This white paper claims that call prospects six times, raises your proabability of contact to 93%! The moral of the story is don’t stop at three or four tries, work the lead at least 6 times and time will bare out that the extra effort will have a payoff.

From the White Paper:

This study illustrates how lead management systems like Leads360, allow you to make the most out of the sales leads you already have. Learn about:

• Visibilitly -Realize how proper visibility over you sales process can have significant impact on your bottom line.
• Persistence -Understand when your sales team should continue to pursue, or give up on a lead.
• Workflow- Learn how enforcing a workflow with a lead management system ensures that best practices are followed, and that you are getting the most out of your leads.

Related Posts:

1. Leads360 Lead Management Software
2. Mortgage Lead Generation Basics: How to Generate Exclusive Mortgage Leads
3. Exclusive Mortgage Leads: How Can I Generate My Own?

1 QUALITY MORTGAGE WEBSITE

The centerpiece of all mortgage marketing campaigns is the mortgage website. Most prospects make a decision on whether or not they will consider working with your company based solely on their initial perception of your mortgage broker website. It’s true, before they have even spoken to a loan officer, they have already made a decision based on their perception of the quality of your services as they are embodied by your mortgage website.

Additionally, the mortgage website is the first place most prospects go when they are exposed to your online or offline mortgage marketing and this highlights the importance that your mortgage website holds.

Online Presence – The goal of your mortgage web site is to engage visitors to learn about your company and services. To be effective in internet mortgage lead generation, a mortgage website must be authoritative and professional looking to help build trust with prospects while giving them the answers they seek. The website must provide users with helpful mortgage tools and information that are easily accessed through intuitive and user friendly navigation and design.

Building Rapport – The goal of your mortgage web site is to engage visitors to learn about your company and services and to inform them about mortgage and real estate topics in an easy to understand and common sense way.

Through this process visitors build trust in your company and brand and in doing so are much more likely to contact you via contact form, mortgage rate quote request, live chat or phone. Building rapport and trust is the first step in generating exclusive mortgage broker leads.

2 WEBSITE TRAFFIC

There are many different ways that traffic is generated to your mortgage website, some are obvious and some are not. Every day visitors come to your website as a result of simple activities you are already engaging in.

Offline Mortgage Marketing – The first source of traffic to your mortgage website comes in the form of visitors that are referred to your site from your offline mortgage marketing sources such as direct mail, flyers, radio, billboards, tv or even business cards. Instead of calling you directly when exposed to an offline mortgage marketing campaign, most prospects today will visit your mortgage broker website to learn about your company and build trust.

Online Mortgage Marketing – Driving traffic to your mortgage web site online can occur from naturally existing organic search engine results or paid activities such as banner advertising or Pay Per Click campaigns.

Mortgage SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – To achieve high organic search engine rankings for mortgage keywords in in search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN, a Mortgage SEO, it is important to make sure your mortgage website is SEO optimized.  Mortgage SEO is the process of creating useful unique content and then optimizing on page items such as the title, url, H1 and H2 tags and alt tags, among others and then building relevant links to these pages.

3 MORTGAGE LEAD CONVERSION

When traffic is driven to high quality mortgage websites, the final step in real estate or internet mortgage lead generation is conversion of the visitor into an exclusive mortgage lead. This is where most mortgage websites today go wrong.

Most mortgage websites employ Full 1003 mortgage applications which have long since been proven to be a mortgage lead generation killer. They are simply too long and invasive for prospects that  you have not yet built a rapport with.

Free mortgage websites and generic mortgage sites don’t cut it, you are better off without a website and forcing prospects to call you directly than sending them to a cheap, generic, or tacky web site that is a dead end for mortgage lead generation. If your site offers a Full 1003 Application, flash intro or music, you are losing exclusive mortgage leads right now. More importantly, you are losing the deals that each mortgage lead has the potential to generate.

Related Posts:

1. Exclusive Mortgage Leads: How Can I Generate My Own?
2. Mortgage Lead Generation Basics
3. Mortgage Lead Generation Websites by LeadPress

1 Search Engine Optimized Mortgage Website

The first component in online mortgage lead generation is a Search Engine Optimized Mortgage Website that has been optimized for specific mortgage keyword terms. An SEO optimized mortgage web site will have content that is tuned for specific mortgage keyword phrases which will not only occur throughout web pages but within technical aspects of the site such as header tags, alt tags (image descriptions), meta tags, site maps, etc. (this is known as on-page optimization). Together, these optimizations provide a context for which search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN are much more likely and able to index your mortgage website and help to increase mortgage search engine rankings and generation of exclusive mortgage broker leads.

2 Mortgage Website Traffic

The second component in internet mortgage lead generation is mortgage web site traffic. As you rank higher for keyword search terms, more visitors see your mortgage website in the search engine results pages, which results in increased traffic to your mortgage broker website and generation of internet mortgage leads. Simply stated, the higher you are in the search engine rankings, the more traffic and clicks you will get. Search engine rankings equal traffic and the more traffic you get, the more internet mortgage leads you will generate.

Search engines rank websites by importance for specific keyword combinations. One important metric they utilize to rank sites are the amount of external links pointing to a website. If Mortgage Site A has 1000 links to it from other websites and Mortgage Site B has 20 links to it, search engines will deem Mortgage Site A as having more authority and will grant it higher search engine rankings.

How to Drive Traffic With Organic Search Engine Rankings

Unique Content. This is content in the form of articles or posts on your mortgage website that serve to inform and educate viewers on topics that they might be searching for in search engines. This content must be unique and not simply copied from another online source, otherwise it will likely not rank well as it will be deemed duplicate content by search engines, after all if another mortgage website already has the material ranking well, giving viewers the same content twice is of no use to them.

Link Building. The practice of obtaining links from external web sites to your own website is accomplished by engaging consistently in a link building or internet marketing campaign. The most cost-effective and effective link building strategies consist of creating unique mortgage related content (new pages / articles and press releases) on your mortgage web site and then building links to this content. Links are created by submitting this content to hundreds of high ranking and relevant websites, directories, social bookmaking sites, press release websites, and blogs. These sources than publish your content with a link back to you. Other websites will then publish your mortgage related content from these sites, adding yet more one way links back to you mortgage lead website. These activities are very effective, but even more time consuming.

3 Mortgage Lead Conversion

The third component in online mortgage lead generation is lead conversion. If you are successfully driving traffic to a search engine optimized mortgage broker web site, then you must be able to convert those visitors to mortgage broker leads when they visit your mortgage lead generation web site. For a mortgage website to be able to convert visitors to mortgage leads, it must be authoritative, must provide ample opportunities to gather leads (calls to action), must be a resource for visitors with useful information and tools, and must have high converting application forms.

Just Say No To the Full 1003. A very common mistake made on many mortgage broker websites is that they use the wrong style of mortgage application by providing a “Full 1003″ application. The truth is that borrowers rarely, if ever, fill out a full 1003 application online. It is simply an outdated idea and approach to generating mortgage leads online. Conceived as a way to improve loan originator efficiency in the early days of the internet, the full 1003 application has fallen by the wayside as a useful tool and in most cases it actually causes significant harm to mortgage lead generation in mortgage web sites that employ it.

The above assertions are evidenced by the fact that virtually none of the major mortgage lead generating companies, mortgage marketing companies, and lead aggregators use a Full 1003 Application, instead they use a short form. We consistently get feedback from mortgage companies that they too, have had this same experience with the Full 1003 Application not generating mortgage broker leads for them in their mortgage marketing campaigns.

Mortgage lead generation cannot occur until all Full 1003 Mortgage Applications are removed from your mortgage broker website. To confuse matters, virtually every major mortgage website design company / provider today not only offers the Full 1003 Application, but they tout is as a lead generating tool. They are not only doing their clients a disservice, they are hurting their clients’ bottom line. Any  one to four page short form mortgage application is preferable to a Full 1003 Application.

Related Posts:

1. Mortgage Lead Generation Basics
2. Mortgage SEO Basics: Choosing Mortgage Keywords
3. Mortgage Lead Generation Websites by LeadPress

Pre-Optimization: It is critically important that you know what keywords to target in your SEO / Mortgage Marketing Campaign. If you engage in a Mortgage SEO Campaign without carefully targeting the correct keywords, your internet mortgage lead generation results may be significantly decreased or non-existent. Keyword selection is a vital part of any SEO Campaign and there is little to no room for error. A Keyword Research Report provides the detailed analysis you need to target the correct keywords and help improve the overall effectiveness of your Mortgage SEO Marketing Campaign.

Mortgage Keyword Analysis and Reporting

Keyword research is the basis of all Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), and Search Engine Marketing Campaigns (SEM). The accurate identification and careful selection of important keywords and key phrases related to your target market can literally make or break any mortgage website or online marketing campaign.

Pre-Optimization Analysis: Before you begin adding content and engaging in an active SEO / SEM Mortgage Marketing Campaign, it is important that you address the current state of your mortgage website with an analysis on the current state of SEO on your website.This can and will affect your future SEO efforts and mortgage lead generation efforts.

To obtain high search engine rankings, generate traffic and generate leads, your website needs to be optimized for the keyword phrases you are targeting. Good content on an optimized site with quality inbound links is the proven formula for being highly ranked on the major search engines.

SEO – Internet Mortgage Marketing Basics

Why? Search engines like websites that show consistent natural growth and favor websites that have quality links pointing to them. Search engines reward sites exhibiting such growth with high rankings, which in turn leads to greater traffic and increased mortgage lead generation.

How? The primary techniques used in marketing your website and Mortgage SEO are creating unique content (new pages) on your website and creating quality links to this content through link building. Link building is accomplished by submitting your mortgage website and content to relevant directories, social bookmarking sites, article directories and blogs increase links back to your site and thus help to improve search engine rankings and optimize Internet Mortgage Lead Generation efforts.

How Long Does Mortgage SEO Take? Keep in mind that just like direct mail or any other type of mortgage marketing, an SEO Marketing Campaign requires a sustained and disciplined effort. Mortgage SEO is a long term internet marketing strategy with lasting results that requires an investment of money and time (6 to 12 months) to realize results in the form of leads generated on your website. In contrast, Pay-Per-Click or PPC campaigns (where you advertise on search engines and pay for each click you receive to your website) are a short term strategy where you are only as good as your last bid.

How To Choose Your Keywords

Keywords are the heart of Mortgage SEO and online mortgage lead generation. Each new page of unique content we create is optimized for a 2 to 5 word keyword phrase. This is the phrase we want to rank well for on the Search Engine Results pages of the top search engines.

1. Choose targeted or niche keywords and avoid broad keywords. The more target or focused your keywords are on niche search terms, the more success you will have. There is simply too much competition for keyword terms like “mortgage refinance” or “home equity loans” and you will not have success with these phrases. Targeting “Oregon mortgage refinance” or “oakland home equity loans” is a different story though.
2. Find out if people are searching for the terms you want to optimize for.The downside of avoiding broad search terms is that more targeted niche search terms will tend to have less volume associated with them. That being said, they are also much less competitive and even if there are only 25 searches a day for a keyword term, if you rank in the top ten for that word, you may have 5 to 15 qualified visiting your website from that search term alone.

Mortgage Keyword Tools

• Use this Keyword Volume Tool and this Keyword Tool to measure search volume for candidate keyword search terms.
• Use the Google Keyword Tool to research keyword search phrases.
• Use the LeadPress Mortgage Keyword Tool to research keyword search phrases.

Related Posts:

1. Mortgage Search Engine Optimization Basics
2. Mortgage Lead Generation Basics
3. Free Mortgage Lead Generation Tools

1 Search Engine Optimized Mortgage Website

A mortgage web site that has been optimized for relevant mortgage keyword terms being used by the target audience. An SEO optimized mortgage website will build high search engine rankings over time and help generate traffic. A mortgage website or mortgage template website is also important to any mortgage campaign as it is the hub of all mortgage marketing activities online and off. When prospects see mortgage marketing or advertising, the first place they go is to the website, this means that a mortgage website not only helps generate more internet mortgage leads from online SEO activities, but directly helps convert more prospects from offline mortgage marketing activities into exclusive mortgage leads.

2 Website Traffic

Traffic is generated from existing relationships and offline mortgage broker marketing activities such as direct mail, flyers, radio, tv and other mortgage marketing activities. Internet marketing campaigns such as pay per click or banner advertising will also drive traffic to your mortgage web site.

Organic search engine ranking will also help drive traffic to your web site. Creating unique content on your website and then generating links to that content to improve search engine rankings will also increase visitor traffic and search engine rankings.

Once the first and second components of mortgage lead generation have been satisfied, on-page website conversion can take place.

3 Conversion of Website Visitors

Conversion is the ability to convert visitors to your mortgage broker website into online mortgage leads via a contact form, live chat or a direct phone call to you. The primary tool employed on a mortgage lead generation website is the online application or rate quote / information request. You have invested money and time building and promoting your brand and website, so it is very important that you have the right tools in order to achieve the highest level of conversion on your website possible.

The Right Tools For the Job

The hands down most important on-page conversion factor issue facing mortgage companies today on their mortgage websites is the quality of their online mortgage applications. The mortgage website industry has long been steering their customers in the the wrong direction by promoting a “Online Full 1003 Application” or “Full 1003″ application style.

Originally designed to be a tool of efficiency that kept a loan officer from needing to take a loan application over the phone or in person, the Full 1003 style mortgage application has long since been proven to be a non-starter as borrowers will not fill it out due to its length and complexity.

Mortgage Lead Generation Killer: The Full 1003 Application

The “Full 1003″ is bad, very bad. It does not convert visitors to mortgage leads and even worse, it will cause your significant harm in the form of lost business and online conversion from visitors you have worked hard to drive to your mortgage website. It is important to note that all of your mortgage marketing campaigns (direct mail, radio, tv, etc.) are affected by this issue because many visitors to your mortgage web site come directly from non-internet related marketing activities. If your your mortgage website employs a Full 1003 application form, you simply will not realize any significant or meaningful success in your lead generation efforts until the Full 1003 Application is removed from your mortgage company website.

Barriers to Mortgage Lead Conversion

Another important aspect of online mortgage website lead conversion is providing as few barriers as possible between website visitors and your online mortgage applications. Case in point: Most mortgage website website design company’s websites take visitors to an intermediary page once a visitor clicks on an “Apply Now” link. This intermediary page typically includes 3 to 5 different options for applying such as “Short Form”, “Long Form”, “Download the Application”, etc. Each of these options includes a two or three sentence summary which then requires the visitor to study each option in order to find out which potential way of submitting an application is most appropriate. This is one more hoop the visitor is made to jump through and will only result in a high rate of application abandonment and guaranteed lower conversion. This intermediary page, combined with a Full 1003 is a proven formula to lower or eliminate lead generation on your mortgage broker web site, yet it is the industry standard model. If you already have a website with any of the major mortgage website providers you know this first hand.

What Works?

To find out which Online Lead Application does work, you only need to look to the large multi-million dollar companies that generate mortgage leads day in and day out as their core competency such as lowermybills.com, mortgageloan.com, etc. As witnessed on their websites, the 4 page short form application is the form used exclusively by virtually all of these lead generators and top producing mortgage broker and loan officer websites. These companies spend large sums of money driving traffic to their websites, so employing the highest converting online mortgage application possible has become an ongoing quest since day one. Through years of extensive A / B testing, the 4 page short form mortgage application has been proven day in and day out as the highest converting application format available.

In addition to the application format, website architecture, layout, presentation, and content also play an important role in generating online mortgage leads. More specifically, to maximize conversion a website must be authoritative, must provide ample opportunities to gather leads, must be a resource for visitors with useful information and tools, and must have high converting application forms.

The 3 Page Short Form Mortgage Application

• Proven Short Form Mortgage Application
• Advanced Short Form Exclusively Offered By LeadPress
• US Zip Code Database Validates All Property Address Information
• Every LeadPress Website Include Zip Code Database and Short Form
• Data Auto Population Based On US Zip Code
• Full Data Validation Throughout
• All Websites Hosted on Hardened Secured Servers With Nightly Backups
• High Converting Format

Sample High Conversion Mortgage Rate Request

Related Posts:

1. Mortgage Lead Generation Websites by LeadPress
2. Mortgage Marketing Success: The Role of the Mortgage Website
3. Common Mortgage Website Mistakes to Avoid

FULL 1003 MORTGAGE APPLICATION

In its heyday, the introduction of the Full 1003 Mortgage Application promised to increase efficiency in the mortgage origination cycle. Prospects could simply apply online, freeing up loan officers from having to take applications in person or over the phone, giving them more time to focus on selling and other aspects of mortgage loan officer marketing.

The reality is that now, more than ever, the Full 1003 is simply too long and time intensive for most mortgage loan prospects. In short, the Full 1003 is simply not practical or user friendly. More importantly, most top originators know that taking their applications over the phone or in person not only helps establish and build a personal relationship, but greatly increases client retention and conversion.

Most loan officer web site design companies today not only implement a Full 1003 Application on the websites they offer to mortgage professionals, but they tout it as a benefit. The truth is that placing a Full 1003 on your website is a guaranteed way to seriously impede mortgage lead generation on your loan officer website.

The fact that most loan officer website and  mortgage website template providers use Full 1003 applications is a testament to how unaware the industry are as a whole of what works in mortgage lead generation and what does not. In this regard, LeadPress was born out of necessity when we experienced first hand, as loan officers ourselves, that each time we tried a new mortgage company website, the results were  the same.

FLASH INTROS

Visitors and search engines hate flash intros, need we say more? Flash intros break a basic rule of web presentation by not allowing the visitor to control sound / audio and video. More importantly, Flash intros provide an obstacle for visitors that are trying to get specific information or a rate quote from your mortgage web site.

While search engines are getting better at spidering flash, it is important to note that you will never see a site with a Flash Intro rank well for any competitive term. Enough said.

MUSIC, SOUND & VIDEOS

Anytime a website implements music, sounds or videos that are not user initiated, lead conversion is hurt. Simply put, visitors do not like having music, video or a “virtual tour guide” sprung on them when they visit your loan officer website. They will more than likely find it annoying and distracting, not the impression you want to leave with mortgage loan prospects you are trying to convert into an exclusive mortgage lead. While music and video are completely acceptable when they are user initiated, no good comes from forcing them on your visitors.

MORTGAGE MARKETING TIP – If  your website exhibits any of the flaws mentioned above, you are losing exclusive mortgage leads that you would otherwise be converting right now. Don’t let your loan officer web site sabotage your mortgage lead generation efforts!