Should You Use SEO for Mortgage Leads?

If you’re in the mortgage industry, you know that a mortgage lead is any prospect or potential customer who is looking for a mortgage loan. Loan officers, mortgage loan originators and mortgage brokers all rely on mortgage leads they can turn into actual borrowers. There are quite a few ways to generate mortgage leads, a process known as lead generation. You can do everything from print advertising to combing through your network of contacts, but unless you are capturing mortgage leads online, you’re not doing all that you can. It’s not enough to just have a website up, although that is obviously important. Keep reading for tips on using SEO for mortgage leads.

What Is SEO for Mortgage Leads?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. In short, it’s a group of techniques done both on your site and off it that help your website show up higher in search engine rankings for the keywords you compete for. The higher you rank, the more search users visit your website when they’re looking for mortgage loans, information and advice. That’s not just more traffic, it’s organic, interested traffic you can really cash in on.

Unfortunately, it’s not enough to sprinkle competitive keywords around your site and win. Using keywords well is one SEO technique, but it’s not enough on its own. To see what you’re up against, search for the keywords or phrases you think should bring up your site. How many pages down are you? Are you even there? You have competition, but you can get ahead of the curve, if not become the leader of the pack.

The factors that determine your search rankings generally fall into two categories: on-page and off-page. On-page factors deal with things inside your website, while off-page factors happen outside your site. One way to look at it: on-page factors tell search engines what you think about yourself, and off-page factors tell search engines what the rest of the internet thinks about you. Both matter a lot.

On-Page SEO for Mortgage Websites

The first step is figuring out which keywords people actually use when they are trying to find the mortgage products and services you offer. This isn’t the list of searches you would use, but what borrowers are generally using. Keyword research tools can show you how many people search for specific terms and suggest related keywords, or an SEO consultant or firm can do this for you. Whatever resource you use, find at least two or three appropriate keywords for each page of your site. Then work them into the key HTML elements of your website, such as the title tags, meta tags, header tags, image ALT text and your body content. This helps search engines properly categorize your pages for the keywords you’re targeting.

Off-Page SEO and Backlinks

For off-page factors, backlinks matter more than anything. Search engines analyze links to see how popular, reputable and relevant your website is. It used to be that the more backlinks you had, the better, but that’s not the case anymore. You want a good volume of backlinks, but quality matters most. One backlink from a good website is better than a hundred from bad sites.

What makes a website good or bad for backlinks? A bad one might be a generic blog that posts about all kinds of things. A good one is professional, relevant and reputable. A site that also focuses on mortgages will give you a better backlink to your own mortgage website. And if that site already has trusted, authoritative status with search engines, their link to you is a stronger endorsement.

Pairing SEO With Paid Advertising

In addition to backlinks, other channels can help. For instance, Facebook advertising for mortgage leads can bring in leads directly while also sending traffic to your site. PPC for mortgage leads, whether on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn or other platforms, is generally a smart way to diversify your marketing and advertising.

Now you know how you can use SEO for mortgage leads. With the right techniques to generate organic traffic from search engines, your website can convert a growing number of prospects into a growing number of closed mortgages.

Want help ranking your mortgage business? See our SEO services.