easier for people to comment.

These 4 objectives were important because they lead to the 4 factors I first mentioned.

We didn’t get everything right the first time.

We played with different fonts (the style and size of the type you read on the screen), moved things around and then moved them back again, took stuff out then added it back, tried different colors and sizes of items, etc.

Not unlike what you might do when moving furniture around a room trying to find the optimal layout!

I understand the resistance to mucking around with a website. It can get technical and feel overwhelming at times. But it’s also immensely creative and that part is fun! Then there’s the payoff from meeting your goals and seeing more people comment on, and share, your blog posts, more people join your mailing list, etc.

Your feedback is welcome too!

Let me know what you think of the new look of Home Staging Business Report. Is there anything you’d change? Did this article help give you ideas for your own website or blog? Please add your comments below!

By the way, if you want me to take a look at your website or home staging blog and give you honest feedback to help with the look, content and search engine ranking, you can get a Home Staging Website CheckUp with me! I’ll share everything I know from making a living from home staging through leads that come to me from my home staging website, plus what I know about building websites and getting search engine traffic. I built my first site in 1999, so there’s a lot of stuff I’ve learned the hard way, but you don’t have to! We’ll spend an hour together over the phone looking at your website and I’ll send you a recording of our call right afterwards.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Voice of Possibility Group Inc.

Debra Gould has been building her own websites since 1999 and knows how to make money as a home stager. She is the author of 5 guides and developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love.