Since Top of Mind Networks and I are in the process of building a comprehensive Mortgage Blogging Tutorial Page on Lenderama.com, I thought I’d share the Slide Show from MRev.

We’ll actually breeze through a few of these key points in tomorrow’s weekly Mortgage Blogging webinar.

Basically, everyone submitted a few articles to the cause, and we did the heavy lifting of organizing and editing.

I sincerely want to thank everyone for your participation, as well as patience as we’ve worked on completing the project.

Well, we’re finally done, and it’s time to start giving everyone their new sites.

As these sites start to go live, we’ll update this post with some links and examples.

___________________

Game Plan:

1. All Mortgage Blogs will be assigned and populated over the next week by Mark Madsen and Top of Mind.

2. You’ll be receiving your login information via email, which will take you to a www.DOMAIN.lenderama.com site.

3. Separate instructions for getting started with links to our basic tutorials within this site will be emailed by Monday. More tutorials to follow as this project progresses.

>> Mortgage Blogging 101 Tutorials Page

4. Our first intro Webinar will be Tuesday, May 4 @ 3:30 EST –

5. After the webinar, you’ll be given instructions on how to change your URL address from www.DOMAIN.lenderama.com to your own unique www.joeloanofficer.com domain.

___________________

Overview Of Webinar:

We actually have several similar webinars scheduled throughout May and June which will be dedicated to teaching new Mortgage Bloggers all of the essential skills needed to effectively run a successful blog.

This Tuesday we will focus on some of the most basic tasks of getting started on a WordPress blog.

>> Mortgage Blogging 101 Tutorials Page

Other basic topics that will be covered during Tuesday courses will include:

1. Getting a Gravatar account
2. Logging in to WordPress
3. Navigating the WordPress Dashboard
4. First steps in setting up a new blog
5. Page vs Post
6. Categories vs Tags
7. HTML and Visual Editor
8. Designing a content schedule
9. Understanding the architecture of a blog
10. Important components of a Mortgage Blog

There is no cost, and we’re not trying to create a database marketing list.

Holding group webinars is simply the most efficient way of putting several hundred new mortgage bloggers online in the shortest amount of time.

___________________

Webinar Info:

Register:  CLICK HERE

Time:  3:30 Eastern Standard Time

Day:  Tuesday, May 4

Duration:  30 min of focused content, and then 90 minutes of Q&A

Background Info On Mortgage Blog Project:  CLICK HERE

If you’re in the purchase business game, it makes perfect sense to partner with agents that have high traffic sites which attract your target audience (Buyers).

My Las Vegas mortgage relationship-based business model had a slight set back in 2007 when the local market took a small turn for the worse.

Basically, all of my loyal agents ended up having to find new jobs, and the equity in my past clients’ properties disappeared.

While struggling to research new options, I realized that one of my close friends and Las Vegas agents was actually thriving as a result of his online presence.

Since we had already been working together on his sites for a couple of years, I decided to put all of my eggs in the online basket and go where the buyers were…. The Internet.

Over the course of several years, we chased shiny objects, built a real estate social network, launched some niche FHA and Property Management blogs and scraped our knees along the way.

However, the one thing we could always count on was that thousands of potential buyers were finding us in the search engines every month.

In our online evolution, we realized that the key to our success was getting found in the search engines at the precise moment our target audience was ready to make a buying decision.

In order to maintain those high traffic search rankings we have to invest several hours writing content and building links.

The Result -

Thousands of unique visitors a month searching for homes and reading about the mortgage or real estate process on our blogs.

How Does That Traffic Convert?

Well, it depends on how soon these buyers need to close on a property.  Our typical sales cycle is about 4-8 months from the time someone lands on a real estate blog and then closes on a property.

Either way, the agents are busy closing transactions every month that are 100% generated from web traffic.

Keep in mind, these buyers aren’t typical Internet leads that get duped into filling out an online web form which generates hundreds of solicitation calls.

Instead, the people contacting us as a result of finding us online and reading our blogs are more informed and feel a sense of trust.

In essence, by providing valuable educational content on your agent’s site, potential buyers build a relationship with you before they’ve even made that initial phone call.

Main Point:

If you’re in the purchase money game, then the most efficient use of your time online is to contribute some mortgage related content to a local high traffic real estate blog.

Benefit To Contributing Loan Officer:

Get in front of the agent and their clients on a regular basis.

Benefit To Real Estate Agent:

Targeted content, and a lot of it, will attract buyers online that are in their final stages of making a decision to move forward with a home purchase.

Content, Traffic and Links are the three things that a social media savvy agent care more about than anything else.

Benefit To Client:

Education and empowerment.  You may say that you’ve got great service and you’re a consumer advocate, but borrowers expect us to earn their trust and respect these days.

_______

I have the replay of a 60 minute webinar / interview about this strategy posted here:

Partnering With Social Media Savvy Agents Online

This isn’t a secret system with some hidden agenda we’re selling.  The reality is that very few originators will actually follow through with this.

The few that do will make powerful online networking partners.

As my friend Eric Blackwell says: Search Engine Marketing is a team sport.

Either way, it’s gonna take a strong army of mortgage professionals working together for a common goal if we want to bring some honor back to our industry in 2010.

Unfortunately, Mark Green wasn’t able to make the trip to Vegas and share the stage with us due to an injury he sustained trying to rescue a cat from a tree.

Sorry bro, you were missed.

Either way, since our presentation was split between partnering with real estate bloggers and using the best Twitter applications, the 90 minutes was obviously not nearly enough time to cover the basics and address all of the questions.

However, as promised, I’ve embedded the updated slides in this post and have scheduled a follow-up webinar for us to go into more detail.  We’ll also allow for plenty of time to answer all questions, as well as stir it up a little in the Top of Mind Live Chat.

Actually, we’ve split the NAMB West content up into three separate webinars over the next few weeks so that we can really give these topics some justice.

Webinar 1:  Tuesday, Jan 5 - Partnering With Social Media Savvy Agents Online

I’ve invited my Las Vegas real estate web partner to join me in this call so that he can help add some perspective and answer questions from an agent’s point of view.

Webinar 2:  Wednesday, Jan 6 – 7 Strategies For Stalking Agents Online

Whether you understand social media or not, I’ll show you the best web tools to use for the purpose of getting in front of your target audience, meeting the right agents that are actually making a living from their web presence and approaching the new relationship from a different angle that actually works.

Well, not all of the time, but there are days that I’ll spend 8 hours looking at a computer with nothing to show for it.

Sure, lots of emails and phone calls get addressed asap, todo lists are cleaned up, back links to my new blog posts are spread throughout social network and blog comment land, and I’ll skim 25,000 words in a day on relevant news and education that pertains to my various business niches….

However, sometimes I fail to accomplish the single most important task that drives my business – Producing Content.

Since, I’ve already clearly defined my purpose on the web, there really is no excuse for any distractions.

I bumped all over the place when I was in my social media discovery phase, but now I know what I know, what I don’t know, where to turn for the answers, and more specifically, what questions to ask.

Yet, unless I guard the time that I spend in all of my online and other business related activities, I’ll find myself exhausted at the end of a busy day without having something of true substance out there working for me in the search engines and actually building perpetual equity in my online presence.

So, while I was doing a little research today on building a content calendar for the new Top of Mind Mortgage Marketing Show that Mark Green and I are launching shortly, I ran across this encouraging video from Darren Rowse on ProBlogger:

Whether you’re a full-time blogger, originator, direct mail marketer or radio host, it is essential to spend your time and energy doing what you do.

For example, as a blogger / Social Media Marketing guy, I need to produce valuable content on a consistent basis that drives targeted traffic, as well as increases the equity in my web properties.

Here is a quick outline of how I manage my daily social media flow:

1. Google Reader:  Find out what’s happening, drill down specific research
2. Posterous: Organize research in tabs and different targeted blogs
3. Hootsuite:  Share stuff through various twitter accts w/ links back to posterous
4. WordPress: Write / Comment
5. Facebook / Twitter: Promote

_____________

Related Articles From The Web About Distractions:

• Confessions of an A.D.D Loan Officer, Part I |  Part II
• Too Much Emailing, Too Much Texting, Makes You Stupid
• List Of People Real Estate Agents Must Follow On Twitter
• Set Up Alerts To Manage What’s Happening In Your Niche
• How To Write An Article In 20 Minutes
• How To Read 50 Articles In An Hour

With the launch of the new blog that Mark Green and I are rolling out shortly for the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, we wanted to start a short series of webinars on mortgage blogging to help bring everyone up to speed.

Basically, the options for creating a web presence are so overwhelming that most industry professionals become paralyzed and unable to execute an effective online action plan.

NAMB is hosting a webinar for us today that will help address some of the basic questions loan officers have regarding the “WHY?” of mortgage blogging.

If you’re unable to make the call, please register anyway so we can send you a link to the recording.

__________

In the “Web 2.0″ world, your clients and referral sources are checking you out online. What they’re finding (or not finding) could be the difference between winning and losing business.

If you’ve been curious to learn whether or not “mortgage blogging” is right for you…

Please join NAMB volunteers and mortgage bloggers Mark Madsen and Mark Green on Wednesday July 22nd at 4pm EST (1pm PST).

This free class will teach you the basics of “mortgage blogging” including:

1) The biggest benefit of mortgage blogging: Googleability.

2) How mortgage bloggers come up with topics to write about – and how often they write new articles.

3) How mortgage blogging translates into originating more loans. Hint: You’ll need to avoid the “shiny objects” that distract so many novice bloggers.

_________

Q: I’ve heard video blogs are more effective?

Video is a great way to reach a lot of people, especially if you are trying to educate your readers about something.  As long as the video and text is optimized for the search engines properly, you could probably expect to see better conversion results.  Just pay close attention to the length and quality of the video, how it is titled, and the content surrounding the blog it is being hosted on.

There are pros and cons to video.  My problem is that I do most of my typing late a night and I just don’t feel like getting in front of a camera most of the time.  I do use videos that I find on Youtube as a way to enhance my content on the blog articles that I write.

—

Q: How do you know people will read what you write?  There are so many blogs already – Active Rain for example.

Great question.  First, you have to be marketing your blog to your people.  Second, it has to be well written, organized, clean, and easy to read.  Third, if your content is found before your competition’s posts, then the chances of your stuff getting read are much greater.  Forth, content on the web seasons over time and builds perpetual equity in your personal brand and business.  Timing is everything, and time is what it takes.

—

Q: How does Google work?

Google changes its algorithms all of the time, and for obvious reasons won’t let anyone know the details.  However, Google’s Mission is to provide the most relevant and valuable search experience for its users. With that in mind, pay close attention to how you help Google recognize what your content is about and who it is written for. Descriptive titles, tags, links, keywords, and related keywords.

—

Q: What is the easiest way to get started?

Develop a pattern of regularly communicating with your database.  Try sending a weekly email with a brief summary of the news that matters to your people.  Get in the habit of writing quick and direct posts for the purpose of educating the clients and referral partners who are important to your business.  Then, transfer that info to your own blog.

WannaNetwork.com provides free SEO friendly blogs, Bringtheblog.com provides daily content, and  WordPress.org is another place to look.

www.Mybloglog.com is a free service that will help syndicate all of your online activity throughout the web.

—

Q:  Is it a good idea to write about personal stuff, such as sports teams, or should the content be kept to mortgage related items?

We write for our clients and try not to exclude anyone who may be offended by our personal interests of views.  However, every market and audience is different.  You will attract who you write for, so feel free to express yourself.  My opinion – If you feel the need to write about personal interests on your blog, then create a separate personal interests blog.  Just keep in mind, content on the web will be read by everyone.

—

Q:  What are some of the negative aspects of blogging?

The fact that once you start, you are committed to keeping it up.  Another negative thing about blogging is that you have to be transparent and actually know what you’re writing about.  If you’re educating your clients about something, then you should spend the necessary time to learn about the topics first.

—

Q:  How do you get the content on the web?

A blog platform is built to easily publish content to the web.  Simply create a title, write, and hit publish.

—

Q:  How do you get found on the web?

There are two main ways of getting found online -

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which is basically the process of organizing the content within a site so that the search engines know how to properly index and present your information in the results pages.  Page authority, link structure, tags, descriptions, keyword research, and a little black magic or luck help.

There is also Search Engine Marketing (SEM), which is involves social media, online social networking, content syndication, and participating in high traffic areas online for the purpose of developing links and click through traffic.

—

Q:  Are we trying to drive people to our blog or our web site?

They are pretty much the same thing.  A blog is just a web site that is designed to make it easier on the owner to publish to the web and optimize the content for maximum search engine results.

—

Q:  How do you feel about pre-purchased content?

Well written articles that are delivered on a daily basis is great for current clients, referral partners, and to establish that deep base of content needed for first impressions.  If you manually edit the content to make it more unique, then the search engines will recognize it.

Some people say that a blog should be 100% authentic personal reporting.  However, every form of news media syndicates other people’s content in one way or another.

I believe that a consumer focused blog should be written to provide our clients with valuable information so that we ultimately get their business.

There are purists, blogging snobs, social media gurus, and real business people who all have very different opinions about this issue.  Either way, if we’re not making money on a mortgage blog, then we should just consider it a hobby and find another one that is more fun and rewarding.

Basically, I support any product or service that will help me create a more efficient and effective blogging agenda.

—

Q:  Is duplicate content bad?

Duplicate content is not recognized by the search engines, which means a copy and paste job on several sites won’t help your search engine marketing goals.  Also, if you are stealing other people’s content without their permission, that is bad, mmmkay…

However, syndicating your own content across several platforms is a very effective way to attack a keyword campaign.  Just be aware of your titles and links.  Pick a blog that you want to be found first, and link back to it from all of your other content.

—

Q:  How do you get people to sign up to receive your blog, and how do you know who has signed up?

I use Feedburner.com to track and organize my blog subscriptions.  There are other plugins for this as well.

—

Q:  How do you find the most accurate info to report?

Dan goes to the source.  I just copy what Dan and other bloggers are saying.  : )

Google Reader works for me.  I’ll read 4 or 5  other perspectives from bloggers, news sites, and social networking chatter to find consistent patterns.

_________

If you have other questions, please feel free to ask in the following comment section or email me – mark (at) myfhablog.com

Related Articles:

• How I read 50 Articles in a Day.
• Mortgage Blogging 101 Webinar – Recap
• Mortgage Blogging – Are you Google-able?
• Mortgage Blogging in 2009

Whether we like it or not, they are reading stuff in the papers, watching the news, or filling their heads with a constant stream of misinformation from the web.

It isn’t just smart for us to appear smart….  it is a vital part of survival in this highly competitive market.

So, how do you fit reading, researching, sharing, marketing, and networking into an already busy loan originating schedule?

Google Reader is as close to a magic bullet solution as you can get.

I probably spend an hour or so a day knocking out at least 50 articles about my mortgage niche, Internet marketing, real estate Web2.0, and anything else that might give me a competitive advantage in my market place.

I know when, where, and what my real estate partners are doing online.  If there is topic that one of my clients is interested in, I can start providing valuable news to them within hours.

Google Reader can be used as a marketing or research tool, as well as your one centralized place to receive everything you need online.

______

Basic benefits of Google Reader:

-  Google Reader organizes all of your RSS Feeds
-  When you subscribe to a new blog article feed, you also capture all past posts
-  You can read within the reader vs having to go to the actual sites
-  GR has a social component through the “Share With Note” function and profile
-  View by title, summary, or search for key words and phrases
-  Export or Import other GR feed lists
-  GR suggests related online sources

_____

What is Google Reader and RSS?

Google Reader is an essential tool that centralizes all of your blog articles, news feeds, and updated online resources so that you can read, search, and share information more efficiently.

RSS ( Really Simple Syndication) is a technology that delivers updates from blogs or online places you subscribe to so that you don’t have to go out and actively search for new information.

_____

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Top of Mind blog once you get set up with Google Reader.

mm