 |
| |
Nine Ways To Let People Know You Have a Website
You’ve planted your flag on the World Wide Web by launching your Mortgage XSite. Great! Does anybody know but you?
It’s easy (through the Search Engine Tools area of your XSite) to submit your XSite to the top search engines. And you’re automatically indexed in the , a national directory of real estate service providers searchable by the public.
But website marketing is no more sit-back-and-see-who-shows-up than any other type of marketing is. Here are nine easy ways to let the world, and especially your corner of it, know you’re in business on the Web:
- Your XSite address needs to go everywhere. Anywhere you now advertise your phone number – yellow pages ad, classifieds, business card, e-mail signature.
- Consider some “offline” ways to promote your XSite. Bumper stickers or car magnets. Door hangers. Bulletin board notices. The fact you’re in business on the Web, where borrowers can apply securely online, use powerful tools like calculators, sign up for free reports, get great local information… that’s important enough to advertise, isn’t it? Borrowers and future borrowers are sure to be impressed.
- Start using your new domain’s e-mail address – your CertMail account – as your business e-mail address. So your new address will be you@yourxsitedomain.com. You can use CertMail online, or you can configure clients like Outlook to send and receive from your new account. ( for step by step instructions for using CertMail with Outlook.) You can still use your current e-mail address if you want to, but when you send CertMail e-mails and when you publish your e-mail address, people will see your XSite’s domain name.
- One of the two best things you can do to improve where your XSite appears in search results on major search engines is get other websites to link to yours. Contact your colleagues and partners like title companies, closers, appraisers and Realtors and ask them to link to your new site. Reciprocate by linking to theirs. Search results for both of you will get a boost. Go to the XSites Network and contact other XSites users and offer a similar link exchange. Again, you both benefit, and as website owners you’re all interested in increasing your traffic.
- The other best thing you can do to improve search results is offer unique content. Your XSite comes with dozens of pre-written content pages that help give your site some heft and can be used on their own. But if you modify them to make them even more directly applicable to your prospective clients, you’ll be in even better shape. Plus, your XSite makes it easy to put up unique content pages you create or have created on your behalf.
- Your XSite comes with a powerful yet easy to use blog. Use it! This is another excellent way to coax search engines into ranking you higher – offering fresh, relevant, regular content. A blog also gives visitors more of a reason to stick around and come back once you do attract them. Finally, if you commit to updating your blog regularly and have a lot of interesting material on it, people will perceive you as a local mortgage expert in ways no ad can make them.
- Another inexpensive way to promote yourself as an expert and boost your Web traffic is to write “e-zine articles” and upload them to free e-zine distribution sites like , , and many more. You write a short, original article on your particular area of expertise. You upload it to a distribution site, and electronic publishers pick them up and circulate them, with your name and link, to potentially thousands of people. for a number of great reasons to try this technique.
- Consider a “pay per click” advertising campaign. Various search engines will publish your link on relevant Web search results and other sites, and you only pay if someone clicks it and visits your site. for a more in-depth article about pay per click campaigns.
- Don’t forget word of mouth! Tell prospective clients, current clients, referral sources, partners, colleagues, friends and family you have a new site.
|
|
