Ranking your mortgage website in google search results

What are four main factors that google looks for when ranking your mortgage website in google search results? In this post I will explain what they are and how I know.

Why it is important to rank your mortgage website in google search results.

This goes without saying, but I am going to say it anyway. If you want people to find your business or service from a Google search you must show up on page one. If your mortgage business does not show up on page one you can always run ads with Google PPC until you can get the results organically.

Depending on your market and the search volume for your service, the value of being on page one may vary. If nobody is searching for your services on Google in your area, then ranking may not matter. However if there are a decent number of searches done each month for a variety of key phrases in your area, then not ranking could be costing you money.

Four main factors that google uses when ranking your mortgage website in google search results.

Google uses over 200 signals to determine how they rank websites. According to a new video series from Google Webmasters posted on June 6, 2019 Google made it pretty clear what the big ones are.

1. Content

Google has been preaching this for a long time. Content is the most important factor for ranking your mortgage website in google search results. You must write good content.

The structure of how content written is also extremely important. There are guidelines to follow when writing content to make it easy for Google to understand. If you do not know how to structure content correctly it is worth learning or hiring someone who does.

2. Meta Description

The meta description is the description that is under the title in the Google search results. Using an SEO plugin like Yoast, you can give suggestions for the meta description. However Google can still create its own from the content.  Here is an example.

 

3. Page Titles

Having well written page titles and different pages for different topics. In other words, do not cram too much information on one page. For a mortgage company, every loan option/program etc. needs to have its own page.

4. Performance

Your website needs to fully render quickly. Fancy and flashy is not always better. Think about the user, make the content easy to read and navigate. Do not put a bunch of crap on your web pages. Clean design is better for faster rendering. We design our mortgage websites with that in mind. The goal is to look modern and cutting edge without sacrificing performance.

If you want to learn how to test your mortgage website speed use Gtmetrix.

Here is the video from Google regarding this topic.