Google and Bing have expanded ad sales suspensions imposed on Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine. Google has temporarily halted ads from serving to Russia-based users, the company announced Thursday. Similarly, Microsoft announced that it will suspend all new sales of its products and services in Russia.
Why we care. The two leading search engines now prohibit ads targeting users located in Russia, cutting off the main channels western search marketers use to reach audiences there. This will affect brands advertising to Russian users, but Yandex (Russia’s second-biggest search engine by market share) remains an option.
These ad suspensions serve to protest Russia’s actions in Ukraine, but they also help search engines avoid brand safety debacles like misinformation campaigns making it through their automated systems and showing to users.
Escalating restrictions on Russian state-funded media. Last week, both search engines stopped running ads from Russian state-funded media outlets. In addition, Microsoft is “further de-ranking these sites’ search results on Bing so that it will only return RT and Sputnik links when a user clearly intends to navigate to those pages,” Brad Smith, president and vice chair of Microsoft, said in an announcement on February 28.
Perhaps this is what Russia wanted. Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications regulator, has accused YouTube of running “advertising campaigns to misinform the Russian audience,” according to the Wall Street Journal. The Russian agency demanded that Google change its ad moderation policies and discontinue such ads.
The new ad suspensions are likely to primarily affect Russia-based businesses, but they may also put a temporary end to the ads Russia is complaining about.
Social media platforms halted ad sales in Russia, too. Snap Inc. and Twitter have both paused ads in Ukraine and Russia, with the former halting them in Belarus as well. Facebook has stopped serving ads from Russian state media, but (at the time of publication) is still showing ads to Russian users.
Google has released a new home page for Google Analytics 4 properties. Google said “the Home page surfaces information that’s relevant to you based on your behavior in Analytics.” Google added that “you can use the page to monitor traffic, navigate around Analytics, and get insights about your websites and mobile apps.” Google said the new home page “provides more personalized content as you continue to use Analytics.”
How to see it. To access it, click on the “Home” link in the left navigation.
What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of the new home page:
Broken into five parts. The new home page is broken into these five parts:
Overview shows metrics that are relevant to you based on your behavior in Analytics
Realtime shows activity as it happens using data from the Realtime report
“Recently viewed” provides links to parts of Analytics that you visited most recently
“Because you view frequently” shows cards that you view often
“Insights” shows unusual changes, emerging trends, and other insights about your sites and apps
More details. Google has posted a more detailed help document breaking out how to use this new home page over here.
Why we care. When Google makes changes to the features you use on a daily or hourly basis, it can take some time to adjust. So go check out this new home page in GA4 and acclimate yourself to it. Dig in and hopefully you will find new tidbits and pieces of information that you didn’t see in the previous version.
Google has announced that the page experience update for desktop is now done rolling out. This update started to roll out on February 22nd and now, 9-days later, it is now fully rolled out.
Announcement. Here is Google’s announcement about the roll out of this update:
The page experience rollout is now complete for desktop.
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) March 3, 2022
Page experience update for desktop. This update will include all the current signals of the mobile version of the page experience update, outside of the page needing to be mobile-friendly. Google said all of the page experience factors for mobile will be included with the exception of the mobile-friendliness requirement, which is kind of obvious. Here is a chart from Google showing the specific factors:
What is page experience? Google has a detailed developer document on page experience criteria but in short, these metrics aim to understand how a user will perceive the experience of a specific web page: considerations such as whether the page loads quickly, if it’s mobile-friendly, runs on HTTPS, the presence of intrusive ads and if content jumps around as the page loads.
Search Console tools. Google has released updated page experience reports for desktop a few months ago. You can learn more about that report over here.
Don’t expect drastic changes. Google said with this rollout and this new Google update, do not expect drastic changes. “While this update is designed to highlight pages that offer great user experiences, page experience remains one of many factors our systems take into account… Given this, sites generally should not expect drastic changes,” said Google. We expect the same to be true for the desktop rollout.
Why we care. While I do not believe this page experience update was a significant update, where you probably did not see tons of sites’ rankings drastically change, those working towards improving their page experience have been primarily focused on their mobile pages. This one is focused on desktop and it was a shift that we did expect.
You should annotate your analytics and tools to note the update finished today.
Google is testing displaying in some local panel listing results within search if the local details of the business have been confirmed. Google is adding a label to the local listing that says “confirmed by phone” followed by when it was last confirmed; such as 8 weeks ago.
What it looks like. Here is a screenshot I captured based on Saijo George spotting this and posting about it on Twitter:
As you can see, it says this business listing was “confirmed by phone call 8 weeks ago.”
Duplex. It is possible that these are the phone calls Google automatically places to businesses to confirm that the business is open, that the phone number still works and the hour of operations are correct. This may be powered by Google Duplex or humans at Google or both.
How to get the label. You might ask, how can you get this label added to your local listing? The truth is, you do not have control over that label. Google has to call you, you have to answer and respond to the call and then Google has to decide if they want to add the label to your listing.
Why we care. It is unclear if this feature will stick and if this label actually improves searcher trust and maybe clicks and interactions with the local business listing. But it is cool to see the various pieces of Google Duplex, Business Profiles, Web Search and more all start to come together in a single interface.
Link-building isn’t easy, especially if you want it to be done right (i.e., stay compliant with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines). Nevertheless, if your goal is to siphon more organic traffic through high search engine rankings, it is vital to study the intricacies of modern white hat SEO.
Stay tuned as we’re about to reveal ten actionable white-hat link-building tactics (and a couple of bonus ones) that you can use to start building high-quality backlinks today. The strategies we’ll be covering are not only proven to work today but also lay a solid foundation for what’s to come in the SEO landscape in the years to come.
And the best part? In our ultimate white hat backlinking guide, you’ll learn all you need to know to reach your organic traffic goals now and, in the future, as well as get educated about some of the common traps and pitfalls to avoid.
Right now, only thematically relevant backlinks are good enough to move the needle
Fast page load times and mobile-optimized websites are the essential cornerstones of modern on-site SEO, but for Google to rank you alongside the most trusted authorities in your niche, you will need to back it up with strong off-site SEO. Indeed, this means obtaining backlinks from thematically-relevant sources – Google sees this as a vote of trust. Think of it as “street cred” in your chosen niche.
In the past, the primary focus was convincing high-authority websites to link back to you. But nowadays, the topical relevance of the backlinks you build is arguably even more important than the raw authority of the website. Ideally, you would have a backlink cover both of these categories, but in practice, backlinking opportunities like this are hard to find. Therefore, your primary focus when building links should be on relevance – authority, while still important, comes second.
With this out of the way, what’s the ultimate strategy to conquer the search engine rankings the right way and hold them for the long-term, without resorting to any gimmicks or short-lived tricks? You’re on the verge of finding out!
Best link-building services
Before we move on to the best white-hat strategies in today’s SEO landscape, we’ll let you in on a secret and share a few words about why the following link building services can truly help you reach your SEO goals faster than any other method:
OutreachZ.com is a self-service platform that acts as a middleman between backlink seekers and webmasters willing to publish your content on their blog. The marketplace is enormous and constantly growing. This is an excellent solution for SEO professionals who prefer to have more autonomy by taking matters into their own hands. It lets you choose the blogs you want to publish your content on (based on industry metrics such as DA and DR).
We picked the platform because it effectively solves your blogger outreach problems through a user-friendly interface. Because every blogger listed on the marketplace has been pre-vetted, you’ll save a ton of time contacting them and negotiating the terms of the deal. As long as you can provide well-written content that’s relevant to their niche, it’s almost impossible not to strike a deal – this is a win-win relationship between you and the blogger who has already expressed their interest!
RankZ.co is a managed guest posting platform and one of the best link-building services to source highly relevant editorial links. Even if you know nothing about SEO, their friendly team of experts will take you by the hand and devise a custom-tailored SEO strategy just for you. Just like OutreachZ.com, RankZ has a broad database of bloggers from every niche who are willing to link back to you in exchange for quality content.
We picked it because it can help any website gain higher search engine rankings at very reasonable prices. Unlike some of its competitors, the managed SEO service provider chooses to take a personalized approach for every one of its customers. Before proceeding with the custom-tailored action plan, one of their experts will thoroughly analyze your website and make recommendations based on their findings. Thanks to their in-depth reporting, you’ll always know where you stand in Google, and every backlink they create will be listed there, right along with the relevant metric (DA, DR, and similar).
Best White Hat SEO link-building strategies
With this out of the way, you’ll learn what it takes to dominate the search engines without triggering the wrath of the algorithms:
1. Resource pages
MAIN IDEA: Writing in-depth resources on trending or niche topics that save time and are helpful will earn you the highest quality links for free.
Link type: Follow
When writing content, you should be willing to go above and beyond to help your audience in any way you can. If you take the concept of writing helpful resource pages and combine it with laser-focusing on trending topics that people are searching for, it won’t take much convincing for other people to link to you.
Moreover, since you’ll be utilizing the power of #hashtags that are trending when sharing your content on social media, people will organically flock to your website even before it starts ranking in Google. This can create a snowball effect as people are actively searching for the topics you’ll be covering. It’s like riding a traffic tornado – you’ll be giving them exactly the kind of content they’re starving for.
So, what is a resource page? In essence, it’s a comprehensive guide featuring helpful guidance on pressing matters (examples include COVID-19, the Ukraine crisis, and similar). Let’s say you decided to create a resource page on COVID-19 where you list a recap of the most important things the reader should know.
You will be covering topics such as:
What are the symptoms?
How to isolate properly?
What should your first response be?
Other ideas:
If you’re in the SEO niche: Write a post titled “200+ On-Page SEO Factors that Google Uses to Determine Your Ranking.”
If you’re in the software/entrepreneurship/misc. niche: Write a post titled “200+ Free Websites to Download Free Legal Software.”
Finally, to make this concept truly work wonders for your SEO, you should start searching for other people’s posts on the topic and find out who’s linking back to them. You can use any suitable SEO tool of your choice for this task (Ahrefs is a great choice). Then, reach out to these webmasters and say something along the lines of:
“Hey, I noticed you linked to this post; we created a well-researched article that is even better, more in-depth, and covers more sub-topics. We spent a ton of time making the definitive and most comprehensive resource out there. Would you be willing to link to us instead?”
Even if you only get 1 out of 20 to respond, make no mistake – it’s well worth your time and effort. Keep in mind the backlinks you’ll get will be of the highest editorial quality. In fact, this is one of the top white-hat SEO strategies out there, and it’s not going against the will of Google but giving it exactly the kind of thing it wants to see instead.
By following the strategy explained above, everybody wins you, the webmaster, Google, and the readers.
Link baiting: an alternative take on the above
Link baiting is a strategy you should use sparingly. But when executed correctly, it can bring you outstanding results. The premise is this: write something provocative or touch upon a sensitive topic and publish it on your website.
Be respectful and stay within the boundaries of the law, but other than that, say it like you mean it, and don’t pull your punches! This way, people will be compelled to reference your post to chime in, and the discussion can heat up well beyond the comment section of your blog.
This won’t always work, but when it does, your article or blog post can truly go viral. Plus, you can get a boatload of backlinks and traffic. A softer version of the same strategy is to post a discount on your products or services, which is also likely to attract links.
Get your creative juices flowing and think of other ways you could bait people into linking to your content. Anything related to politics, football, dating, and celebrity gossip is a good start.
In the beginning, however, your primary focus should be on getting traffic in the first place. This is the toughest part. Once your website starts getting the initial bout of traffic, the link baiting strategy can be a good way to expand upon the idea of “resource pages” and take it even further.
2. Guest posting
MAIN IDEA: Gain powerful editorial backlinks in exchange for content
Link type: Follow
Guest posting simply works. It’s one of the most efficient ways to secure high-quality backlinks from virtually any niche of your choosing. If the webmaster takes you up on your offer, this effectively grants you access to high-quality editorial backlinks, which are some of the most powerful ones you can get. This is due to the following:
Firstly, these are content-based links. Google looks upon them much more favorably compared to, for example, backlinks that are placed in the footer or the sidebar. The reason being is that backlinks in those side areas are often not human-generated, whereas the ones placed in the middle of the content most likely are.
Secondly, content-based links imply a healthy amount of editorial pressure. In other words, it’s up to the webmaster to either approve your guest post or reject it, meaning it has to offer something valuable to the reader – otherwise, there would be nothing in it for the webmaster to publish it. By favoring editorial backlinks, Google promotes the distribution of helpful and well-written content. It’s a win-win arrangement for everyone involved! The webmaster gets amazing content for free for their readers to enjoy, and you get a powerful backlink.
Best of all, any blog in your niche could potentially be willing to link back to you in exchange for quality content. At this point, you’re presented with two options:
– You can start contacting bloggers on your own. However, bear in mind it’s a labor-intensive process, and it’s quite typical for the majority of your emails to go unanswered. Furthermore, although still effective, the strategy has been chewed to the bone as you’re not the first one to think of utilizing it. Bloggers these days can be very picky with regard to what they’re willing to publish, so you’re going to have to come up with the very best content to stand a chance and pass through their filters. And that’s not even mentioning the time it takes to compile a list of bloggers and email them one by one.
– In case writing and emailing people is not your cup of tea, you’re better off outsourcing it to a professional or finding the best link-building service with native writers on-board (like the ones we mentioned above). But be very careful who you entrust this task to! A no-name blogger outreach services provider could end up promising the sky and under-delivering, or worse yet, providing the wrong type of links that could harm your entire SEO campaign.
Long story short: in the SEO sphere of today, guest posting remains the holy grail of white-hat link building. At the same time, it also helps position you as the authority in your niche and grow your brand. Once your posts get published, don’t forget to count the highly targeted traffic your website will receive directly from the webmaster’s blog when people start clicking through your link. This can drive highly qualified leads immediately, even before SEO benefits start taking place.
3. “Parasite” websites (with high Domain Authority)
MAIN IDEA: Utilize high DA websites that can rank for low-to-medium competition keywords on their own
Link type: Nofollow
How would you like to ride the waves of another website’s authority and capitalize on its high search engine rankings? With the so-called “parasite” SEO strategy, you can quickly claim the top spots in Google for low-to-medium competition keywords.
There are numerous websites you can use for this purpose, with some of the best being:
– Medium
– LinkedIn Pulse
After registering, simply publish an article there, and the platform will let you insert a backlink. Granted, it will have the “nofollow” attribute, but the strategy is worth pursuing for the direct clicks your website will receive alone.
For example, let’s imagine you’ve written an article about “blue widgets” and published it on your main website. Do some keyword research and identify some related LSI keywords (typically, these will have a low difficulty). All of these long-tail keywords are perfect to write a supporting article for – inside, you will mention your website as a reference where they can learn more about the topic.
You could, of course, use the long-tail keyword strategy on your main website as well, but don’t expect a miracle in terms of search engine rankings if it’s new. Although you will eventually rank for your chosen keywords either way, know that “parasite” websites already have a high domain authority in Google and are thus much better suited for ranking quickly. Yes, even without building any additional backlinks to them at all!
4. Infographics
MAIN IDEA: Create eye-catching materials that people distribute without you even asking
Link type: Varies
Infographics have long been a closely guarded secret and a potent link-building weapon in the hands of the best link building services and their clients. Much like press releases, once created, infographics are the kind of content people will happily distribute on their own without you having to lift a finger, provided the content (and its presentation) is truly something remarkable.
Granted, not every topic will perform equally well, so you have to do your due diligence. In general, info-based topics that are packed with stats tend to perform well (hence the name “info”-graphics). When brainstorming ideas, make sure to think about what kind of statistics or facts would invoke the “WOW, I didn’t know that!” response in your readers. Because let’s face it – some statistics are just plain boring. And content that makes people yawn won’t get shared.
Last but not least, consider hiring a graphic designer for the job. Even though you could technically get away with doing it for free using Canva or similar template-based tools, it’s essential to create something eye-catching.
Note: in case you catch someone publishing your infographic without linking back to your site, kindly reach out to them and ask for a backlink. Most will be happy to oblige. But just in case, don’t forget to also include your logo and your main website URL in graphical form.
5. Broken link building
MAIN IDEA: Get a free backlink in exchange for fixing other people’s broken links
Link type: Follow
This backlinking strategy is severely underutilized, but if executed correctly, it could net you some high-quality editorial backlinks. In essence, it works like this:
First, do some thorough research and web crawling to discover whether any bloggers in your niche have published any articles with broken links in them. These can be broken due to typos, but sometimes, the domain they were linking to could have expired or is simply no longer hosting that content. Then, get in touch with them, notify them about the issue, and offer your website’s URL as a replacement (ideally, you’ve already published an article that covers this topic).
As you might have guessed, the hard part is locating these broken backlink opportunities, and if you were to do it by hand, you’d probably go crazy. The good news is, there’s a myriad of SEO tools you can use for this purpose, so this aspect of the equation is semi-automated and practically done for you.
If you’re planning to use this strategy, there’s something very important to keep in mind: don’t try to hide your intentions. Be transparent. Say that “yes, my goal is to get a backlink from you, but if you help me out, we both gain something from it.” The reason being is that you’re solving a problem they’re having, but for this to work best, the replacement URL you’ll provide truly has to contain the kind of content that will leave them breathless. Ideally, it should be better / cover the topic more in-depth than the original. To check out the old article that is no longer reachable or someone has taken down, you can use a free tool like Archive.org.
6. Email those who scrape your content and request they link back to you
MAIN IDEA: Instead of going after copyright violation, turn it into your favor and get a backlink
Link type: Varies
Stealing other people’s content is not only a copyright violation, but it’s also not recommended for SEO (duplicate content issues). Nevertheless, the internet is full of individuals who are utterly unaware of the fact, so expect them to do it regardless.
Even though you’d be 100% in the right to request they take down the content that legally belongs to you, might we suggest a better strategy? Instead of going at them hard, kindly ask them to link back to you as a way to say “thanks.” This way, they can continue using the content, but you’ll get something out of it as they’ll list your website as the source.
Don’t worry about their stolen article potentially harming yours. If you published the article before they did and Google crawled your website prior to crawling theirs, your version will be recognized as the original.
7. Press releases
MAIN IDEA: Raise brand awareness with PR articles that get picked up automatically
Link type: Varies (mostly nofollow)
Although Google claims to be ignoring links obtained by distributing press releases (after all, most of them will have the “nofollow” attribute), it’s unlikely these backlinks will hurt you. In fact, they are not only great for diversifying your backlink profile, but also for the purpose of growing brand awareness. If you get lucky and your PR articles get picked up by the right news outlets, you can even score some high authority “follow” backlinks along the way.
So how do you write an amazing PR article that has the best chance to get picked up by the media? In essence, structure your content in such a way that it addresses the following 5 big questions:
– What message are we conveying / what is our announcement?
– Who are we trying to reach?
– What’s in store for our target audience?
– When will it be launched?
– Who will be the one to deliver the message?
Of course, the exact questions can vary from niche to niche, but you get the idea. As long as you cover the “who”, the “what”, the “when”, the “where”, and the “why”, you should be in good shape.
8. Q&A websites
MAIN IDEA: Get direct traffic by sharing your expertise
Link type: Nofollow
Q&A websites are an under-utilized yet powerful tool to grow your online presence. Not only do they let you leave a link back to you inside your profile and answers, but they also help you establish yourself as an authority in your niche – provided that your answers are genuinely helpful. In other words, you’ll be placing your business directly in front of a highly targeted audience who’s looking for a solution, which is exactly what you need.
The leading Q&A websites in today’s web space are:
– Quora
– LinkedIn Answers
However, you need to approach them with the right strategy in mind – mindlessly throwing your website’s URL around won’t get you anywhere (and it may even get you banned from the platform). In fact, even directly linking to your products or sales pages is NOT recommended most of the time.
What you need to do is research the most common questions people are asking, categorize them, if need be, and write a blog post on your website that addresses them from various different angles. Now, you have a powerful free resource you can share with them if they want to learn more.
So, let’s say you come across a question that asks about X.
In your answer, you would do your best to answer that question to give the reader a good basic idea of what they need to do (but don’t go into the details too much). Then, at the end of your answer, you can say something to the extent of “if you’d like to learn how you can solve X, check out the detailed guide I’ve posted on my blog that answers your question even more specifically.” And inside that blog post (and NOT on the Q&A website directly), you subtly promote whatever products or services you’re offering.
Do you see the difference? By doing it this way, no one will ever flag your answers as spam – in fact, the readers will thank you for it. Moreover, these Q&A websites often rank very highly on Google, meaning you can legitimately piggyback off of their search engine authority and funnel a healthy portion of their traffic your way.
Although things may change over time, these will always be worth it for marketing purposes in one way or another. Even if they suddenly decide to make all of your links “nofollow” (or even prohibit you to insert links in the first place), it’s well worth it to participate as these may net you a handsome chunk of direct traffic.
9. YouTube
MAIN IDEA: Repurpose your content by turning it into videos that generate traffic
Link type: Nofollow
Video distribution sites like YouTube and Vimeo are fantastic for getting your content out there and generating some thematically relevant backlinks while you’re at it. Did you know YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine? It functions exactly like Google in many ways, with the main difference being its focus on video rather than written content. By uploading to YouTube, not only can you leave a link under every video you post, but you will also get direct traffic to your website from targeted visitors.
If you’ve ever published an article, you can repurpose it for all sorts of things, including turning it into a video. Feel free to use the content you’ve already written as a manuscript for your video or amend it slightly if you wish. At any rate, most of the hard work will have already been done at this point – now, you only need to figure out what video production/editing approach would work best.
If you’re camera-shy, there’s no need to put your face on the screen if you’re not comfortable with doing so for any reason. You can make a captivating video by using nothing more than a couple of PowerPoint slides or it can simply be you talking over an image background. As long as you’ve got a decent microphone at hand, you should be able to produce something in a matter of minutes. Alternatively, you could also outsource any part of the video creation process to a freelancer.
10. Blog commenting
MAIN IDEA: Get direct traffic by adding value to the discussion
Link type: Nofollow
Although blog commenting shouldn’t be your primary link-building strategy due to it yielding nothing more than “nofollow” links that don’t count for much, the best link building services still recommend using it in modesty. The reasons are twofold:
– It makes your backlink profile more diverse
– It helps you establish a brand in your niche
Keep in mind that the vast majority of these links will be “nofollow.” In most cases, your author’s name will appear as a clickable link you can use to link back to your website, but don’t try to shove your links inside the body of the comment (this will most likely cause the webmaster to delete your comment straight away).
To be successful with blog commenting, the trick is to find relevant blogs in your niche and, ideally, be the first to leave a comment. This way, you’re almost guaranteed to be noticed and may receive some direct clicks to your website, provided the comment you leave contributes something valuable to the discussion.
In other words, don’t just leave a comment for the sake of doing it. Comments like “hey there, great blog post” are not enough to get your comment approved – you have to do better! The goal is to invoke curiosity in the reader. If possible, try to use your real name with an avatar for your posts to have an added bit of legitimacy and to stand out more.
Bonus strategy 1: Unlinked mentions
How many times has it happened to you that someone mentioned your name or brand, but it’s in plain text form rather than it being a clickable link? A pity you can’t do anything about it being hyperlinked… or can you? Listen: if someone decided to mention you in a positive context, chances are they will be more than willing to link back to one of your websites when asked nicely. And if not, try your luck with another person who mentioned you somewhere. With SEO tools (or Google directly), you’ll discover more of these unlinked mentions than you can chew on, especially if your brand is popular.
Bonus strategy 2: Link reclamation
Not every backlink you’ve created will last for a lifetime. Sometimes, sites get taken down for a myriad of reasons, domains expire without being renewed, etc. But in other cases, they get removed deliberately by the webmasters. Chances are, at least one of the websites that used to be linking to you no longer does, and there are several SEO tools that can help you pinpoint precisely what those are. Then reach out to those people and ask if they could add it back. Be polite. Sometimes it’s a mistake on their end, or perhaps they decided to rewrite the entire article. Either way, it doesn’t hurt to try.
Bonus strategy 3: Superior content
Have you ever stumbled upon a low-quality piece of content that had a ton of backlinks and couldn’t help but wonder how it got them in the first place? If you’re a part of the SEO industry, you’ll come across one of these sooner or later. Then, write an article on the same topic, but make it bigger and make it better. It has to be superior to the original in every way you can imagine. After it gets published, convince the webmaster to link to your article instead. If you’ve done your homework, this should be an easy win.
Bonus strategy 4: Directories
Obtaining backlinks from directories is an old-school SEO strategy, and most of them will be “nofollow”. While this is unlikely to give you a substantial boost in your search engine rankings, it does serve an essential purpose – diversifying your backlink profile. Do you think it’s natural to have only the highest quality editorial backlinks pointing to your site and nothing more? Of course not. So go out there and claim these surefire victories, as small as they may be.
Bonus strategy 5: RSS feed
Is your website powered by WordPress? Then you probably have an RSS feed already. In essence, this is a mechanism that broadcasts your newly published content to the world. Unfortunately, some will blatantly steal your content and republish it on their blog. But often, they’ll employ some sort of automation to do it, meaning they won’t bother stripping out any internal links you’ve left in there. So, make sure to insert them in your articles and mention other related content you’ve published on your website – it’s a good on-site SEO strategy you should consider utilizing either way.
Bonus strategy 6: Spying on your competitors
A wide range of SEO tools allow you to check the backlink profile of any page you’re interested in, including your competitors’. Why would you want to do that? The reason is simple: to see where they’re getting their backlinks from. If they’re willing to link to your competitors, they’re likely ready to link to you as well, especially if your content is far superior. The next step is to identify backlinking opportunities – which webmasters should you reach out to first? Go through them one by one and you should be able to get a response eventually.
Bonus strategy 7: Social media
Although any backlinks obtained from social media tend to be “nofollow” (Facebook, in particular, is set to “noindex”) and thus not likely to have a significant impact, it’s still a good idea to have them for multiple reasons. First of all, your backlink profile should be natural, varied, and diverse. By sharing valuable content on social media, not only do you get your brand in front of people’s eyes, but also foster healthy relationships with those who could end up becoming your loyal customers. You need to show them that you’re not just another faceless corporate entity; that there’s a real human face behind all of this, someone whose vision is to help others achieve their dreams and solve their problems. As a result, most will feel indebted to you and be more willing to do business with you – that’s the power of reciprocity.
Bonus strategy 8: Our retailers pages
This method only applies if you’re running some sort of retail or eCommerce store. Simply make a list of the products you carry in your inventory and jot down your manufacturers and suppliers. Then, write them an email and inquire whether they have some sort of “our retailers” page. Ask if they could link to your e-store. Most will be willing to oblige.
Bonus strategy 9: Tweak your redirects
In case you’ve restructured your website, it’s important to have 301 redirects pointing from the old URL structure to the new one. Without it, you’d be losing out on link juice from anyone who’s linking out to you. Of course, newly launched websites won’t have to worry about this problem, but if yours has been around for a couple of years, it’s good to have this in mind – a little tweak like this could do wonders for preserving your existing rankings.
Bonus strategy 10: Testimonials
Bought any products recently that you’d have zero second thoughts endorsing? Send an email to their creators, share your love and enthusiasm for the product, and ask if you could write a testimonial for them. In most cases, you’ll also be able to provide a link to your website. This works two ways: their sales pages get more credibility and you’ve just scored a powerful backlink to your site. Nice!
Bonus strategy 11: Free web-hosted tools
If you have a decent knowledge of coding, you could come up with a free tool and host it on your website. It could be something as simple as a calculator or as complex as an online scraper or SEO tool. These tend to attract quite a bit of organic backlinks. Alternatively, you could also hire a developer to do this for you, but bear in mind that, depending on the length and complexity of the project, it could end up costing you a pretty penny. Alternatively, it can be something creative: maps, tests, quizzes… you get the idea.
Bonus strategy 12: Blogger reviews
If you have a product to give away, see if they would like to receive a free copy in exchange for a review. It’s quite easy to score some high-quality editorial links this way. However, be careful how you present the offer – it’s against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to give out a product in exchange for a backlink directly.
Bonus strategy 13: Get interviewed
Are you an established name in your niche? Perhaps you’re holding a Ph.D. or you’re a well-known athlete? Capitalize on your accomplishments by letting other people interview you. You can bet they’ll be happy to leave a link as well. And in case you’ve been interviewed before and haven’t had a website at the time, reach out to them and ask them to insert your link next to the podcast or interview.
Bonus strategy 14: Start a petition
Is your niche about a passionate subject, something to do with human rights, perhaps? If there are people who believe in the same cause as you, they will do anything in their power to support it, including linking to it. You might even get featured in the media.
Bonus strategy 15: Provide a transcription
There are many podcasts and videos online whose creators simply don’t have the time or resources to generate a transcription or provide subtitles. Offer to do it for them in exchange for a backlink.
11. The dos and don’ts of white hat SEO
Before we conclude our guide, here are some of the key points you should apply to your SEO strategy:
DO: Go after editorial backlinks
Editorial backlinks are placed somewhere in the body (as opposed to the sidebar or footer). For Google, this indicates that someone has placed the link there intentionally (as opposed to the link being auto-generated by some plugin or a script). Therefore, it acts as a vote of confidence and thus carries more weight.
DON’T: Overuse “exact match” anchors
In the past, overusing “exact match” anchors worked tremendously well and was used by many SEO experts as a shortcut to attain high search engine rankings in a relatively short period of time. However, ever since Google introduced its infamous Penguin algorithm update in 2012, this is a surefire way to shoot yourself in the foot and get penalized by the search engines. In other words, you’re 10 years late to the party!
DO: Focus on backlink quality rather than quantity
In SEO, quality goes a long way. Anyone can build thousands of spammy backlinks using automated tools, but nowadays, this will kill your rankings faster than you can say “cheese.” The ones you want to shoot for are usually the kind that are the hardest to get.
DON’T: Worry about keyword density (too much)
Keyword density is another SEO metric that used to be relevant back in the day, but nowadays, its relevance is minimal at best. Yes, it’s important to mention your main keyword at least a couple of times but going above 2% in terms of keyword density could get your content flagged for “keyword stuffing.” Just don’t do it – Google is now smart enough to know what your content is about because it can understand its intent (read about the Hummingbird algorithm update if you’d like to know more).
DO: Build backlinks at a steady pace
As a general rule of thumb, it’s much better to spread out your backlinks over a long period of time than trying to get it all out there in a single day. Also, it’s normal for your search engine rankings to fluctuate as you do this, so there’s no reason to panic. The odds of witnessing this phenomenon are even greater if your website is new.
DON’T: Engage in link exchanges
You may be compelled to link back to someone in case they linked back to you due to common courtesy. But in reality, this could harm your SEO efforts. Google isn’t the biggest fan of link exchanges; it wants to see people linking to you naturally.
12. Conclusion
Off-site SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. As long as you focus on acquiring backlinks slowly and steadily, your search engine rankings will gradually improve. Consider working with the best link-building services to take some of the burden off your shoulders – building quality backlinks is hard work after all. In fact, it’s one of the most challenging aspects of SEO and it’s easy to mess up if you’re not 100% sure what you’re doing. Best of luck on your journey and may you get the search engine traffic your awesome products and services deserve!
The mortgage brokerage industry has become more competitive than ever before. In light of this, mortgage brokers must strive to set themselves apart. They should offer a seamless lending process. Great customer service and consistent communication with their clients are also important. But this is often easier said than done.
Loan officers like yourself juggle many responsibilities during any given workday. Despite your best efforts, you may forget things. It’s important not to miss following up with quality leads. Sending out a birthday message to past clients is also easy to overlook.
Specialized customer relationship management software for lenders can help avoid these issues. Below, we explore the benefits of a lender-specific CRM solution. We look at what impact it can have on your business. Let’s get started.
What Is CRM Software for Loan Officers?
A CRM platform is a comprehensive program. It’s designed to help you manage customer relationships. The software will provide you with easy access to important data. Data like client contact information, loan statuses, documents, emails, and more. A mortgage CRM will serve as your one-stop-shop for all vital customer information.
But the best CRM platforms do much more than merge your data. These solutions often include automated marketing tools, birthday alert reminder functions, and more. With the right CRM software in your corner, you and your loan officers can dominate your region.
Benefits of CRM Software for Mortgage Brokers
Now that you know what CRM software for mortgage brokers is, let’s turn our attention to the benefits of this leading-edge technology. By investing in great CRM software, you can:
Enhance Knowledge of Customers
If your team is not currently using a CRM solution, then client contact data is likely spread across several different mediums. This “old-school” approach works fine when you are managing only a couple of clients. But it will fail as you attempt to get new clients and expand your business.
A CRM solution for mortgage brokers will serve as your own personal “cheat sheet.” Anytime you need to look up information on a client or lead, you can do so with a few quick taps on the keyboard.
Making this information more accessible will give you extra time to follow up with prospects or contact quality leads. A great CRM will also assist with front-facing activities. Some of these activities include managing email campaigns and tracking requests for information.
Improve Audience Segmentation
“Audience segmentation” is the practice of dividing your target audience into smaller categories. This approach allows you to connect with clients, past customers, and quality leads more effectively. Top-tier CRMs streamline audience segmentation so that you can group contacts by type.
For instance, you can filter your search results to include leads when attempting to get new customers. If you want to launch an email drip campaign that advertises refinancing services, you can use search filters to locate past clients only.
In short, audience segmentation allows you to be more relatable to your audience. You should not send an email geared towards past clients to prospects and vice versa. Instead, you can adjust your messaging when you know which type of customer you are addressing.
Increase Client Retention
Mortgage officers should not worry about client retention, right? Wrong! Client retention is an important aspect of sustaining and growing your lending business. But far too many lenders overlook past clients in their quest to attract new customers. This oversight often occurs because lenders do not have enough time to contact everyone.
Once again, a high-quality CRM for lenders provides the perfect solution. A CRM platform allows your team to manage all client relationships, both past, and present.
CRM software will include handy tools such as birthday and refinance alerts. These tools will ensure that you never forget to send out that important “happy birthday” or “You are eligible for refinancing” message.
By staying in contact with previous clients, you can keep your business “top of mind.” When they need mortgage lending services again in the future, your company will be their first call.
Proactively reaching out to past customers can also encourage them to take action when they wouldn’t have otherwise. For example, some customers do not track interest rates and refinance opportunities. You can teach clients how to save money and potentially earn repeat business by sending them alerts. Everybody wins.
Provide More Consistent Communication
The mortgage lending industry is a customer service business. A great customer service experience will ensure that clients leave your office happy and satisfied. But offering poor service can cost your business.
One of the biggest pain points that affect customer satisfaction is poor communication. If you or your loan officers fail to follow up with information requests, you may lose out on potential clients.
Bad communication in the lending process may cause clients to pull their loan requests and seek out services elsewhere. Customers may endure poor communication. But they might then leave your business negative reviews or tell their friends about their experience.
A CRM solution for lenders can significantly improve your team’s ability to stay in contact with clients. Such a platform will allow lenders and other parties to communicate with clients across multiple mediums.
The CRM allows your team to transition between email, SMS, social platforms, and push notifications, all from a single app. This omnichannel approach ensures that they never miss a client message. They always have the opportunity to respond on time.
Speed Up the Approval Process
The best CRM solutions also include digital document management tools. These tools will improve and simplify the borrower experience by submitting documents online.
Each time a borrower submits a form via their unique portal, loan officers will receive an instant push notification. This feature allows them to quickly review the document, request more information, or take other action to process the loan.
Transitioning from traditional processing methods to a digital document platform is the most effective way to expedite loan approval. This feature will help your team become more competitive within your region. It will also allow each loan officer to increase productivity, as they will be able to process more loans than ever before.
Build and Protect Brand Reputation
In the mortgage industry, your brand reputation is everything. It will take months or years to correct if you develop a negative reputation. In the meantime, you may lose out on dozens, if not hundreds, of clients.
CRM software for lenders will allow your business to build and protect its brand reputation. Using this technology to its true potential, you can process loans faster, communicate better, and enhance productivity. Your loan officer will quickly become known as one of the fastest and friendliest within your region.
What to Look for in a Great Mortgage CRM
When searching for a Mortgage CRM for your business, ensure that the developer offers:
Scaled, Transparent Pricing
Transparent pricing is always a great sign. Especially when searching for a mortgage CRM provider. The best Mortgage CRM developers offer scaled pricing. This pricing covers individual loan officers, teams, and enterprises.
Most prices increase based on the total number of users your business has. But they often offer discount plans for enterprises with many loan officers.
A Free Demo
Who doesn’t like to try before they buy? That’s why we recommend seeking out a CRM solution that offers a free demo. Businesses that provide free demos are confident in their products’ capabilities and design.
A demo will give you time to explore the software. While doing this, you can learn how adopting the software would affect your workflow. If the software is well designed, it will be able to adapt to your existing workflow. It will provide process improvements at the same time.
The demo will help you decide whether the fit is right. You should know without a doubt if a particular software platform is a right fit for your business.
Integrations
A CRM with tons of integrations will ease data sharing between apps. Your calendar, email, and other apps should all be accessible. When shopping around for CRM software, find out what integrations it offers. Remember, the more integrations, the better.
Automation
Top-tier CRM solutions for lenders also offer several automation tools. These tools allow your team to automate redundant tasks. Things like sending out marketing email campaigns, distributing leads, and more. Automation software will save your team time. Then, they can spend more time interacting with clients.
Experience the Power of CRM for Lenders with BNTouch
Are you looking for a way to regain your competitive edge? Want an all-in-one CRM solution for your business? Ready to leverage the power of integration and automation tools?
If so, then it is time to connect with BNTouch. We offer one of the most comprehensive CRMs for lenders in the world. Our software includes a dynamic range of tools and functions. They will help take your business to the next level. To learn more, schedule your demo today. We’re ready to help you succeed.
SEO tool provider Semrush has announced plans to acquire competitive intelligence and sales enablement platform Kompyte.
Why we care. Semrush is a major player in the SEO tool space, and this announcement, along with its recent acquisition of Backlinko, shows that the company is serious about expanding both its audience and capabilities for search marketing as well as sales teams.
The acquisition may also provide Semrush with a path to increasing the business it’s already doing with existing users: “Kompyte is the perfect product to upsell to our existing customers who already use our competitive intelligence features,” Eugene Levin, chief strategy and corporate development officer at Semrush, said in the announcement. “With an average ARR [annual recurring revenue] per customer of about $20,000, there’s a great opportunity for us to elevate our customers to the next level.”
More anecdotally, demand for SEO professionals has risen over recent years, especially since the outset of the pandemic. That may make SEO tools a more common part of MarTech stacks, fueling growth for tool providers.
What Kompyte does. Based in Austin, TX, Kompyte offers competitive analysis tools that help marketers track changes on a competitor’s site, ad copy, social media and more. It’s products are designed primarily for marketing, product development, and sales and enablement teams.
Why Semrush wants Kompyte. Semrush’s goal with this acquisition is to diversify its offerings from search marketing-specific tools to products for a wider audience of professionals. “We were always looking for a MarTech product that uses market data to bring other teams to the table,” Levin said.
“The acquisition will expand Semrush’s ability to help its customers beyond their marketing departments, especially considering 88% of Kompyte’s total user base falls within sales organizations,” the announcement said.
In addition, Kompyte’s technology will be used to expand on .Trends, Semrush’s existing competitive intelligence feature.
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Google has updated its document on how to verify your business in Google Business Profiles to add that you Google “may require you to verify by more than one method.” This might be related to some fraudulent business profiles being created using one of the verification methods.
Verification methods. Google currently offers several methods to verify a business listing with Google Business Profiles. When this first launched, Google had only the postcard method, where Google would mail the business address a postcard and pin. But Google has added numerous options since, including:
Phone or text
Email
Video recording
Live video call
Postcard
Double verify. Now, Google may request that some businesses use not just one verification method, but two. Here is a screenshot of the updated document:
Stefan Somborac who spotted this said on Twitter that maybe this will lead to “a stricter verification process” and thus possibly “reduce fake locations on Google Maps.”
Why we care. This may add additional steps for you and your customers when verifying their business profiles with Google but hopefully this will reduce fake business listings in Google Maps. Google has not commented on this change, so it is hard to know for sure why Google added that line, but we can all guess it is related to helping ensure the business is a real business.
You may want to communicate to your customers that they may need to verify their business more than one way, if you are working with a business that has yet to verify their business profile in Google.
What would it feel like if you could chat with your prospects here and now from this article – or better yet, a third-party article on your product or service? No sitting around waiting for intent signals. No banner ads with pesky redirects.
Well, it’s here – and not only is it the future of selling in saas, but sales teams are using it today to engage with prospects in the earliest stages of the dark funnel.
The dark funnel explained: Did you know 75% of buyers are already halfway through their buying journey before they even speak to a salesperson? At that point, they’ve already completed their pre-purchase process – checked reviews, browsed comparison sites, and perused articles on third-party sites – before even reaching your site. In other words, all of these activities have occurred anonymously in what marketers have coined the “Dark Funnel.”
In fact, you can experience what it’s like to engage in the dark funnel simply by clicking the widget below.
Okay… but what is the dark funnel exactly?
It’s the touchpoints a buyer experiences before they are tagged and identified in any marketing stack – whether through self-identification, or traditional methods like downloading a whitepaper, form fills or cookies.
The problem lies in that the digitization of the sales environment has marketers falsely believing that they can accurately track a customer’s journey. The reality? Much of the customer journey happens offline and when activities occur online, they rarely follow a linear path. Instead, the modern consumer meanders along a path that bends and twists, leaving sales teams/marketers “in the dark” on intent.
So, why isn’t intent data enough?
Intent data isn’t a lead, nor are most intent signals actionable for sales/marketing teams. Often, intent data comes in at the account level and not the contact level, making it challenging to action. In other words, intent data lets you know that someone at a particular company is possibly interested but isn’t detailed enough to identify who to reach out to.
On the flip side, if a salesperson can discover who the contact is, they can reach out quickly. In a world where speed to lead is everything, intent decays almost instantly. The chance of the user biting on an email cadence, picking up calls, or clicking on retargeting ads diminishes every minute that a salesperson is not in contact.
Most marketers believe a form fill on a website indicates the highest moment of intent. This does not appear to be true with recent research.
A study on 2000 B2B companies found that on average: it takes a sales rep 42 hours to contact a new lead, of which 38% will never respond. Additionally, 4.3 days go by before the first meeting ever takes place. In the simplest terms, timing is everything, and the longer you wait on opportunities, the fewer responses you will receive.
In the modern-day age, convenience and quick response times are everything. Studies show when businesses respond in under five minutes, they are 100x more likely to connect and convert opportunities.
Imagine this process:
Zero seconds: A prospect asks to chat on an article, review site, or 3rd party blog post.
3 seconds later: The prospect selects whether they’d like to talk now or schedule a call
1 second later: The prospect chooses to talk now
6 seconds later: The prospect is chatting with a BDR or SDR
This all occurs in 10 seconds, and the prospect hasn’t even reached a company’s website.
Buyer intent is highest at the beginning of the buying journey while solutions to the buyer’s problem are explored. If a prospect actively researches, discusses, and evaluates a company, they clearly express interest. At this point, many intent signals are collected by data aggregators to re-sell for marketing purposes. Naturally, consumers’ intent to buy decays as they move throughout their buying journey. When an intent signal is received and the prospect books a meeting/demo, leads are lost. It costs time, money, and resources to rumble over prospects with your competitors.
The dark funnel is where the most advantageous opportunities can be won – where you can curate your brand and dominate sectors, all while creating demand.
Sitting around waiting for intent signals is a passive approach. Actively engaging with prospects in real-time when they need you is much more effective. You are there first. Meet their needs, and they won’t compare you to anybody. Once ready to buy, they will simply choose you.
And don’t we all want to be chosen?
The Helium platform provides sales/marketing teams direct real-time access to chat with prospects on articles, review sites, and any third-party site whereby your company is mentioned. An entirely new channel, Helium lifts the veil on the dark funnel by creating new actionable touchpoints earlier in the buyer’s journey.
Many mar-tech strategies have been created to uncover vital consumer information (intent data) within the dark funnel. However, these approaches still follow a linear sales/marketing funnel that doesn’t exist. This limits the ability to adapt to present-day buyer behavior. Buyers don’t want to complete forms, receive numerous email cadences or wait two weeks to speak to a sales rep. Simply put, they want to ask a quick question to qualify or disqualify a potential solution.
Helium creates a direct line for organizations to engage in chat with prospects using new touchpoints in the dark funnel. During a prospect’s highest intent moments, sales reps are able to answer questions and book meetings immediately.
The result?
Beating competitors to prospects
Accelerating your sales cycle
Increasing conversion
Expanding your audience
Being the primary source of education for your prospects
While Helium does not eliminate a traditional lead gen workflow, it creates an accelerated path for prospects to progress through the funnel. If you are able to activate direct engagement in conversation, traditional marketing funnels and intent data can be bypassed.
So, curious to learn more about how to engage with your prospects from third-party content? Click the button below now and experience the magic for yourself.
This cover story interview with CEO Rocky Foroutan was originally featured on Tomorrow’s Mortgage Executive.
Examining The State Of Mortgage Lending Today
LenderHomePage.com is a provider of a secure and compliant cloud-based digital mortgage platform that powers lender websites, mobile apps, and mortgage POS solutions. Mortgage lenders of all sizes use LenderHomePage.com’s customizable and scalable solutions to enhance borrower experience, streamline the mortgage process, and increase Loan Officer productivity and efficiency. Beginning with a small group of progressive and talented software engineers, LenderHomePage sought to improve the online lending experience for both mortgage professionals and their consumers. Rocky Foroutan, the Founder and Visionary behind LenderHomePage.com, talked with our editors about the state of mortgage lending today.
Q: There were plenty of predictions for the new year, but now that we’re a couple of months in, what’s the outlook for the mortgage and real estate industries for the rest of 2022?
ROCKY FOROUTAN: We had already seen interest rates begin to creep up towards the end of last year, so it was a safe assumption that it would continue. However, interest rates rose much faster than expected – reaching points that most assumed would happen towards the end of 2022. Although a single fact like this can make the mortgage market look grim, the outlook is still positive.
For one, whether rates are high or low, the market doesn’t stagnate. Consumers were still buying homes in the 2010s when rates were over 4%, and in the 1980s, over 12%! This is because, for homeowners and homebuyers, good decisions about buying or refinancing have less to do with mortgage rates and more to do with personal circumstances.
A wild card that gets overlooked is the shift in the working model and how that affects the real estate market. Many companies – including LenderHomePage – have adopted a permanent remote or hybrid employment model. Many consumers were previously on the fence about moving away from the company base since it was unclear whether their work would require them to return to the office. But now that many companies, both large and small, have permanently made a shift to remote or hybrid, consumers can confidently make a move to less densely populated or more affordable housing. We’re likely to see a significant uptick in home purchases come spring and continue well into summer.
Q:You bring up a great point about how consumers make financial decisions less about the current market rate and more about personal circumstances. How can LOs respond and leverage this in their favor?
ROCKY FOROUTAN: In the past, LOs have relied heavily on leads their companies provided, agent and past client referrals, and also buying shared internet leads. While all of these are still valuable in this new environment, LOs can do much better by concentrating on their own brand marketing – like social media marketing, referral marketing, PPC, SEO – and building up their brand and various networks to stand out from the competition and fill their lead funnel.
Social media marketing, in particular, is a powerful lead generation avenue that every mortgage pro is well aware of. Still, few take advantage of or know how to leverage it properly. But it’s understandable. Social marketing is a whole beast in and of itself, and when you’re focusing on clients and the day-to-day business (as one should be), creating and executing a social media marketing plan takes a back seat to the rest.
Inconsistency is also a considerable hindrance – erratic posting schedule, inconsistent branding, conflicting value propositions don’t just make social media marketing efforts fruitless, but they can end up damaging online reputation.
There’s also the potential problem of focusing on the wrong platform. We’ve seen this many times with our incoming marketing clients. For example, we had a broker looking for help with his social media. After months of creating TikToc videos (because every marketing article he read said that’s THE place to be), he was frustrated that he had yet to see any value in return. Yet another broker was stumped as to why he wasn’t getting any movement despite posting rate updates every day on his personal Facebook page.
Again, this is just one factor of online marketing. Remember, there are also organic lead generation from Local SEO and PPC and other paid marketing! The task is daunting, but in this competitive digital environment where loans are less about rates and more about circumstances, reputation, and trust, LOs can’t afford to ignore online marketing and branding. After consulting with hundreds of frustrated corporate and single mortgage professionals, we decided to develop and launch a comprehensive marketing service specifically for this industry. LenderHomePage is uniquely positioned to offer mortgage marketing services not only in expertise in marketing but, more specifically, our intimate understanding of technology-driven, branded digital mortgage marketing for the consumer.
Q: Many companies have instilled a hiring freeze but their processing needs haven’t changed. How can they handle the workload?
ROCKY FOROUTAN: Looking for a way to “handle the workload” is a dangerous proposition. To me, it means just barely keeping your head above water, and that’s not the position anyone wants their business to be in. So instead, l advise LOs to implement strategies that maximize their margins and increase their loan volume processing capabilities without hiring more staff.
It is necessary to put it into practice even without the hiring freeze when you really think about it. But, as it goes with most of life’s challenges, one doesn’t realize there’s room for improvement until they’re faced with the urgency to improve. They can do this by refining the workflow of their current team and improving operational efficiency to maximize the team’s time and revenue-generating potential.
The first step is to overview the workflow and the borrower’s journey. From initial contact to funding, what is the touchpoint, the purpose, the action, and the next step from both the consumer’s viewpoint and the origination viewpoint? Then one can start drilling down on each of those points to uncover friction points, gaps, or problematic tasks that can be eliminated or simplified. For example, we had one broker branching out on his own, but with limited start-up funds, handling the workload with a team of just him plus a processor was daunting. In this case, the broker needed to invest in a point-of-sale system that acted as a centralized hub for organizing and collaborating with his processor with maximum efficiency.
When we developed the Loanzify platform, we envisioned it not as a typical point-of-sale system but rather as a mobile office and extension of everything an originator has to offer and must accomplish as they process a loan. For example, Loanzify’s document collection, notification, and filing system are second to none. Taking a note from the originators’ need to be utterly accurate and productive, Loanzify features a flexible document uploader that can be accessed via mobile or desktop devices.
First, users can either drag and drop or upload a photo of the documentation easily and securely into their personal borrower portal. Without losing a money-making minute, the originator will receive a notification and be able to review, accept or reject the document quickly. Users also get timely notifications and reminders about completing their Needs Lists task, guiding them through the funding process in record time. Once the tasks and automated asset verification are completed, the entire loan package is instantly and accurately submitted for fast approval. Once approved, the user can generate and download their own self-generated pre-approval letters.
These perfectly synchronized functions eliminate massive amounts of time and exponentially increase the originator’s workload capabilities.
Q: You mentioned that LOs should also focus on increasing margins. How does technology help with that and what features exactly help with increasing margins?
ROCKY FOROUTAN: Loanzify is packed with critical automation essential to boosting processing volume. But let’s keep in mind that it’s not just about handling the current workload – we also want the originator to maximize his profit margins. While one can argue that technology in general increases margins simply by eliminating human-led work, that’s not always the case.
For example, some POS systems with incomplete or broken integrations with third-party systems offer little to no value in streamlining the workflow. So if data has to be entered manually from the POS to the CRM and back again, the technology is actually more of a disruption and is sucking time and money from the bottom line. On the other hand, deep integration plus an intuitive design is insurmountably valuable for boosting productivity that directly results in increased profit.
A more specific example of technology enlarging the profit margin can be found again in our Loanzify platform with our exclusive in-app self-pay credit pull. Credit Connect serves as a self-pay feature where users can purchase their own credit report to submit as part of their application. This influential yet straightforward feature acts as a sort of “filter” that underscores the prospect’s commitment to see the loan application through the end.
But more importantly, Credit Connect wipes out thousands of dollars that originators would spend on credit pulls that never converted into a loan. This feature alone has massive and immediate implications for increasing profit margins.
Q: Now that businesses across the country are re-opening their offices, is it still necessary to invest in a digital transformation as earnestly as the industry did at the beginning of the pandemic?
ROCKY FOROUTAN: Absolutely! The industry was undergoing a digital transformation well before 2020–that year punched it and pushed the accelerator to the floor. But make no mistake, we are not slowing down or looking back.
In fact, recently, legislators in Pennsylvania passed a bill that permits non-bank lenders to conduct their business remotely permanently, should they choose to work in this fashion. This includes working from their private residents. Certain stipulations were waived or altered during the state’s work-at-home orders to allow lenders to continue their business. However, this new bill removed those requirements, giving non-bank lenders who chose to work remotely the same opportunities as any other lender in the state.
This is just one example of how radically things are changing and how imperative it is for mortgage professionals of all sizes to transform their business digitally. It’s not just about preparing for temporary market rate changes. Mortgage professionals need to stay abreast of shifts in compliance, consumer habits, and technology.
Q: In closing, you shared a lot about technology and strategies that LOs should implement – if you needed to boil it down to the most critical component, which would it be? Where should they focus?
ROCKY FOROUTAN: That question hints at the most significant challenges LOs face when it comes to digital transformation – the research, decision, and ultimate implementation that an LO has to go through just to get started is overwhelming even for tech-savvy originators.
And just when the LO is relieved to find what they believe is the best software for them, they encounter the next set of hurdles—realizing there are gaps and everything still needs to work together. It’s daunting.
It’s also expensive and time-consuming! There are several helpful mortgage software products out there, but when it comes to getting them to work together efficiently and seamlessly, it’s wild. Even if they integrate, the user experience and branding are off, completely negating the LO’s goal of winning the online consumer.
That’s why my advice to LOs is to prioritize platforms with several components of digital transformation already built into their structure.
At LenderHomePage, our all-in-one approach makes it incredibly simple to achieve complete digital transformation within minutes. From a Mortgage Website to Mortgage POS to Digital 1003 to Mobile Mortgage App to Local SEO Marketing to Social Media Marketing to Creative On-Demand, originators can manage their mortgage business with a single provider and single log-in. It’s the preeminent digital solution for every originator at every stage of growth.
INSIDER PROFILE
Rocky Foroutan is the Founder and Visionary behind LenderHomePage.com. He founded the company from his small home office in 2003 by building turnkey websites for mortgage brokers and loan officers. Sixteen years later, the company has grown to serve over 2,000 clients with an innovative, multi-channel digital platform that helps customers enhance borrower experience while gaining efficiencies and saving cost. Prior to LenderHomePage, Rocky spent nineteen years as a software developer, sales and marketing management in Fortune 5000 companies.
INDUSTRY PREDICTIONS
Rocky Foroutan thinks:
1.) The post-pandemic “work-from-home” model will continue to fuel home buying for employees who have moved to more affordable areas.
2.) Rate hikes will not necessarily dampen the purchase market.
3.) The rush to digital transformation will not slow down even as the pandemic is subsiding, if anything it will accelerate
