Web Traffic Alone Doesn’t Equal Mortgage Leads

This blog post is part of an ongoing series about mortgage lead generation via the web. Click here to access the “table of contents” for this series.

From time to time, I’ll get an email from a mortgage broker seeking search engine optimization (SEO) services because they want to generate more leads from their mortgage website. But when I inquire about the lead generation systems they are currently using, these same brokers are often stumped and unable to answer.

“But isn’t that what SEO is for, to generate leads?”

No, not exactly.

Let me explain what I mean. If you increase the amount of visitors to a mortgage website that lacks a lead generation system, you’ll end up with more traffic but no way to capitalize on it.

In my experience, most mortgage websites gets enough traffic to support the broker’s business goals. But many of these sites do a poor job of turning casual visitors into leads and inquiries. This is the essence of mortgage broker lead generation — getting your website visitors to “raise their hands” in some way.

So whenever a client or potential client says they need more traffic to their mortgage website, I usually ask two questions right off the bat:

Question 1 - How Are You Measuring Web Traffic?

When I ask this first question, a lot of people say something like, “Well, we don’t have any way to measure our website traffic right now.” Which prompts another question: If you don’t measure or analyze the traffic to your mortgage website, how do you know your current traffic levels are insufficient? The answer, of course, is that you don’t.

Almost every web hosting service provides basic stats on the number of visitors each day, where they came from, how many pages they viewed (”page views”) and other useful bits of information. So check with your current web-hosting provider to see if you have a web stats program built in.

If you don’t have a stats package through your current web hosting company, you’ll need to install one. Their are some pretty fancy programs out there, such as WebTrends and NetTracker, and they’ll tell you everything you could ever want to know about your website visitors.

Here’s a money-saving tip for you. If you want a full-featured web analytics program for free, check out Google Analytics. It used to be called “Urchin” before Google bought it. The positive side of Google’s purchase is that they made the program available for free — all you need is a Google account, which is also free to set up.

You can learn more at Google.com/analytics

Question 2 - How Are You Generating Leads Online?

Here again, you would be surprised by the number of mortgage brokers who offer blank stares at this question. Mortgage marketing online is a numbers game. To use those numbers to your advantage, you need to implement a variety of lead generation techniques to convert traffic into leads and inquiries. What’s the point of increasing traffic (through SEO or any other means) if you’re just hoping that people contact you?

Or, to state it in mathematical terms:

• False: Web traffic = mortgage leads and clients
• True: Web traffic + lead generation = mortgage leads and clients

Online mortgage marketing is a process of attrition. In the beginning, you start off with a very large pool of people — prospective clients surfing the web for mortgage information, quotes, etc. But that number will soon shrink, because only a percentage of those people will find and visit your mortgage website.

When people do visit your mortgage website the number shrinks yet again. Many people will leave your website without taking any action, for a variety of reasons. Maybe they found the information on the website lacking (content problems). Maybe they couldn’t find what they wanted (usability problems). Or maybe they left the website because there was no way for them to request more information (lead generation problems).

An effective lead-generation program can help you reduce this attrition. So stay tuned for plenty more tips on producing leads through your mortgage website.

As this blog series continues, I’ll show you many ways to increase the number or mortgage leads generated through your website. We will talk about blogs, chat programs, e-books and other downloads, information-request forms and a lot more!

There’s a lot more great advice coming soon. So if you haven’t done so already, join our free newsletter so you can keep up with this article series.