Writing content for your lead generating website is how you will attract more leads. The greatest part of inbound leads is that your website content works for you as you sleep. What I have learned is to be specific with what you are writing about. General content, written to be a catch all, just doesn’t work. Pick a niche, and then niche it down even further.
This post is part of a 5 post series were I break down how I would target Probates, Foreclosures, Tired Landords, Out-of-State Owners and Code Violations. I’ll take you through the brain storming, the research and even the keywords to use as topics. My SEO guy won’t like this because I’m pretty much giving away my keywords, but It’s all in the name of helping.
Be the Master of One, NOT the Knower of All
Attracting Foreclosure Leads Online
What would someone going through the foreclosure process be searching for?
Owners who are unable to make their mortgage payments have specific problems. Once they realize they can’t save their house the logically will want to at least save their credit. The only way to do this is sell their house before it’s foreclosed on. Just like anyone else these days they are shore to do some late night Google searches for answers (or solutions) to their problems. Maybe they will find an easy solution to reduce their mortgage payments or work out a reduction to their loan.
What I like to try and do is position myself as a person who has the answers to their questions. This builds trust. Also within the giving of these answers i want to also provide them a way out of the a problem by selling. Simply put I want to have the answers and also be the answer.
What Questions do Owners Facing Foreclosure have?
Here is where the serious thinking starts. Put yourself in the shoes of a person who just received a Notice of Default (NOD) in the mail. If you know someone who has gone through this, bend their ear. If not you’ll have to start doing some research to find out what problems and questions that they have.
Below is my brain storming. I broke up the topics in to 4 different types of questions. This will help group the articles when I’m done writing as well as which articles I will interlink.
…Questions…
I’m in foreclosure now what?
Can I stop the foreclosure process?
What options do I have if I’m in foreclosure?
Can I renegotiate with the bank?
What if I owe more then the house is worth?
How can I sell my house quickly?
What is a short sale?
Should I stay in my home?
How do I know the bank has started the foreclosure process?
Do I qualify for a qualify for new a debt consolidation or mortgage refinance programs ?
How bad will a foreclosure affect my credit?
Should I get an attorney?
Will filing for bankruptcy stop the foreclosure process?
Do I have to move out right away if I’m served with a foreclosure complaint?
I was contacted by a foreclosure rescue company that said they can save my house. Are they legit?
I was served a foreclosure notice and just ignored it. now what?
What is a loan audit?
Am I off the hook if my home gets sold in a short sale?
Can I just give the bank the keys and walk away?
Should send in a partial payment?
How long does the foreclosure process take?
What are my rights during the foreclosure process?
How can I avoid foreclosure?
What is the The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007?
Are there different types of foreclosure?
I’m going to have money problems and won’t be able to pay my mortgage, now what?
Am I at risk of foreclosure?
How long does it take to get a loan modification?
Do I qualify for a loan modification?
What happens when you miss your first mortgage payment?
What happens when you miss your second mortgage payment?
If I’m current on my mortgage will the Home Affordable Refinance Program help me?
What is the redemption period?
… End Questions …
These 30+ article topics are a great starting point for how to find motivated foreclosure leads online. What I’d do next is to schedule them out in some sort of editorial calender. Then tackle them one at a time. Every time you come up with new questions, come back to your master list and write them down. I’d do this ASAP because you are likely to forget the topic. Trust me, I can’t tell you how many times I thought there was no way I’d forget a topic…and I did.
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Keyword research for these problems
Writing an article that answers some of the glaring questions a foreclosure facing property owner might have is great…congrats for getting that far. However your work isn’t done. To optimize the exposure and traffic to that article you need to make sure you use the words people are searching with. These words are called Keywords.
The best way to find these keywords is to use a free tool from Google….The Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Catchy name I know!
It’s a very simple process and should really only take you 10 to 15 minutes. It’s really a no brainer. This is one of those Most Bang For Your Buck type of tasks. Here is a quick Google Adwords Keyword Tool tutorial that I recorded while researching keywords for Avoid Foreclosure in NJ…
A couple of guidelines that I use when picking out keywords…
- Do it after writing the article. You never know the precise direction the article will take until after you are done. Then you can go through and place the keywords in spots where they make sense and sound natural.
- Take Keywords that have the highest average monthly searches. Although the caveat is I usually don’t go over 2000 monthly searches because I find that those keywords are really hard to rank for. It’s not a hard rule, but just what i like to do….The low hanging fruit.
- Choose a handful of long tail keywords and scatter them around in your article. Doing this will make things more natural sounding and also attract more searchers. Just pick one as your Main Keyword.
While I do my keyword searches I keep a look out for other article topic ideas. When I find a few good ones I add them to my list. If there are keywords being searched for a lot then you can be certain it’s a good article to write.
It’s your potential leads telling you what they want to know.
In the video tutorial above I searched for keywords related to Avoid Foreclosure in NJ… my target market. The keywords that I chose are the following..
- how to stop foreclosure
- mortgage modification
- obama mortgage relief
- short sale
- stop foreclosure
- what is foreclosure
Where to Use These Keywords in your Articles?
There are strategic places you should place these keywords. Google is always changing the way they calculate your page rank. Even if things do change, these placements are still a good idea because they help emphasize the questions you are answering.
Title. The key here is to make it sound normal.
Slug. This is the last bit of your pages url after the slash…http://strugglingInvestor.com/<slug>
H2 Tag. A well organized article will have subheadings. Make these subheadings as Heading 2’s. Find a heading that you can use your main keyword in and added.
2 to 4 times in your article. Use a combination of your selected keyword throughout your article. I like to make sure I have it in there between 2 to 4 times. You can add in a few more if it’s natural, but don’t over due it.
When back linking from related articles. One of the most important SEO things you can do on your site is link between articles. Make sure to go to related articles on your site and link to your new article. Use your main keyword as the linking text.
Here’s a great resource on how to build an effective lead generating website – How To Build An Awesome Website For Lead Generation
Final Words
For some, the thought of writing 25+ articles about questions related to the foreclosure process seems like a lot of work just to get some foreclosure leads online…and it is. I actually hired someone to do the content writing for me. I provide the article topics/headlines though. So basically I did all the above things and then emailed off the topics to be written about. When I get the articles back I insert the keywords and back links.
As Google gets smarter with their algorithms for ranking websites, it’s getting more important to write good content and keep your sites active. You should be at least doing what I outlined above, but for sure there is much more. Like publishing some of your articles to third party sites, creating citations with all the business listing services, etc…
What are some of your strategies to attract foreclosure leads?
Resources
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