Right now, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that if your phone is not ringing, your fax machine is not buzzing and the only people coming through your door are you and your staff then you are probably not generating much new business. I think we can all agree that those actions are very important to the success of your business. When you use the Internet as a marketing tool, the number of visitors looking at your website is analogous to the number of people calling your office or walking through your door for information. If no one visits your site, you won’t generate new leads from this advertising source and eventually you will give up on using the Internet as a marketing tool and in the process give up what could possibly be one of your top lead generation sources.

Now, I have a confession to make. Getting traffic to your website is NOT hard!

I am very confident that I could take any website you throw at me – even if it is 1 day old – and flood it with traffic.

The caveat is that the traffic would not be TARGETED Traffic and would probably cost a ton of money. By targeted traffic, I mean visitors that are interested in what you are offering and that you can actually service. For example, let’s say you are a Loan Officer in Ohio and you are licensed to do business only in Ohio. You receive call from a company that says they can setup an advertising campaign for you that they guarantee will send you thousands of leads from people interested in obtaining a home loan and they have tons of proof that their campaign works. Plus, the price is 10% of what you normally pay per lead. Sounds like an amazing deal right? Then they go on to say that these people are all Texas residents looking for homes in Texas! Now assuming you are not in the business of brokering leads to other people, the great deal doesn’t seem so great because you would be paying for leads that you can’t service.

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Last month, I talked about how your visitors are primarily looking for helpful content and at first don’t care too much about you or your company. I also talked about how you only have seconds to grab the attention of your visitors so you really must make it easy for them to find and receive the information they are looking for. Finally, I explained why offering no other “Call-To-Action” option besides filling out an application is a huge mistake that many Loan Officers make online.

We received more feedback on the final point than anything else so I want to talk in detail about that topic in this article.

But first, I want you to think about how you would react to the following…

Imagine that it is past 3 am Saturday morning and you hear the phone ring. At first, you think you are dreaming but then it hits you that this is real. Who in the world would be calling you this early in the morning? Your heart is racing as you scramble to the phone and then you hear her on the other end.

That voice is your 18 year old daughter, a college freshman. You automatically switch to “concerned parent” mode and then your daughter says something that sounds so ridiculous that you pinch yourself to make sure you are not still asleep and having the worst nightmare of your life.

“Mom/Dad remember that blind date I was telling you about this week? Well, it was earlier tonight and I’ve got some really great news! My date and I are at the Elvis Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas and in about 10 minutes, we are getting MARRIED!”

“Are you CRAZY!?”, you scream! “That’s ridiculous! Stop joking and go back to sleep.”. Unfortunately, 15 minutes later you find out that she is not joking and your worst nightmare is officially confirmed.

That is a far-fetched story right? No way would a “non-celebrity” do something this crazy!

Well, if this story is so unbelievable, why is it that most Loan Officers marketing online try to marry their prospects within seconds of their first date? Don’t believe me? Just look at all the websites that ask for the application without giving any other option to the visitor.

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I thought I would start off by telling you some of the results of the National Association of Realtors® survey that came out earlier this year. It showed that over 77% of all home buyers used the internet during their home search compared to 74% in 2005 and just 2% in 1995. Needless to say, this number will continue to grow in the years to come. The question is…will you be able to take advantage of this trend and if so how?Our industry is full of website providers. Whether you are a seasoned veteran or new to the business, I am sure you have already been bombarded with many solicitations from them.

You may even currently have a website. If so, what I will share in this column each month will either enable you to transform your current website into an actual marketing system OR educate you enough so you will be able to tell if you current site even has the possibility of being transformed. Either way, YOU WIN!

So let’s dig right in. We need to first realize a few things about our visitors.

1. Why are they coming to our site in the first place?
2. What will make them stay long enough for us to even have a chance at getting their business?
3. What is our Call To Action (CTA)? In other words, what is it that we want them to do NOW?

Statistics have shown that most people are going online just to get information. Think of what you do. Once you have a problem, concern or curiosity you go to Google™ or one of the other search engines and type in keywords related to that topic or problem. That is exactly what your prospects are doing. If they are in Erie, Pennsylvania they might be typing in keywords like “Erie Mortgage”, “Erie Loan Help”, “Erie Home Loan”, etc.

For the most part, when they initially come to a site they are looking for one thing - Information. REMEMBER, everyone is tuned to W-I-F-M. WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME? And you must catch their attention instantly. The web has become very similar to TV. People like to “surf” websites just like TV channels, so you must have information they are looking for or you will lose them…Forever. In fact, the following are startling statistics proving that you do not want an ineffective website. Fact #1: 65% of website visitors give up before they find what they came for. Fact #2: 40% of users who abandon a website NEVER come back. (Source: Boston Consulting Group). So, your job is to provide them a quick and easy way to obtain the information they are seeking and then continue to over deliver so you become the only and obvious choice in their minds. This information may include tips on what mortgage product is best for them, ways to shop for a loan without being taken advantage of or any other content that helps them make the right mortgage decision.

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