Smart Mortgage Marketing

Terminology note: In this article, SEO refers to search engine optimization, which is the act of improving a website for better search engine visibility. Mortgage SEO, then, simply refers to an SEO program on a mortgage-related website.

Would you like an easy way to increase your mortgage website’s search engine visibility / ranking for certain key phrases? I know … who wouldn’t write? Well here it is. You can increase your SEO success simply by writing one page of web content for every phrase on your list of key phrases.

That’s it. Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? Yet you’d be surprised how many websites lack the most fundamental element of search engine visibility — content!

Side note: You will obviously need a list of key phrases for this process. If you don’t have such a list, or have interest in creating one, you should consider my SEO services.

After you have your list of key phrases (which are those phrases your target audience is typing into search engines), you are ready to start writing website content. To keep this process manageable, just start with the top 10 to 15 phrases on your list. Remember, you’re going to write one page of content for each phrase, so don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Next, you will write one page of keyword-rich content for each of your selected phrases. If one of your phrases were “mortgage companies in Houston, Texas,” then you would write a keyword-rich web page about that specific topic.

In addition to giving your website visitors useful information, you are supporting your mortgage SEO program laying the ever-important foundation of keyword-rich content.

Summary of post: Here’s a tip to help you get the most from your online mortgage marketing program — collaborate with others to eliminate areas of weakness.

When it comes to business and marketing, we all have our weaknesses. And that’s okay, as long as you (A) realize your weaknesses and (B) do something to compensate for them.

From an online marketing perspective, one of the ways you to reduce your weaknesses is by collaborating with others.

The process here is three-fold. You first need to identify your mortgage marketing objectives. Then you need to identify any weaknesses that will get in the way of your objective. Lastly, you must find somebody who can contribute in that area of weakness.

Here are some examples of how you might collaborate your way to a stronger online marketing program:

• You could collaborate with a talented web writer to develop an online mortgage resource center for your city or town. With a little effort, such a website could bring greater search engine visibility, higher levels of website traffic, and a steady stream of web-based leads.
• You could collaborate with a real estate expert to conduct a home buying seminar series. The benefits of such a program would be client acquisition for both parties.
• You could collaborate with a mortgage professional in a nearby, non-competitive area to share leads. The result would be more leads than either of you would have on your own.

These are just a few examples of collaboration for mortgage marketing success. Put on your thinking cap and I’m sure you can come up with even better ideas.

Here’s to your online marketing success.

Online mortgage marketing is about maximizing the number of ways people can find your main website (visibility), and then respond to it in some way (lead generation).

The ways people can find you online are known as “channels,” and it stands to reason that the more channels you have the more website traffic you might enjoy. We discuss the different kinds of online mortgage marketing channels quite a bit on this website. They range from online articles, press releases, blogs and good-old-fashioned search engine optimization (SEO).

But there’s another online marketing channel we have not covered up until now, and that is pay-per-click marketing.

Pay-per-click (also known as sponsored search or paid search) is one of two paths to search engine visibility. SEO is the other path. Here’s the difference between them:

• With pay-per-click / sponsored search, you are paying to have your website ranked at the top of the search engines for certain phrases. In other words, with pay-per-click, you could reach the top of the search engines later today or tomorrow.
• With search engine optimization / SEO, your website ranks well in the search engines naturally, due to its content, link popularity and other factors. In other words, with natural SEO, it takes a lot of work and patience to reach the top of the search engines.

So if your mortgage website needs search engine visibility in a hurry, pay-per-click / PPC is the only option for you. If you have long-term search engine success in mind, SEO techniques can accommodate you.

There are as many PPC / sponsored search programs as their are major search engines. After all, search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask derive most of their profits from their respective pay-per-click programs. But of all the PPC programs out there, Google AdWords is by far the most popular.

Mortgage Marketing Online with Google AdWords

AdWords is a pay-per-click / sponsored search marketing program offered by Google, the most popular of all the search engines. Google AdWords lets you create your own ad and choose your own keywords. Sponsored ads appear in certain areas within a Google search engine results page (SERP). See image below.

In the image above, the green shaded area shows pay-per-click (sponsored) listings, while the pink shaded area shows natural (organic) listings.

Benefits of Google AdWords Marketing

One of the primary benefits of using a PPC program like Google AdWords is the fact that you can get your ad in front of people quickly. In fact, if you were to implement an AdWords program today, you could be on the first page of Google for your chosen phrases within a day or two. Of course, this all depends on how much you decide to pay per click, and therein lies a broad spectrum of spending options.

Google AdWords also has some pretty impressive reporting, tracking and testing features built into their PPC program. Using these tools, you can track and measure all aspects of your pay-per-click marketing campaign. This kind of analysis will help you decide whether or not PPC should be a permanent part of your online mortgage marketing program.

Drawbacks of Google AdWords Marketing

Google AdWords is entirely different from natural SEO in one regard. With AdWords / PPC, you are paying for placement. With a mortgage SEO campaign, you will achieve placement / ranking over time based on your website’s content, structure, popularity and relevance to certain search phrases.

With a sponsored PPC program like AdWords, you will achieve your ranking based on the amount you bid per click and the number of click-throughs your ad gets. In other words, the top rankings in Google AdWords are dominated by search ads that either (A) pay the most per click, (B) have the best click-through rates, or (C) a combination of the two.

This is a drawback of sponsored search / PPC as compared to search engine optimization. With PPC, you will always have to pay for your placement. So it can be a form of dependency that never goes away.

Is PPC Right for Your Mortgage Marketing Program?

So now that you’ve learned a little about pay-per-click / sponsored search, the next question you should ask is whether or not PPC is right for your online mortgage marketing program. In truth, only you can answer that question. But with the ease of setup and flexible pricing of a program like Google AdWords, there is certainly no harm in a little experimentation!

Resources for Google AdWords Marketing

• Google AdWords Tutorial
• Using Google AdWords
• Google AdWords Guide
• Using Google AdWords for Effective Online Marketing
• Avoiding Common AdWords Mistakes

Attrition is one of the biggest enemies of mortgage marketing online. So in order to succeed in your online marketing, you have to understand the concept of attrition and work hard to reduce it.

Attrition Defined
According to the dictionary, attrition is “a reduction in numbers usually as a result of resignation, retirement, or death.” Don’t worry. We won’t be talking about death or retirement here. But we will be talking about a reduction in numbers. So let’s translate that definition for online marketing purposes.

Mortgage Marketing Attrition
In terms of online mortgage marketing, attrition refers to the people who do not take the desired action you want them to take. The level of attrition is inversely proportionate to the success of your online marketing program.

In other words, the more people who drop off along the way, the less successful your marketing program will be. Common sense, right?

Each step in the online mortgage marketing process is also an opportunity for attrition, because you stand to lose some people at each step along the way. That’s the bad news. Now here’s the good news. Each point of attrition can be improved, because you can be proactive about minimizing the number of people who drop off along the way.

Here are some examples of attrition points, and what you can do to reduce them.

Attrition Point #1 – Some of the visitors to your mortgage website will leave if they do not find anything of value to them. But you can reduce this by constantly adding valuable resources and content to your website.

Attrition Point #2 – Of those people who find your website, and find it useful, some will leave without making contact with you in any way. In other words, they will not be converted from a visitor to a lead. But you can reduce this by having lead-generation techniques on all key pages of your website.

Attrition Point #3 - Of those people who visit your website, some simply won’t be able to find what they’re after. But you can reduce this by having a well-organized mortgage website with the preferred path clearly identified on the home page.

The point of this brief list is to show you that attrition shadows all aspects of your online mortgage marketing. But it also shows you that for every point of attrition, there is something you can do to reduce it!

Lead generation is on the minds of a lot of mortgage brokers. The reason why is obvious. Mortgage leads represent potential mortgage clients, and clients are the building blocks of your success.

But how do you generate viable leads for your mortgage business? Entire books have been written on this subject, so I won’t try to attempt the same. Instead, I like to use this blog to offer occasional ideas for mortgage lead generation. Here’s one for today:

Lead Generation Idea - School “Report Cards”

The basic premise of this approach to mortgage lead generation is simple. You will create something of value to your audience, and then offer it to them in exchange for them subscribing to your email newsletter. You get a lead, and they get something of value.

To make sure your mortgage leads are somewhat qualified leads, you should focus on people who are most likely to need your services — such as home buyers. Many home buyers understand the value of buying in an area with good schools, but they don’t always know how to find information on local schools. So why not provide it for them?

You could use Yahoo School Reports, your city’s website, and your own personal knowledge to create a “report card” of local schools. Promote it on your website with eye-catching graphics and plentiful bullet points, and offer it by email (for lead capture).

This kind of information is relevant to your business because schools have a lot to do with home prices. It’s also the kind of information that home buyers would want, regardless of whether or not they have school-aged children.

This is just one way of many to generate mortgage leads online.  The key with this approach — or any approach to lead generation — is value. The greater the value of the thing you’re offering, the more people will respond to it.

Good luck with your mortgage marketing and lead generation!