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| Written by LeadPortal | |
| Tuesday, 07 December 2004 | |
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As a mortgage broker you probably realize that having a website is an important part of your overall marketing strategy. There are obviously big differences between sites brokers attempt to create themselves, sites brokers have custom made, and template sites purchased from the large companies like LION or Myers or even smaller template systems like LeadASP.com. Creating your own website can be cheap and effective if you do it properly, but it can also make you look less professional than if you had no site at all. Getting a site custom made can be anything and everything from a great experience to a big waste of money with painful results. Ordering a website from one of the big boys can offer you valuable tools and you will look as good as most brokers, but is it enough? No matter how you decide to get your website up, there are few points you should think about. 1. How is this website going to help me put money in my pocket? 2. How is this website going to save me time? 3. Is this mortgage broker website going to cause me problems? Point 1 seems fairly obvious but it really is rather complicated. Yes, having a website means you can do online marketing and also publish your URL in your paper/radio advertising to bring in more potential customers. KISS -- Keep It Simple Stupid. Brokers need to take a step back from the 500 mortgage calculators and 1000 pages of explanations on loan types that come with some website packages and think about it. Is that content going to help me or hurt me? What is somebody comes to your website and they plug in some numbers into one of your fancy calculators and the numbers are not to their liking? They will probably say, "Oh well," and leave the site never to return. What if you could have offered that person another type of loan that would have better suited their situation? Your fancy calculator just cost you a deal and this happens every single day. What about all of the loan information? That is good, right? Website visitors become bogged down in information overload very easily. They will start trying to figure out what loan is best for them without even talking to you. If they can't figure it out, they will just walk away. KISS. The marketing goal of your website should be to get leads to contact you in some way, shape or form. Put your 800 number on every page of your website and give them an easy lead form to fill out. You do not need them to fill out a full 1003 online and most will not. Make it very easy for them to contact you. Point 2 can be simple or complex. If you are vigilent about updating the rates on your website, then do that and it will save you a lot of phone calls of rate shoppers only wanting rates (and not really being interested). To be more complex, you can find websites that will allow you to give your customers a login page so they can see the current status of their loan with you. This also saves you time on the phone that could be better spent selling. Point 3 is easy. Don't publish rates if you are not updating them daily and make sure all of your i's are dotted and t's are crossed. Don't give yourself a regulatory nightmare just to try and say you have the lowest rates on the block. In summary, when looking to get a new mortgage broker website or if you are thinking about revising your old one, think about these things. Keep it simple. Keep it clean. Do NOT set it and forget it. Update your site as often as you can and use it as a tool or it will become an albatross you regret. This article was written by the team at LeadPortal.com. |
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 31 March 2005 ) |
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