Groundwork for Web Site Success.

Before I get started here, I want to warn all of you that I’m about to shamelessly plug for the company that I work for. The simple truth is that LenderHomePage.com makes owning and maintaining a mortgage web site about as easy as it can possibly be. I say this from the perspective of someone who’s career revolves around knowing what’s going on “under the hood”, so to speak. I know what makes it all so complicated, which is why I’m better able to appreciate how easy it is to use a LenderHomePage.com web site.

I’m not saying this to convince you to go out and purchase one of our web sites, (honest!). In fact, I’m writing this article with the assumption that you’re already one of our customers. The only reason I’m going on about how easy our sites are to use is that I’m stunned at how few people actually use them. Eric touched on this a little bit in his last post, but I’m going to mention it again…You simply cannot expect to get any results out of your web site if you just set it up, and let it sit.

Whether you’re currently one of our customers or not, you can take that to the bank…If you own a business, and put no effort in to it, you’ll see no return. The same applies to a web site. Of course, telling someone that they need to work on the engine in order to make their car as fast as possible does absolutely no good if you’re not going to show them how to do the work. That’s where I come in. I’m hoping that, along with being able to impress upon you the importance of marketing your mortgage web site, I’ll also be able to show you a lot of the ways that you, yourself with just a little bit of effort, can maximize the potential of your web site.

Of course, you are most likely a mortgage professional, not a computer tech, so I sympathize if you don’t have any desire to spend all day in front of your computer working on your web site, when you could be processing a loan. Consider though, that a little bit of effort working at your web site can equal a lot more loan processing, if you follow me…Still, I don’t want you to think that you’ve got a novel’s worth of information to absorb, so rather than throw a bunch of information at you all at once, I’m just going to leave you with the following observations…If you think about them in light of your own web site, I think you’ll be in the right frame of mind to appreciate the information that we’ll be covering later…

1. The internet is huge, and the number of businesses online, competing for customers makes up a large part of that size.
2. 80% of people utilize the internet to research or purchase products or services, which explains point #1.
3. When searching the internet, people naturally use Search Engines to do it. The goal of a search engine is to provide the most useful result to the consumer.
4. The company that appears to be a valuable resource, both to the Search Engines, and to consumers, will be successful online.

So, before we start getting in to the “nuts and bolts” of marketing your web site online, let’s take stock of where things stand now…ask yourself:

1. Who am I competing with? What makes me different from them, and are my differences something that I can capitalize on?
2. Who am I trying to attract? What sort of person do I think would need or want my product or service?
3. Keeping in mind #2, does my website provide useful and compelling information or services to that person?
4. Have I thought about what I need to do in order to make my site “friendly” to search engines and consumers? Am I placing too much emphasis on one or the other?

Don’t worry if you’re not able to answer all of the above…we’ll be talking in more detail about it later, but for now, just give it some thought, and you’ll be well on your way to understanding how to make your web site work at it’s highest potential for you. In coming articles, I’ll be sharing with you some very specific insights that I hope will take you a long way towards making your web site, and your business a success.