Loan Officer Websites – A Lead Generator?
I get asked about loan officer websites quite often. As more and more people make the shift to shopping online, it’s become all but impossible to ignore! So what do you need to be aware of if you’re planning on setting up your own website?
Super Important Loan Officer Websites Tip #1
A website is not a marketing strategy! A website is an electronic storefront or sales person for you. Unfortunately, without people stopping by to chat with your new found sales person, it’s useless! Most loan officers spend good money to purchase a website package. Excited at the thought of all this new business they’re about to get, they are soon disappointed when none is forthcoming!
What’s happening? There’s no traffic! See, when someone goes to a search engine to type in what they are looking for, your website is most likely not showing up. This means no traffic, no leads, no closed loans.
Super important Loan Officer Websites tip #2
If you’re not on the front page of Google, then you’re missing out – big time! Yahoo ROBO, DMA, and other recent organizational research studies confirm that 91% of individuals do NOT click past page number 1 of the search results! Is your site on the front page of Google? If not, then 91% (Or more) of the targeted prospects searching for your services are going elsewhere… Not a good way to generate business.
Super Important Loan Officer Websites Tip #3
Is your website a pre-written purchased package? I’m sorry to tell you, but chances are a lot of money was wasted! See, one of Google’s primary criteria for ranking websites is “unique content.” It only makes sense, as how valuable would a search engine be if it kept displaying results full of the same material over and over?
If you have a pre-written website that was also purchased by other loan officers as well, then your chances of ranking well on the search engines just dropped into the basement. This is coming from Google’s mouth, not mine. If you’re violating this rule, then you need to rethink how badly you want business from the web.
There’s lots of business to be had, but you need to know what is required to rank high on the search engines for proper keywords. Want to learn more about this concept? Here’s a great video I have prepared – Click the Loan Officer Websites link below to watch. (About 10 minutes) :
February 5, 2009 by chad weber · 21 Comments
Chad Weber is the founder of Loan Officer Marketing Lab. Chad provides loan officers with unique marketing strategies such as: online marketing, realtor referrals, and self-generated leads.
Thanks for sharing.. Very helpful..
No problem Joseph! Hope all is well!
CW -
Instead of spending money on flashy design stuff, how about a simple website and instead spend the money on ad campaigns to bring in people? Once you understand how to use networks like adwords, it’s just a question of calculating your ROI and forking out the dough.
That’s correct! The website itself is not the marketing plan. The traffic generation is. It’s no different than having a wonderful sales person who never does a thing, just sits there.
A more average sales person with a phenomenal work ethic getting out to see people and meet prospects will outpull the lazy sales person any day of the week.
Website marketing need not be a mystery. In fact, if current trends continue then the numbers will only grow more favorable for those who choose to use the web as a lead generator.
great post. I would imagine as a loan officer it would be difficult to generate enough traffic to generate enough leads
I could not agree more. I just dumped my pre-packaged all the big guys have one to my blog and in a week 3 new leads. thanks for the great information and thanks for assuring me that I did the right thing
Dave
Consumer Information + (Web Site + Blog) = Business.
The $15,000.00 home buyer tax credit can’t hurt either!
You are right; you have fabulous points here that will help generate business from your online resources.
you would have to drive traffic probably from social networks to make that really work
Nice Tips thanks for sharing. In my Point of view Simply update your website with unique content and social media networks are the best way to move targeted traffic to your website.
Lots of great comments here as always! Gotta love Lenderama! I agree that social networks are a powerful tool, as are blog platforms with unique content. But let’s not forget the importance of the search engines themselves.
Heck, right here in my home town, more than 47,000 searches were performed on Google for loan officers and mortgage brokers. This is LOCAL, in ONE city. Now that’s what I call targeted traffic my friends.
If you have a lead capture website positioned on the front page of the search engines for these keywords, then you’re going to be one happy loan offiicer!
Thanks for the great advice! A solid website is vital to any business, especially those that require social networking!
Chad,
Pre-written packages are waste, as you say, unless they include an editor that you can use and rewrite the content. That should be a key component when choosing a website provider. Now you can shape the entire website to attract Google and Yahoo and the other players to spider your pages and index them. And that’s when the visitors start coming for a look.
You hit the mark here; Information shared over a blog, website, and social networking is a great triple force to have for generating business
Great Article.
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Excellent article, of course. I am trying hard to get to the front page of google.
Chad knows of what he speaks. Great timely stuff. Sacramento Mortgage Loans
you are right. contents have a huge affect on search. if you have a unique contents then your chances will be high to reach on the top. very useful post thanks
Hello to all!
I’ve been sitting in on Chads webinars and he’s extremely knowledgeable about internet marketing. I’m really looking forward to the launch of my site!
Hey….anyone see the move FHA made today regarding flippers???
Been reading for a few days now. This was very helpful and solid information. BTW, I love your site design as well. I enjoyed reading it and hopefully you will write more soon. Do you have a newsletter? How do I subscribe to the blog itself?
Great comments here. I think it’s important to have several different strategies. You must offer consumer information for free, have a blog, website and do all the social networking you can in order to drive buyer leads.
Chris Beatty
Kokomo Mortgages