You’ve heard the term, it’s usually attached to projects like Linux and Unix. Open source is a process were developers and users contribute work in a collaborative effort to advance their common goals. Broker Outpost’s new Premium Membership brings open source to any Mortgage Broker looking to create an affordable and effective web site.
Until now, Brokers on a budget were usually limited to canned template style web sites. Very professional looking, but unoriginal and static in their content. They entrust the web designer to create a loan programs page, about us, etc… Once the site is up, typically, it never changes again. From the perspective of a search engine like Google, that’s bad. Say Google finds your site, then comes back in a few days. Nothing has changed. Then they come back in a few weeks. Nothing was changed. Then they don’t come back for months because, what’s the point? All the while, your importance in Google ranking falls to the point where nobody will ever find you. Eventually many brokers drop their sites, seeing little benefit. The Broker Outpost service is more dynamic.
Here’s how it works. When you join the service (currently $10.00) a month, you are given the ability to choose between a few different templates. The templates provide the look and feel of the web site. Next, you make a visit to The Round Table, a private section of the Broker Outpost were you add content contributed by other Premium Members. Subjects include titles like “Debt Consolidation”, “Cash Out Refinance”, and “Stated Income” among others. New subjects are added every day. Choose the subjects you want to display, click a few buttons, and BAM! The new info is published on your web site. New content can be added every day. This keeps your web site fresh and encourages search engines to visit often. All of the content is linked in a manner that is extremely web friendly, the Premium Service even generate Google Site Index XML files to further encourage search engine indexing.
Sounds to good to be true right? Well there’s a catch. You have to contribute content to retrieve it. Back on the Round Table, all of the members create, or contribute to this content through posts on the forum. Every time you contribute, you generate publishing credits. These credits are used to “buy” the content to be published on your site. Members who create the most content, are able to post the most (or newest) content on their site. In addition, everyone who contributes to the content, is then linked on any other members web site in the published article.
The Round Table serves a second purpose. It’s an online support forum for new members with advice and help in creating these sites. Members share their experiences and results. Soon, the newbies become veterans and offer their own advice in kind. Everyone is working together to individually profit.
I met with fellow mortgage blogger, Phil Leto of Lodo Mortgage for a first hand test drive of the membership. Phil is one of the original members of the service with two sites, dnvmtg.com & denverlender.com related to me that his impression of the concept was, “people helping people”. You help a new member, they help newer members, and so on. As the collective grows, those who have been there the longest and contributed the most are rewarded with the growth of new membership all helping to create new content.
The end result is that the members get cross linked, easy to index, fresh, and abundant content to publish for the price of two sassy frassy coffee drinks a month. These strategies attract search sngines to your site, and relevant traffic to your pipeline. You’ll need to set your own domain name and web hosting (a few dollars a month). You’ll also benefit from learning just a bit of simple HTML. Don’t worry, Broker Outpost will advise you how to do this once you get started.
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