Smart Mortgage Marketing

On a mortgage marketing website, the ultimate goal is to lead your visitors down a certain pre-defined path. You cannot always control where people will go, but you can certainly offer your preferred path and make it very easy for people to follow.

But if you burden your web pages with too much of everything, you divide your readers’ attention, which increases the likelihood they will leave your site altogether.

I see this a lot on the home pages of real estate marketing websites, and to a certain extent on mortgage websites as well. Often, agents will participate in real estate link exchange programs that require them to put logos with outbound links onto their home pages. When taken to the extreme, this dilutes the agent’s brand and invites unnecessary distraction.

This also gives visitors plenty of things to click on that will take them away from your website. Is that the best strategy for a home page? That’s why distraction is the enemy of online mortgage marketing.

Visit your home page and ask yourself, what is the most desirable action you want people to take? What is the second most desirable action? From a visual standpoint, does the placement and prominence of these two paths support their importance? Or do they battle for attention with a dozen or more distractions?

Recommended Reading:

• Web Style Guide: Home Pages
• Biggest Mistakes in Web Design
• Home Page Goals

Website usability refers to how easily (or difficultly) people can use a particular website. In this regard, website usability has everything to do with your online mortgage marketing success.

How does website usability related to mortgage marketing online? Let me illustrate with the following hypothetical (but realistic) scenario.

Picture this…

You are waiting behind your mortgage website, eager and ready to take on a new client. A potential client has just stepped up in front of your mortgage website, eager and ready to hire a professional, friendly mortgage broker like yourself.

But here’s the problem. You don’t know the potential client is there. After all, how could you? The person has not contacted you yet. They’ve only just arrived. So in order to connect with them, they first have to enter your mortgage website, navigate their way through it, find it useful and helpful, and then contact you in some fashion.

Now we see where usability comes into play. Because what if the visitor can’t use your website? What if he or she finds the menu confusing, or can’t find your mortgage rates, services, products, etc.?

That’s right … they’ll leave your mortgage website as quickly as they came. After all, there are plenty of other mortgage websites to visit.

Here’s the bottom line. If a person can’t use your website, you have no chance to connect with them. You don’t have the luxury of personally guiding visitors through your website. Upon arriving, they are totally on their own.

Usability Hot Spots
Entire books have been written on website usability (like Don’t Make Me Think). So let’s just cover some of the basics. Here are some usability “hot spots” that can always use improvement.

1. Navigation. Label your navigation in a clear way. Don’t be cute or clever.

2. Home page. Keep your home page clean, inviting and uncluttered.

3. Action paths. Define the actions you want people to take, and present them in a clear way.

4. Calls to action. People will go where they want on your site, but it helps to offer direction.

5. Interactivity. If you have mortgage calculators or anything else requiring visitor input, be sure to offer clear and ample instructions.

6. Web conventions. Following web conventions (like making your logo a link to the home page) helps visitors get around by using things they’re familiar with.

Related Article: Usability Equals Visibility