How To Get Your Mortgage Website on the First Page of Google?
You know that little 6 or 7 pack of mortgage bankers that shows up when you Google: “CITYNAME Mortgage”…What if your website showed up there?
That’d probably be pretty cool right? Well, good news. Today, I’m showing you the cheat that gets any Google Places page on the first page. Unlike moving your website’s ranking, these pages are surprisingly easy to manipulate.
SEO is complicated… Google Maps is easy!
I’m not going to lie. Getting your website on Page One of Google is as complex as Pandora’s Box.
But there is one part of Google that is relatively simple. Usually, I don’t like to promote easy lead generation tactics… but today I’m going to show you the best, fastest, safest way to get your Google Places Page to show up on the first page of Google.
For those of you that don’t know, this is what the first page typically looks like for mortgage searches:
You see that Google Places box? I’m going to teach you how to get there! Here are the 4 steps:
Step #1) 100% Complete
Step one of how to get your mortgage website on the first page of Google is to make sure your profile is 100% complete.
And I mean everything.
Are there images up there? Is your URL correct? Do you even have a website? Do you list your hours? Is your phone number correct? Do you have at least 500 words of original content on your website?
All of this matters.
It really does.
I know this sounds basic, but please don’t skip this step!
If you need to edit your profile or claim it, watch the video above where we cover exactly how to do that. You really do need to claim your profile and verify your account. This is critical to the Google system for ranking these pages.
Google actually pulls all this raw data from huge public record databases. Most of it is incorrect! So until you go update it and claim it, the information stands ‘almost’ no chance of ranking on Google.
Step #2) Consistency
The second step in this process is maintain consistently. Google’s job in life is to crawl the web. That’s what they are great at. So they literally have a record of every place your business is listed online. Google knows all the inconsistent data that is out there.The
The goal during this step is to make everything out there with your name on it says the same thing.
You want your website, other listings, and social accounts to have the same information. You should also interlink these components at this time. The interlinking of your profiles helps expedite the entire process.
Make sure to have a complete profile even on Facebook. If you go to your admin section on Facebook and look at the settings, most of you will find that you’re missing some information from the provided fields. Fill everything out!
You also want to make sure the business name is spelled the same way everywhere. For example, “Nick Magiera – LeaderOne Financial” is different than “LeaderOne Financial by Nick”. These little inconsistencies can really add up across hundreds of websites.
Step #3) Reviews
This step is fairly obvious. We all trust reviews online. Google trusts them too! I recommend a minimum of 6 reviews on Google in addition to whatever other reviews you have on your other profiles.
If you can’t get clients to leave reviews because you’re just starting out, try asking friends and family.The one catch with this step
The one catch is you cannot under any conditions buy fake reviews.
Google profiles are required to leave the review. And they know when they are fake. Google tracks the IP address that signed up with the account and through various map/email applications is good at knowing where you’ve traveled. If people who haven’t been where you sell mortgage are giving you reviews, it’s pretty easy to tell they are fake.
Shoot for 6 reviews on your Google reviews. Obviously, the more the better!
Step #4) Citations
This is the kicker. You need to buy as many citation and social signals as possible for your page. In SEO, buying these things used to be enough to rank entire websites. But lately, the tactics haven’t been as effective.
However, they still work MAGICALLY on Google places pages!
You simply have to go to the sites listed below and order some citations and social signals for your places page. The time that it takes for all of this to work varies greatly. For example, more competitive areas like Chicago and NYC already have real established entities in these slots. You’re going to have to spend to get on the first page. But if you’re in a smaller market this is going to work like gang-busters.
Go as local as you can! If you’re in a suburb, great! Target your suburb, rather than going for the big city an hour away.
If you’re in the big city, go for a certain section of the city. For example, if you’re in Chicago, go for Lincoln Park, rather than just “Chicago”. Local = Better.
Here are the three links you’ll need to do this:
That’s it!
This method, like I said in the video, can vary greatly based on the market. Let me know what you’re up to in your marketing in the comments below. Have a great day!