By Robert Farris, co-founder of MortgagePromote.com a leading Internet search engine management provider to the mortgage industry.

My potential mortgage site client, Stephen, was breathing hard on the phone, slightly exasperated, slightly excited; He wanted to go right to the ‘bottom line.’ Even though he wouldn’t say it, this ‘net stuff’ was new to him and he had questions about how successful his web site could be in bringing new loan business.

I could almost hear Stephen pounding his fist on the desk, saying, "What is my return on investment (ROI) if I do this web site? What do I get back? I have a successful business now, do I really need to do this internet thing?"

I have heard it before from many clients... trying to apply real world thinking and analysis to the virtual world of the net -- it just doesn't always perfectly translate across the two worlds. My client was trying to know the final score of the game, before it even started. His return of investment (ROI) question was the easy part. We hadn't even got to the comment where Stephen would say his web site should be ranked in the top 10…

"Let me take a look at Infoseek and see how often your most desired word ‘home mortgages,’ is found," I said typing on my keyboard. "OK, for today, this 1st of July, 1999, for your phrase…" I said waiting for the cable modem to show the results, "Ahh, interesting, Infoseek shows only 51,735,822 web pages relevant to home mortgages."

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