My last post about using Google’s new Insight for search tool to show where users are searching for reverse mortgages generated a lot of interest so I thought I’d follow up with a post about purchasing reverse mortgage keywords to help grow your business. 

There are hundreds of places on the web that you allow you to purchase keywords but the most popular are the search engines from Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.  To keep things simple, I’m going to talk about using Google Adwords since Google owns the search business.  

As I’m sure most of you know, getting your website to organically appear on the first couple pages of search results on Google isn’t an easy task.  It takes a lot of work and in my opinion a bit of luck too.  No worries though, Google provides their Adwords tool to give companies of any size the ability to have their company listed on the first page of results… as long as you have the budget. 

If you’re familiar with purchasing reverse mortgage keywords on search engines, you already know searches related to our business aren’t cheap.  Below is a quick list of some of the most searched for terms on Google that are related to reverse mortgages along with the estimated cost per click (CPC).

Google’s Keyword tool estimates that over 12,000 people searched for the term “reverse mortgage calculator” in July.  So if you want your company to show up on the first page of Google’s search results when someone searches “reverse mortgage calculator” you can expect to pay about $14 per click in order to have your ad displayed in the top 3 listings.  Remember these are the listings on the right side of the search results which are contextual ads.

The nice part about purchasing these listings is you’re only paying when someone clicks on your ad.  So if someone searches for “reverse mortgage calculator” and they see your ad but dont click on it… there is no cost to you.  The bad part is that sometimes a user may click on your ad but they’re just researching and aren’t ready to “buy”.  So there is a good chance you might have paid $14 for someone that wont deliver you any business.

If you plan on setting aside more than $2,000 per month to advertise on search engines I would recommend using a company like Reach Local to help. Managing keyword campaigns is something that needs to be evaluated and changed constantly to be sure it’s generating the right kind of leads.  Plus, the systems they offer customers will take care of tracking everything from clicks to the phone calls generated. 

Overall, buying keywords can be a great way to increase traffic and loan volume but be prepared to invest time in learning what works and what doesn’t in order to make sure you’re generating a return on your investment.

Google Adwords