How to Make Your Mortgage Web Site More Successful
We all know that success leaves clues; you just have to know
where to look. Ever read about an elite professional athlete who
is at the top of their game, yet they are the ones staying after
the game to study the game film, shoot free throws or take extra
batting practice? All the while other athletes who are good, but
not great, are on their way home to relax? The elite athletes
become even better, and further widen the margin between their
ability and those are almost as good. Elite athletes are
successful because they constantly improve and learn. You can do
the same for your web site by studying successful web sites do
and then implement that onto your web pages. In this article we are going to cover a number of different
factors that can lead to an increased success rate for your web
site. >> "I Find That The Harder I Work, The More Luck I Seem To
Have."
Thomas Jefferson Successful web sites constantly improve themselves. Successful
web sites constantly evolve. They add more features or enhance
usability or write more creative content so they can better be
of service to their potential clients. Just as the top athletes in the various sports earn the highest
salaries, it's true in your industry; the top mortgage web sites
are those that write the most loans. >> "If At First You Don't Succeed, Redefine Success." Often those web sites that don't perform very well subscribe to
the adage, "If at first you don't succeed, redefine success." In
other words, they lower their expectations and simply declare
that the Internet doesn't work very well. As verification of
their beliefs these sites receive very few leads from their
site. >> Having A Successful Web Site Is Not Doing One Thing Right, It
Is Doing A Hundred Things Right. Success typically is the result of a cascade of perfectly
executed events. It is even more difficult for mortgage web
sites because customers view you as a commodity. Customers often equate finding a loan as the same way they see
themselves having to buy butter or bread. Pretty much any butter
or bread is going to suffice as long as it is available and
reasonably priced. And if your mortgage web site meets their
needs it will suffice as well. You need to present your web site in a manner that distinguishes
your site with value and competence; rather than as a commodity.
In order to do so, you must do hundreds of things correctly.
Such items include:
- Say it nicely and succinctly: Offer intelligent, well-written
content that is neither mindless or drone-like.
- Have “good looks”: Your site must be professional in
appearance as customers will judge your book by your cover.
- Show your stuff: Prominently feature your rates on every page,
as this is the most important feature for most visitors.
- Clear Sailing: Your navigation must be easy, well-thought-out,
and consistent from page to page.
- Respond now: The main complaint we hear from customers is the
time it takes for the mortgage company to respond to a request.
You need to respond within, at the very most, 24 hours. If you
respond within an hour, your chance of securing a client
increases dramatically.
- Have a nice garden: Remember to weed your site, just like you
would a home garden. If you ignore your garden it gets
out-of-control with overgrowth and weeds and becomes a mess.
Over time, as you add new pages to your web site, you may need
to weed and prune your outdated web pages.
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This list can go on for quite a while, but it is a good
place to start.
>> "Ask Not What Your Visitors Can Do For You, But What You
Can Do For Your Visitors"
JFK Mortgage Broker
Successful mortgage sites understand you have to give to
get. Giving includes offering many ways to contact you
including a toll free number and an email address. You also
need to offer extra features such as mortgage calculators
and information on how to use a home equity loan to buy a
car or to help finance college. Successful sites are always
of service to their visitors.
>> Do you listen to your customer’s station, WIIFM?
We all know the basic mantra of your customer: WIIFM -
what's in it for me? Customers don't arrive at your site,
saying, "Oh, I have all day to find what I want." They
arrive at your site saying, "Can this site solve my
problem... fast?"
>> Minimal Information Equals High Success
Upon first glance it seems counterintuitive that by
gathering only basic information that you could actually
achieve a higher close rate. But due to the nature of the
net, people want to give as little as possible as fast as
they can and then place the burden on you to provide them
with what they want. Remember that the information collected
should be based on the customer's perception not some
optimistic full-wallet biopsy requirement to get everything
you can on the first visit.
It is a little bit like Goldilocks and the three Bears. Some
information is way too much and just collecting a name plus
an e-mail address is way too little... and somewhere in
between is just right. Ideally, you would like to extract
every bit of potential customer information that you can,
right down to the social system security number and a copy
of last months pay stub. Realistically, this is not going to
happen and any online applicant is not going to take the
time to present you with all the information that you want.
>> Mortgage Sites Should Market, Not Sell
Successful web sites don't sell, they market. Your web site
is not so much a sales tool like an online florist where an
instant sale can occur. For mortgage companies, your site is
a marketing tool to gather potential leads. Don't expect
your site to close loans, you still need a human touch. You
should treat your web site as a source of leads that arrive
to your staff and at that time, your staff can begin to
perform the sales function.
>> Moment Of Truth
Successful sites make the moment of truth occur as early as
possible, during the customers visit. What the 'moment of
truth' is that point in time, when the visitor decides that
you are worthy of their full attention and they are ready to
conduct business with you. To make the moment of truth
happen you must determine what your visitor really wants and
present that information as soon as possible. Often you can
examine your logs and statistics in an attempt to see where
the conversion occurred from visitor to customer. The best
place to decipher this information is to see which page
leads to your online application. By examining the
information contained on that page you can determine what
made that page so successful.
Creating a successful web site doesn't happen overnight. For
many people it can be a long and arduous road. There is good
news in that you can find shortcuts to success by seeing
what other successful web sites are doing, and then modeling
those traits.
"Failure doesn't mean you are a failure... it just means you
haven't succeeded yet."
Robert H. Schuller
Rod Aries and Robert Farris are co-founders of MortgagePromote.com, a leading Internet marketing provider to corporate mortgage clients. On request, they conduct nationwide training seminars covering Internet marketing strategies, lead generation, web site development techniques and more. Web site: www.mortgagepromote.com
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