Generate Mortgage Internet Leads with FAQ Tools

This blog post is part of an ongoing series about mortgage lead generation via the web. Click here to access the full list of articles in this series.

Have you ever been on a website that had an interactive FAQ section, where you could click on a button and type in your question? This is another great way to generate mortgage Internet leads through your company website.

It works like this. The website visitor comes across a FAQ tool and sees a library of previous questions and answers somehow relating to mortgage loans. The visitor wants to take part in the process, so he or she clicks on the “Ask a Question” button and does just that … asks a mortgage-related question. And presto, you’ve just earned another Internet mortgage lead for the day.

As the administrator of the program, you will receive an email whenever somebody submits a question online. Then you would simply log into the admin section of the FAQ program and answer the new question(s). The program would post your response onto the website in the appropriate question category, and it would also send an email notification to the person who asked the question. And because you have the person’s email address, you could follow up with them after answering their question for website purposes.

So, in addition to being a great way to generate mortgage Internet leads on a regular basis, this is also a way to grow your website with content that people really want — frequently asked questions about mortgage loans!

I recently put one of these FAQ programs onto my home buying website, and it receives questions about once a week. If I featured it more prominently on the home page and within the main menu, it would probably yield daily questions from home buyers.

Image: The FAQ / knowledge base program at Home Buying Institute

From the screenshot above, you can see how this tool makes things very easy for the person asking the question. Remember, the easier you make it for people to respond, the more likely they will be to do so. This means a higher number of mortgage Internet leads each day. In the example above, all the person has to do is enter their email address, select a category, and ask their question. Now that’s easy!

Also, when you use this technique, people will be less likely to use a fake email address. That’s because the program needs their email address to notify them when the question has been answered. Without using a legitimate email address, they’ll have to keep returning to the site to see if the question has been answered.

If you use this technique to generate mortgage Internet leads through your own website or blog, I recommend that you make it very specific to your city or town (if you are a local mortgage broker). Unlike me, you don’t want people from all over the country asking you questions — you want potential clients asking you questions. So you want to pitch it as a Q&A forum for mortgage shoppers. Those are the Internet leads you want.

If you offer services nationwide, you can still use this technique. You would just keep things general and not geographically specific.

Setting Up Your Q&A Program

These tools go by different names. So when researching them, you should know that they are also referred to as “knowledge base” programs and Q&A tools.

To get the program up and running on your website, you would first have to install it (or have somebody install it for you). Basically, you would download the files for your chosen program, upload them onto your website, and then perform some basic customization. All I did to “customize” the Q&A tool pictured above was to create a simple logo and add a picture of a house. Pretty basic, I know, but it illustrates how these programs come ready to use right out of the “box.”

And the faster you get it up and running, the sooner you can use it for generating mortgage Internet leads from prospective clients.

Below, I’ve provided a list of programs worth your consideration. The first one on the list (Omnistar’s Kbase program) is what I’ve installed at the Home Buying Institute. If you want to try this technique on your own mortgage website, I recommend playing around with the programs listed below, comparing tools and prices, etc.

FAQ / Knowledge Base Programs:

• http://www.omnistarkbase.com
• http://www.interspire.com/activekb/
• http://www.novosolutions.com
• http://www.mykb.com

Once you have the tool installed onto your website, the next logical step is to make people aware of it. Add a button or link in prominent places on your website, such as the upper-left portion of your menu area. The easier it is to find, the more people you’ll have using it. This directly corresponds to a higher number of mortgage Internet leads produced with the technique.

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