It’s much harder to get clients when no one can find your home staging website in a search engine.
Trying to learn about Search Engine Optimization or SEO for your home staging website can feel like “falling down the rabbit hole” into another universe, where the language is strange and everyone seems to have conflicting opinions and bad advice.
SEO is critical if you want your home staging website to come up in the search results when someone is trying to find a home stager on Google, Bing, Yahoo or any other search engine.
Jargon-Free Home Staging SEO Tips
SEO is a technical topic that can get very jargon-filled. In this article, I’ll stick to the 9 most important (and easiest) home staging website SEO tips you want to consider when building or updating your site or blog.
I base these tips on the thousands of hours I’ve spent learning about (and following the growth of) this topic since 1999 when I built my first website.
- Use keywords in your domain name or page URL where possible. A “keyword” or “keyword phrase” is something you think people will type into a search engine to find what they’re looking for. When the actual keyword phrase appears in the URL (the actual address of the page), your page is more likely to come up higher in a search result for that phrase. Can you spot the URL for this page?
- Page titles should include keywords. Don’t call your portfolio page “portfolio.” More effective would be “Toronto home staging portfolio” as an example.
- Repeat keywords in headlines and subheads. Can you guess which phrase(s) I’m using in this article?
- Link keyword phrases within your pages, it helps search engines know what your site is about. Plus it encourages people to spend more time on your site.
- Get relevant and well established websites to link to your home staging website. All members of the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers get a link to their own website if they have one.
- Don’t over stuff your pages with keywords, keep it under about 5% of the total words on the page.
- Include relevant and interesting content on your home staging website so that people visit multiple pages on your site, share your content through social media, comment on your home staging blog, etc.
- If you’re offering your home staging services in a specific geographic area, don’t try and compete for the very general (and competitive) phrase “home staging.” Narrow your keyword phrases further by being more specific. For example, by including the areas you serve: “Home staging Dallas” or “Denver home stager.” After all, if you’re in Texas there’s no point having a New York home seller visit your website.
- Don’t include hidden words that are there for search engines only. Playing games like running white text on a white background is a “black hat technique” that can get you banned from the search engines entirely.
Whole books, thousands of websites and entire businesses are devoted to SEO techniques, or offering SEO services.
It’s important to understand that no one really knows the exact formula search engines like Google use to determine how websites are ranked in search results. Plus the formula always changes to prevent unscrupulous companies from “gaming” the system.
If you stick with the 9 basics I’ve shared here, you’ll be further ahead than many of your competitors’ home staging websites.
Other Factors Affect Search Engine Results
Remember your home staging website search results will change over time, so you need to be consistent in your SEO efforts. Also, not everyone will get the same search results for the exact same phrase because there are many factors at play. For example:
- Where your computer is located geographically when you’re doing the search (the search engine knows this because of your IP address).
- Whether you are logged into the search engine when you do your search.
- What other sites you’ve visited in the past.
More Home Staging Website Help
If all this sounds too intimidating, I can help you directly in two important ways.
If you’re a Graduate of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, you can join the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers which means you won’t have to build your own website at all. Learn more about joining the home staging directory letting my team do all the work for you.
If you already have your own home staging website and it’s not performing well, I can have a one-on-one consultation with you by phone to discuss ways of improving your website— from an SEO point of view and also to make it more appealing to potential clients. Or you can get tips and feedback during a Staging Diva Dialog Group Coaching call. Learn about these options here.
Can You Guess My Keyword Phrase?
This article is 894 words. Can you guess what keyword phrase(s) I was interested in for this page? How many times do they appear within this blog post? Add your guesses in the comments section.
I’d love to continue this series of articles to help every home stager get more clients from their home staging website. Please post your questions and comments below and share this story with your fellow home stagers. The more people who get in on this conversation the better, because we can pool our knowledge and inspire each other!
Thank you for the summary on SEO following our very helpful coaching call this week!
You’re most welcome Jennifer and thanks for the inspiration for this post!
Hi Debra, OK, I’m completely intimidated by creating my website, and truthfully it’s the only thing holding me back from launching my business. Your articles are such a help, but I have to say that this one is very frustrating to me. I have no idea what a URL is or where to even begin to look for the address of your page to answer question 1 above. I wish you’d given your answers in the article because I’m left feeling frustrated and am anxiously awaiting your answers.
Lauren, sorry for your frustration, but from it you’ll actually pick up some helpful information that you’ll probably remember better than if I had just stated it outright. So to answer your question (I know others are wondering too):
A URL is the address of a webpage. For example, StagingDiva.com is one of my “domain names,” it’s also a URL. Individual web pages also have a URL. For example the address of this article is https://stagingdiva.com/homestagingbusiness/home-staging-website-seo-tips/
You can see the address of a page, (ie: it’s URL) when you look at the top of your web browser window. Your browser is the program you’re using to surf the Internet (Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.).
Your browser always shows the address of the page that you’re on at any given time. Depending on how your browser is set up, it may or may not show you “http://” as part of the URL, but technically it’s still part of the address.
Now to the matter of “creating a website being the only thing holding you back from launching your business” I’m going to challenge you to stop letting that be an excuse. I know it’s intimidating, but that would be like letting a fear of nursing stand in the way of having children.
In other words, help is out there and letting one aspect hold you back from a potentially life long dream job is not worth the sacrifice. If you’re a Graduate of the Staging Diva Program, you don’t even have to build a website. You can join my directory! I’ve had stagers who are in their 6th year in business only doing a site now because the Directory was all they needed.
Hope that helps Lauren! Thanks so much for posting your question and frustration. I know it will help others too!
Hi Debra, and fellow stagers!
I would say two of the key word phrases are “home staging website” and “home staging” since you used them around 10 times… I lost count as I was so intrigued by how you wove them through the article in such a clever way that it did not seem at all redundant!
Thanks for the article. It helped me understand what I need to do as I am currently redoing my Staging Dive listing, and my personal website.
FYI everyone, the private coaching by Debra is awesome for websites and personal coaching! It works and a bargain when you realize the valuable knowledge you could not get anywhere else. The first house I staged after finishing the Staging Diva course for home stagers sold for $31,000.00 more than two realtors said it would.
Thank you, Staging Diva for teaching me how to live up to the name of Star Stager!
Thanks so much for your kind words Kay. You ARE absolutely a Star Stager!
And you’re right about the keyword phrases! I’m glad you tried counting them to see how they were woven in. It is tricky repeating them enough for search engines while not seeming awkward to your readers.
Thanks again for commenting!
It’s interesting that in recent weeks the emphasis from Google’s perspective is a shift from keywords to more news related rich content and social media that is less dependent on keywords and has more of a focus on content-based marketing approaches that increases relevancy, authority, and influence. It’s my understanding that from around mid-November any of us with Google Analytics will no longer be able to access keyword information as it will become “not provided”.
We’ll all have to get smarter with the way we use social media, blogs, video and general informative site content.
Thanks for commenting Adam. You’re correct that we need to provide relevant content and that social sharing factors into ranking too. I don’t believe this eliminates the need to be aware of what keywords we’re using as they are still an indicator of what all this content is about.
Also true that Google Analytics will no longer give us access to keyword information for free. However, paid advertising via Google Adwords will still measure performance of keywords.
Absolutely. Keywords are still important to factor to ensure paid search is generating targeted traffic. I think it will make more people test this service and continue to adjust their ads to get the best results. What will be interesting to see is if there is a trend by consumers to start using Bing and Yahoo as their focus will remain heavily keyword based from my understanding which supports your initial comments about recognising and understanding the strength the ‘right’ keywords have.
Crazy times ahead for those of us managing our own sites!
Adam, isn’t it always crazy times managing our own sites?! There is nothing in our business that changes as fast as the Internet. A good portion of my week is always spent staying on top of it all so that I can take what I learn and:
– Apply it to my own sites, including the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers
– Incorporate it into my latest articles on Home Staging Business Report
– Incorporate it into my monthly teaching in Staging Diva Dialog
– Incorporate it into my answers for members of the Staging Diva Network
The keyword phrases I noticed were home staging website.
I am reading a lot of your information,on the web very informative
I will we purchases your course soon..
I just helped a friend rearrange a small bedroom although difficult for her to see what I had in mind but we finally got it done , she was very impressed and said ,”I should pay you to help me rearrange my whole house! ” I think I could be a great home stagger but such. A lack of self confidence in verbalization.
Hi Betty, Yes that was the keyword phrase I was going for. So glad you’re finding my articles helpful. Obviously you’ve got the talent for home staging or your friend wouldn’t be suggesting you do her whole house. Since she’s opened up the door for you charging her, that’s your chance to earn what you need to pay for the entire training program! It will really fast track your home staging business.
Self confidence is a tricky thing. Many of my students have struggled with that and a common thing I hear from them is how much more confident they are after they’ve learning my business formula. You can read about their experiences at StagingDivaReviews.com
Thanks for commenting Betty and sharing your experiences!
Hi Debra ~ Good tips here especially for stagers who may not be too familiar with SEO techniques. I wanted to add something to the “Other factors affect SE results” section: if you “go Incognito” on Google first, you can search for those phrases and your IP location will be hidden from Google so that you can see “true” search engine results. I found that many stagers are unable of this ability to search for terms like “home staging (insert your city)” and getting “true” results.
You are totally right Maureen, that’s an excellent tip I could have included. Thanks for sharing!