Monday, December 31, 2007

Updating our Main Website - SEO revisited Again

Back on December 4th, I posted a dozen or so keyword/phrases where we were in rank position one, two or three on several different search engines, results that pleased me to no end! Since I completed our main website's update for 2008 - this morning I re-searched each of those keyword/phrases to see where we are on those particular ones now.

Since we know SE results are dynamic, naturally it's all together possible that our postions could have changed either up or down, because of course other webmasters are working to improve their own results too.

I'm happy to report that even though some of our previous ranking keyword/phrases in the one to three positions have changed somewhat - I noted several of our other pages (recently updated) now rank within the same first page as well ... so I'm a happy camper!

And speaking of happy ...
Happy New Year!

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Wraping up 2008 Updates

I trust you all had an enjoyable Christmas with friends and family ... I sure did!

One good thing about this dreadfully slooooow time, it's given me plenty of an opportunity to update our main website (which I finished a couple of days ago), and time to get started on modifying all of our mortgage educational training lessons so they're fresh for 2008.

At this point, I am looking for a full Google site index - so I can use my Google webmaster site Tools and study what they now see on our site (after the many many changes I made). I think I might be a little worried I could have made some mistakes, that may have resulted in a negative effect on the ranking of some of our key word/phrases. I'm sure I'll know for sure in several weeks.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!


Thursday, December 20, 2007

Updating our Main Website - SEO revisited - Part DUEX

This is what I want to do this afternoon, after 3 hours last night and five hours so far today. I got up close and personal with the Google Webmaster Tools - and what a delight that was!
They showed me that I needed to closely examine and properly modify all of our Title and Keyword Tags, along with longer more percise Descriptions for each page (they say it will improve clickability)! Google has 88 pages indexed for our website, and boy oh boy, I'm now REAL familar with each of them and HTML (yawn).
I was fascinated to discover they showed an external links table which provides a list of pages on our website, that have links pointing to them from other sites. Sure I knew that, but since the Page Rank of our index page SUCKS, I knew it couldn't be too good - regardless of the efforts we have put forth to get theme related back-links with suitable PR's. When I saw 2,116 of them (and I mean each and every single one, from whoever, to this or that page on our site) I nearly fell off my chair.
Of course all this background work nobody will even notice, but it's the 'heavy lifting' that will help us endure through this devistatingly slow punishing crisis our industry is in right now. This task is gonna take me weeks!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Mortgage Mentor Program - update 2008


I was able to blast through the modifications on this page on our main site this morning; finished what I wanted to accomplish in just under 3 hours! Sticking with the same theme of updates, modified META Tags, some Title tags, etc., and I reduced the word count to 59% of it's former size, and (again) kept sufficient detail so a potential student will understand what this program is all about.

Like our CMP program, our Mentor program is one of the most popular individual pages on our site, with several key word/phrases in organic searches within the top three, so getting these two pages completed initially I think was a smart move ... I can only pray I didn't goof up any of our prior SEO hard work.


Monday, December 17, 2007

Certified Mortgage Professional - 2008 update


I spent most of the day yesterday and all of this morning, putting the finishing touches on the modified CMP course page on our website. I think I kept all of the SEO elements which the page had before my update ... search engine results this week will tell me if I am right.

Cleaned up the META tags a bit, changed the copywrite info from 2007 to 2008, plus the 'word count' I reduced by just over one third (so it's now 67% of its former size), kept the necessary detail for those that closely read it, re-arranged the order of the newly shortened paragraphs, so it should be easier to skim - plus (with the smaller word count now) the 'optimal key word density' should be even better!

I selected the particular web page, because it's one of the most popular viewed pages by our web visitors AND (most importantly to me) because it ranks either first or second on organic web searches ... it's now in the hands of the Google gods.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Updating our Main Website - SEO revisited

So ... this morning, I decide to revisit the search results for those highly ranked key word/phrases I revealed here last week. Naturally, since searches are not static, many of them changed their relative page positions, nothing drastic I'm happy to say (but it does look like maybe a few of our competitors read this blog, and did some extra work on them as well)!

I click each of them, found our listing on the results page, copy & paste what the search engines highlighted as the relevant text which they selected to show, and then plugged all of this in another excel spreadsheet. Theory being, as I make changes to our pages, I want to be sure to not change any of the text that contributed to nicely placed key word/phrases ranking. Therefore any changes I make, should only improve our positions and not necessarily harm any future search results ... but we'll have to see about that, because the 'optimal key word density' of each page is going to be compromised by my modifications ... this stuff confusing you? It sure as hell is confusing me!


Finished my Christmas shopping day before yesterday - sent my children and grand-children out those Gift Cards, so they can get what they want ... I really miss the days when they were all still at home, and we could open up real presents from under the tree Christmas morning. I just loved to see their little eyes light up ... no better feeling than that for me.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Keyword/phrases SE SEO ... more

Ok, so I'm getting myself all worked up over making changes to our main website as a kinda new years update; let's call it freaked out!! I have been obsessing over even some of the minor changes I have planned ... and then this morning it hit me as I looked at todays's stats.

I went back a few days to copy and post here, some of the searches people did, where we were ranked in a terrible position (with that particular key word/phrase) and yet, they click over to our page anyway ... here ... you take a peek:

Google Search
thank you to mentor teacher #57!!
inurl:links mortgages #75!!
mortgage brokerage training #45
mortgage site templates #63
mortgage industry loan programs #39
free mortgage loan programs training #107

MSN/Live Search
education mortgage #52
education mortgage #80!!

I thought I would put these here to help teach you a lesson - and me too! Here's what these search results tell me. They tell me at least some people will click over to a website even when the keyword/phrase is 'buried' in their results. As I study what the SE's saw that put our pages up in the results of these random searches, I have learned even the most casual non-focus content, can attract visitors to a website - not many - but some.

So now, I'm really freaked! In an SEO newsletter I got yesterday - this quote LEAPED off the page at me: "It's common knowledge that visitors tend to glance at, and scan, pages rather than study them in any great detail." Again, I want to shorten up our content, yet be thorough enough, that the potential student will get the full story before they decide to engage this or that service or materials from our learning center.

I'm confused and need some help.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Philosophical Differences with 'Sales'

I’ve been thinking a great deal about the magnitude of the 'content' updates I am planning to make on our main website for 2008, their effects on our SEO key word/phrase placements, along with the significant philosophical differences I see that I have with most others in our industry, are on my mind a great deal.

As I think through the differences I have with so many, I have been able to break it down fairly clearly in my own head. It appears the preponderance of those I interact with, whether they are students, folks inside an industry discussion board, those that I speak with who author industry publications – it looks like everybody started in our business since the cycle ‘correction’ of August 1998.

It appears to me, the generation of people that started during this post-98 cycle, entered the industry for the big easy money that was at hand via the new big-commission biz notion that developed then. Looks like compassion toward customers, has been substituted for selling & closing clients with this bunch.

In my adult lifetime I have seen too many sales pros use various props, scripts, and tricks of all sorts to ‘close’ people. I’m still too idealistic about our industry, so this philosophical aversion to ‘sales’ I have, as evidenced by most of my writings which highlight the need for Integrity and Ethical behavior ... I think many want to have faith in my approach ... yet our competition all seem to market themselves as sales guru’s and promise to show their seminar attendees how to earn the big bucks! And, considering they came to the industry for the 'big bucks' and 'easy money' in the first place, those motivational speaker types, who prey on pumping up everyone’s ego, looks like the sort of industry education and training they are attracted to vs the more career minded approach I offer through Secret! University.

The fear I have is that the theme I intend to promote throughout our site in ‘08, may drive many of them away – it can be summarized this way: ‘from stranger to 1003 to funding and beyond are all included within the many important moving parts of the residential mortgage lending industry – DON’T STOP AT SALES. At Secret! University, our curriculum range and our teacher/Mentors have far more know-how than mere ordinary sales skills, you need to reach higher!'

So … what-do-ya-think?



PS: And I know why this is; when I started it was salary and small bonuses, and face to face with customers, not websites & e-mails like now days. We were never promised the opportunity to earn enough income in a year or two, to purchase a house outright, so the big-bucks wasn’t the draw like lately – it was a ‘career’ I entered. We signed-up customers, hundreds and even thousands of loan customers face to face; seeing their fears, desperation, and relief when approved, made a lasting impression on me from my early days in training. I believe these two major differences are why I think so much like I do.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Keyword/phrases SE SEO

Tuesday of this past week, I told you a bit more about some of our website organic search engine results. I can tell you, the more I study terms words/phrases people search on the various major search engines (SEs), the more fascinating it is to me to see the differences as between them. Although our pals at Google run the SE that is widely reported to do 70% of all Internet searches, I am frequently surprised to see what their crawler/spiders pick up on our site, that they rank as relevant. Frequently, the exact terms are searched on the same day on multiple SEs, which result in different rankings on our keyword words/phrases within them.

It may very well be that the various page TAGS help in increasing ranking for a particular searched keyword/phrase, but I see eveyday the SEs pick up text (content) from our pages that they use, as they rank and sort what we have to say on the different pages on our site. And of course they're not static, they change from day to day sometimes too, from what I see. I wonder about the extent to which I'm going to punish our search term rankings, when I re-write most of the pages on our site at years' end; do ya think I'm gonna want to kill myself after I do that?

Below are some of our less than delightful recent searched terms, which resulted in bringing SE visitors to our website. Like last Tuesday, as you click them and you can see the actual search page that someone looked at, just before they clicked our link, and visited our site:


Google Search
planning a company mentoring program #7
mortgage loan officer training #25
mortgage training store #25
secrets of successful mortgage brokers #10
mortgage ceo duties responsibilities #15
cmp designation #6
loan officer education #10
mortgage classes in ohio #3 and #4
mortgage loan officer 101 #6 and #7
whats it like to be a mortgage broker? #6
loan broker training #30
mortgage bankers coaching programs #6
secret society tattoo #3
mortgage lesson #3 and #4

Yahoo Search
affordable training for mortgage brokers #5
loan broker mentoring #9
loan originarator training center #2
mortgage lesson #1
cmp designation #4

MSN/Live Search
secret hands shake #7
best mortgage originator mentoring #2 and #3
mortgage industry in ohio #8
loan officer 101 #31

The residential real estate mortgage lending industry niche that we at Secret! University are in, is a highly competitive one - yet I see our competition focusing mostly on 'sales' - how to make a 6+ figure income with little or no work, or motivational seminars all about pumping up the egos of those in attendance, a very narrow spotlight in my view. Our curriculum; Mentor/teachers have far more know-how than mere ordinary sales skills, so our focus is much wider, and it is my hope it is more attractive to potential students - as THE place to visit for top-notch industry training & educational needs.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

More on SEO & PR

I was gonna tell you more today on the dozens and dozens of key word/phrases which we try to get a good ranking on, but they have resulted in a page (ex.) 319 or 1,756 placement ... but I was embarrased to show you that list too - it's longer ...

On an industry discussion board I enjoy, today someone was speaking about Page Rank (PR) and I gave him this answer I though was important:

"I'm starting to think this PR is an ego thingy, I even find myself spending quite a bit of time seeking relevant sites with good PR to link to us - which MIGHT bring us a customer from the other's guys site - 'cause they're sorta 'curious', but for that to happen I won't hold my breath ... I think what one search engine (Google 70% of all searches on the planet) thinks about how revelant our site is - its PR - means less to me that what potential customers think evey day of the week! BUT, remember this Jake -- out there in the real world of Internet YOUR 'serious' future customers (and mine as well) don't give two hoots about your PR in my view - they find you because they search specific words and phrases on any number of search engines, so they can be lead to a website which will help them solve their problems, one with solutions and good information.We have been focusing on getting first page key word/phrase ranking (on as many different words/phrases as we can) on all the major organic search engines -- with some reasonably good results so far. I speak about this and our stats from time to time in my Blog -- could be some good info for you there, check it out when you have the time!

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

We Don't Need No Stinking SEO ... or do we?

All of you who have your own website, struggle from time to time with 'organic' key word/phrase placements, as I do. There's loads of good information out on the Internet on how to get your website to rank high on Google, Yahoo, Live, AOL, etc. and not in position 45,487 on page 28,942 on this or that search - the location we've all been in at one time or another. What the guru's don't happen to mention to you and I, is that our residential real esate mortgage lending industry is a very difficult one to get a first page ranking on.

I myself set out to develop a retail residential real estate mortgage brokerage website, attract applicants exclusively via the net, and get them closed all through the 21st Century technology, the Internet and my website back in 1999. Over the 39 months I created and fine tuned it, I talked about it daily, inside the Mortgage Grapevine industry discussion board many thousands of time, both the successes and the failures as they unfolded - then stopped operations and 5 years ago began teaching a live class to show others how - that's how and when the Secret! University mortgage training center began (just a small bit of historical context).

With that accomplishment under my belt, and remaining anal about statistics from my early days with The Mother Company. I changed over the website to the one you all see today - a learning center with a wide variety of venues for potential students to choose from.

I've become a student of SEO -- -today I wanted to share some of our recent results with several different search engines - this info came from my daily study of our web visitor statistics (which I sort inside an excel spreadsheet):

Google Search
mortgage broker mentor #1
mortgage finance certification courses #1
mortgage instruction #1
mortgage training master #1 and #2
certified mortgage professional #2
residential real estate mortgage lessons #1
mortgage industry publications #1
step by step mortgage lesson #1 and #2
mortgage professional mentor #1 and #2
certified mortgage banker #1
certified mortgage certifications #2
mortgage lessons #1 and #2
cmp certified mortgage planner university #1 and #2
requirements for cmp designation #1

Yahoo Search
mortgage professional training #1
mortgage officer lessons #1
ceritified mortgage professional #2
loan originarator training center #2
looking for a mentor loan officer mortgage industry #1
mortgage lesson #1

MSN/Live Search
best mortgage originator mentoring #2 and #3
certified mortgage professional #1
certification mortgage professionals #2

AOL Search
mortgage lessons #1 and #2

What I find interesting about these random entries above, is how similiar the words/phrases seems to be and yet ranking different from one search engine to the next. Although I am quite proud of how well we rank on these and other key word/phrases, etc. I wanted it point out that it is my opinion that even though 'placement' is indeed an exact science, and I don't know what it is yet ... so if you're having difficulty ... join the party!

Monday, December 03, 2007

Subprime History ... more

Last week I mentioned my friend Paul back in New York, is in the process of writing a book on the History of Subprime. Here's a cut & past of an e-mail exchange we had this morning, thought you might get a kick out of it:


Pete,
track for me, if you can, the phrase 'subprime.'
--When I started covering this stuff in the early 90s the industry then was calling it 'B&C' lending. Then in morphed into 'home equity' and 'subprime,' then 'non-prime.' What was it called in the 60s and 70s?

Paul


Paul: Those phrases were all invented by the conventional residential real estate mortgage lending industry who seemed to have the need for a label to show it was different from them. We never had a cute little label for it back in the day. The one you missed, which is what I myself have used is 'non-conforming' - it seems to be the one that best describes the animal. 'Snooty' 'A' type lenders choke on all of those (because that sort of lending is beneath them), so they made up ALT-A !!! hahhahahaha

Contact me anytime pal.

Peter

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Merry Christmas

Got the Christmas lights all up and working on our main website, go take a look - they're pretty nifty if I do say so myself!

November turned out to be the second most lively month for unique visitors to our main wesbite in the last six months; a full 39% of all site visitors specifically looked over our CMP and Mentor pages. Continues to support my opinion that, those who remain left in the industry, want to learn more and have an edge, so they can have a long and fruitful career after they make it through this difficult patch of the present 'correction.' Translated, unlike today, that make me feel like our future at Secret! University looks pretty good, as soon as they have more discretionary money to investment in training & education.
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