Home Staging Glossary by Staging Diva

A business networking website that is generally used by employees looking for jobs and contacts. However, there are a growing number of home stagers and real estate agents within LinkedIn's membership and it is a way to get an additional link to your website. Click here to set up a free LinkedIn profile.

The asking price for a house that is listed for sale in the real estate market. Depending on market conditions, this list price may bear no resemblance to what the home is actually worth. Some real estate agents will recommend a higher list price after a home is staged because of how much better it will look to potential buyers. For additional information, download the FREE Report: "Ask Staging Diva “Can I grow a home staging business in a depressed economy?”

A graphical representation of your company. A logo may include an image or a special font style used to write your company name. Click here to have a professional home staging logo designed for you. Related reading in this free article about home staging logos: How Home Stagers Ruin Their Image Without Even Trying.

An acronym for “Master in Business Administration.” Debra Gould, creator of the Staging Diva Training Program, has an MBA in marketing and ran her own marketing consulting firm for 10 years before opening her home staging business.

This is an "engineered wood" product, made from sawdust and other wood residues. MDF is great for home stagers or interior redesigners and decorators to use for replacing cabinet doors, fireplace mantles and molding since it's way cheaper than real wood and it is very smooth/easy to paint.

A type of paint that can be used on laminate countertops often found in kitchens and bathrooms. For more home staging tips, see the Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans.

Staging Diva Graduates who already have their own websites can join the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers with a Mini Listing. This includes: name and photo of stager, company name and logo, contact information, areas served, and an all-important link to the home stager's own website. This link will help improve the search engine ranking of the smaller and less established website of the individual stager. How to create your own home staging business Mini Listing.

An acronym for “Multiple Listing Service.” MLS is a database of property listings that are currently for sale on the real estate market.

A type of digital audio file that can be played on MP3 players, computers, and newer car stereo systems. The Staging Diva Training Program includes 10 MP3 files that can be loaded on various players for convenient listening.

Also known as a message board or discussion group, an online forum is a community of Internet users who gather in one central "virtual" place either private or open to the public, to discuss a common interest. The Staging Diva Network is an online forum exclusively for Staging Diva Graduates.

An event during which a house for sale is open to prospective buyers for viewing. Public open houses can be hosted by the listing agent, or by another agent who is hoping to use the event to find new clients. Public open houses are often advertised in the newspaper and held on weekend afternoons. There are also open houses held exclusively for real estate agents. These typically run on a weekday morning and are advertised to agents. To help your home staging clients prepare their homes for an open house, see Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans. To learn how to use open houses to expand your home staging business, see Staging Diva's Sales and Marketing Secrets to Growing a Home Staging Business.

Someone who is afraid to throw anything away in case they'll need it at some point in the future. Very typical behavior for anyone who lived through the depression. When taken to an extreme that totally interferes with normal life, this person is often referred to as a hoarder. As a home stager, you will run into pack rats in every income group and your task will be to inspire them to put "their treasures" into off-site storage if they aren't prepared to part with them yet.

Web pages are ranked by Google (and other search engines) depending on how relevant they're believed to be for a particular phrase. If you want to appear in the top search results for the phrase "ABC Home Stager" you want a good Page Rank. Nobody outside of Google knows the precise algorithm used to determine this ranking (and the formula changes), but using up-to-date Search Engine Optimization (SEO) methods will help your efforts.

An online advertising model whereby you only pay for people who click on your online advertising. Pay Per Click ads can run on websites and blogs, including search results pages. The most common example being the ads you see running at the top and down the right side of the page when you do a search on Google. Advertisers bid on how much they are prepared to pay per click for their ad to appear on those pages. The higher you bid, the higher your placement, but you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Your ad will continue to appear as long as you have not exhausted your daily, weekly or monthly advertising budget.

For home stagers, a portfolio is a collection of photographs showing before and after transformations of the homes they’ve staged or redesigned. A portfolio isn’t necessarily a physical album or scrapbook; it can be a website or a profile page on the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers. A well-presented portfolio is the key to attracting new clients as their decision to work with you will be based largely on the strength of your before and after photos. To make sure yours is the best it can be, read Staging Diva Ultimate Portfolio Guide: Winning Clients With the Perfect Home Staging Portfolio.

Staging Diva Graduates who want to avoid the considerable time and expense of building and hosting their own website, can join the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers with a Profile Listing. Their web page will include: name and photo of stager, company name and logo, contact information, areas served, and an all-important write up which sells the services of the home stager along with their portfolio of before and after photos to entice potential clients to contact them. If the stager has their own independent website, they can also drive traffic to it with a link from their Profile Listing to the home stager's own website. This link will help improve the search engine ranking of the smaller and less established website of the individual stager. How to get your own home staging business Profile Listing.