The fact that we only have 15 subscribers and few comments encourages us to post more rarely. It has been too long regardless. Invite your friends! Talk to us! Let us know what’s going on, how business is, and if you are getting any jobs through the site. We will post more regularly in the future, but have been hard at work on NotaryBay stuff. Here are some summer updates worth noting.

Update:
More jobs are going through the site. We had 18 jobs go through the site already today. We will grow to more than 50 jobs a day, but it is a continuous commitment to get more customers, and a collaborative effort to keep our notaries happy with jobs. Scott and I have had sit downs talking about some of the kinks and issues we see with the application. We are working them out and beginning to perfect the site so that everyone is happy with its efficiency. We want the notaries and the customers to be happy with what we’ve created.

Mark, our web developer has done a great job in the last month to answer these questions and tasks with a quick response, creating very little downtime for our customers and notaries to get notifications. We are excited for the summer and the increase in jobs going through the site. We hope, by the end of the year, to have caught and surpassed 123Notary and other directory sites to become the leading site for finding mobile notaries. Here is how we now rank compared to the competition when searching Google for Find a notary and the price for premium memberships.

…………………………PR…………Y! Links……Google Rank……….Price

NotaryBay…………….PR4…………1400…………….#7………………$0-$139yr
NotaryRotary………….PR4………..2,670……………#1………………$59-$179yr
123Notary……………..PR4 ……….1,870…………….#5………………$0-$99mth
SigningAgent…………PR3…………..?………………..#15……………..$0-$150yr
GogetNotary………….PR4…………..?………………..#3………………….$49yr

Google
This is the Google PR Ranking. Google ranks each of the pages it crawls with a 0 -10 score, 10 being the best and 0 being the worst. Usually, the higher the score, the better the chance of showing up on competitive search engines.

Yahoo Links
Links just means how networked and linked to other sites the website is. NotaryRotary has the most links which means they should get more traffic from other linked pages than any of the other websites.

Google Rank
This is simply the ranking of the websites when typing in the search query Find a notary. NotaryRotary ranks number one overall. When searching for mobile notary however they do not make it on the first page of Google or Yahoo.

Price
How much are you willing to pay to get listed? The numbers are above. Some sites offer monthly subscriptions to Premium packages. Most of the directories offer this paid option, if you want to rank higher than your competition. On all of the sites including NotaryBay, being a Premium member will get you more jobs, that is why they can charge for it.

As you can see NotaryBay is growing rapidly for only being in the industry since September. We are ready to move up the ladder even further in our hopes of becoming the only source for finding a notary online. Thanks for reading and tell your friends to jump on the blog, comment, and join the party at NotaryBay!

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        If you are listed with NotaryBay, you are one of the thousands of notaries listed on online directories. It sometimes feels like you are lost at a college football game where everyone is wearing blue, but you get listed because these directories have the potential of getting you jobs without you having to advertise yourself. Most of the time, these sites succeed. Next to local advertising the most productive way to get jobs is getting listed and even sometimes paying for online directories. But who visits the sites? Why aren’t they clicking on your name? And how do you get more jobs? I’ll try and answer all of these questions and I’ll throw in a little walkthrough of the NotaryBay site and how you can better your chances at those coveted notifications.

The 4 main directories on the web are 123Notary, NotaryRotary, SigningAgent (NNA), and NotaryBay.

123Notary – 123Notary is known for getting notaries jobs and being inexpensive. They are great at advertising to signing companies and many notaries I have talked to have seen results after joining. Recently, signing companies have gone out of business and that has had a serious impact on 123Notary’s business. They will need to approach other advertising avenues if they want to progress with the declining mortgage market. The site is also very dated and unappealing. The layout and design could be improved, but all of that is irrelevant if they are getting you jobs, which they do, so get listed with them.

Here is what they offer:
For a Fixed Top of High Place listing you will pay around $140 a year, but only if the position is available in your area. With these positional listings you should be able to get more calls because you are first on the list and customers usually click on those. However, many of these positions are taken, so once King of the Zip Code always king of the Zip Code. They have great resources on their site as well, like training courses, supplies, etc… Get listed with them, and if you can afford it, jump up to the top.

NotaryRotary – NotaryRotary beats 123Notary when it comes to style and appeal. What their site lacks in the layout, they makeup for in design. Their Forum is very active with great information from other notaries. Many of it is more gossip oriented than informational, but a good place to stop by. Rotary’s site is fairly easy to use as well. Thousands of notaries are listed and many are paying for a Premium Membership. This is
NotaryRotary has the same ranking system 123Notary has but does not limit the amount of people willing to pay a Premium Membership. In our zip code 98119, there are 18 Premium notaries, so even premium members will compete and I would likely be #19. NotaryRotary advertises to Title Companies and signing services much like 123notary.

Here is what they offer: They offer notary courses and supplies much like 123notary and are a similar price when it comes to a premium listing. If we had to choose NotaryRotary or 123notary, we would choose 123 every time. It is more respected and history has shown they’ll get you more jobs. Additionally, both NotaryRotary and 123Notary don’t have a minimum price, so you may get contacted for jobs you will want to decline. This is a small price to pay if the calls are coming. Get listed with them, but don’t pay until you see some results.

SigningAgent.com – This website is owned and operated by the NNA. Many notaries sign up with SigningAgent when they receive their commission. This is because the NNA has become one of the premium resources for notaries just starting out. Much like their counterparts, they too have a premium membership. SigningAgent wins on pricing, with it being only around $39 for a year.

Where the site lacks is in quality. When a search is conducted a Title or Closing Company may get a brand new notary who has never done a signing before simply because they are registered ahead of the 20 year veteran. If it is a battle of wits and experience, money and strength, SigningAgent wins though. They are a successful site with unlimited resources for the notary.

Here is what they offer: The NNA site has a plethora of information on everything from Bags and Totes to A huge Conference held every year. Get listed with them. Don’t expect high prices, but do expect to get a decent amount of jobs each year, with some months being slower than others. All of you reading this should know about the NNA so I will say no more except get listed, if you are not already.

Lastly, directories only corner part of the signing market. There are a lot of HUGE companies out there that have their own databases. You should get listed with them. Look up some of the large title companies and Signing Services on Google. Directories like 123Notary, NotaryRotary, and SigningAgent.com have to charge for things like a Premium Membership in order to survive. Next time you think about your monthly subscription or yearly fee, remember you are paying these companies so they can get you jobs.

There is a lot more information about NotaryBay on NotaryBay, so go look at how our application works compared to the other guys. Here are a couple hints to leave you with.

- Have you filled out everything on your profile?
The Service Provider for your cell phone is especially important. If you don’t put your provider we will use our own TeleFlip which takes twice as long for you to get a notification.

- Have you checked your Ranking?
The way NotaryBay’s membership works is a lot different than the other directories out there. Type in your zip code, and see if there are premium members in your area. If there is, they get notified before free members. Think about the Premium Membership, as it can benefit you to get notifications faster.

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This just in: Commissions are drowning by the dozens in local lakes and pools. Sources tell me that the culprit is a sub-prime lender and a severely injured bubble working together to kill the notary industry. How can you keep this from happening to you?

Since we can’t expect the housing market to recuperate anytime soon, what can we do to make sure we are still getting jobs? I talked with a notary yesterday who still does 30 jobs a month so the jobs are out there. There are a lot of ways notaries can advertise their business and be successful. This post provides 4 cost and time efficient ways to market yourself as a mobile notary and give you a much needed edge on the competition. NotaryBay is left out for the sake of bias remarks that may be made toward its superiority.

1) The Yellow Pages
With the invention of the internet, the Yellow Pages have become the old dinosaur of business directories and listings. However they have withstood the test of time and updated their website to compete with some of the larger search engine directories. Notaries should get listed in the book and on their website. Much like Google there are levels of Priority Placement, meaning different ad placements cost different amounts. As a notary you don’t need the front cover, but make sure your ad is noticeable. You can also get listed for free. The ad is much smaller but may generate some calls. Some advice: Don’t cram a lot of information into a yellow pages ad or it won’t attract people’s attention and look cluttered.

2) Pay-Per-Click
PPC ads are a great way for notaries to advertise locally using Google traffic. It is an affordable way to advertise online. The way PPC ads work is that you pay Google every time your ad is clicked on. It is inexpensive, as cheap as .01 cent per click, depending on the search term. In order for PPC ads to be effective you must have a website, MySpace, or a domain that has your information on it. It would be difficult to explain PPC in 5 pages let alone one blog, so I will lay out some of the important things you should remember.
a) Bidding on “the right” keywords is important. This determines how high you will rank when someone searches for “mobile notary” for example. So bid on good keywords. (Ex. find a notary, notary, notary public etc…)

b) Go to Google AdWords to create your ads. Stick with Google, the other Search Engines and tools for PPC ads are sub par. Google has a great walkthrough that will show you how to maximize the click through ratio to your site. When NotaryOne uses this method of marketing we have found we get a lot of personal calls for single docs. You will get more single docs then you will mortgage docs so be aware of the trade off.

3) Hey Neighbor!
Get out there are kick it with the locals. Very few sales ideas have worked as well as the face to face meeting. If you aren’t getting jobs you might as well go in and see what’s up. If you have done signings for this company, ask them how business is going and why they haven’t called you. New Title and Escrow companies can be approached this way as well. Bring cookies, donuts, or bagels to them to try and build a relationship. We have done this before and still communicate with our clients from years ago.

4) Online Listings
Last but certainly not least is online listings. At the beginning of this post I promised I would leave out NotaryBay. I will, but I am going to leave out everyone else as well. Tons of Escrow, Title, and Closing Companies are going online to find their notaries. Get listed with as many as you can because the more places you are online the more you are going to be contacted. Once listed it is smart to pay to be ranked higher. If the site is sketchy wait until you receive a job for free before you start paying. Some of them are cool too.

Keep your heads up notaries, the market will pick up and then we will be once again drowning in calls instead of eating our wallets. Mortgage companies are still filling orders and hiring notaries like you, there has to be more differentiation to separate yourself from the competition. These are ways you can do that. Good Luck Notaries!

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Do you have a brand? How do you portray yourself to your clients?

In the notary world the importance of branding and our professional look and feel often gets overlooked. If you are anything like me you have become absorbed by today’s brands and they have become synonymous with your daily living. I am wearing Levi jeans and a J-Crew shirt. What do you think about when you see these companies mentioned? What you are thinking about right now is their brand. What they stand for, how they operate, and how they communicate to consumers is all part of their brand.

As contractors and notaries, your brand is an important part of differentiating yourself. When branding your business, the name of your company is very important. It should be a well-thought out process that communicates a message to people, and has meaning. The positive qualities and characteristics of your brand name associate you with positive values and characteristics.

Many clothing designer’s names have made it their goal to see their brand (name) represented properly. Some examples are Tommy Hilfiger, Donna Karen, or J Jill. When you see these companies you may think that they are irrelevant to the life of the notary. On the contrary, branding is as pertinent for you as it is the fashion designer. Branding is not just establishing a logo, it is managing the thoughts and feelings of your customers to ensure that you are the notary they want because of the image your brand portrays.

If you are not managing your own professional image, you’re missing a key element in differentiation. What makes you different from the 10 other notaries in your area?

A professional image is a vital aspect of your marketing. Your image is everything from how you answer the phone to your business cards and website. Once you give them Tiffany’s quality and Nordstrom’s service, why would they want to go anywhere else? Repeating this quality makes you memorable and they continue to come back to the same “brand” that your professional image reflects.

Where do we go from here? In reflecting a notaries brand image, notaries often fail in bits and pieces. They have a great name, but lousy website, or great service but no one can spell out their email. Clients want simplicity and consistency. If you are passionate about the notary business and the brand that you have created make sure everything you do reflects that brand. If I am a Title Company and I see misspellings, ClipArt from 1999, and a dancing dog on a notary’s website I will not think professional, I will think cheesy.

Branding and a professional image are essential to any small business. As a notary it is important to look at the long term success of your business and brand as the two are interconnected. You can’t build a brand overnite…but are you thinking about your brand at all?

Make sure you don’t miss other posts. Subscribe today!

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Just kidding. We can’t forget 2007, but hopefully we all learned valuable lessons this year. One lesson I learned? Things change fast!

We were working with a fairly good sized firm this summer having them look at our early versions of the NotaryBay.com application. A few months later, their whole division ceased to exist! Poof. Gone.

Don’t let that happen to you. Here’s some tips heading into the new year…

5 Ways To Win in 2008

1. Work harder than your competition - This may seem obvious, but many notaries simply think being a mobile notary is just about the closing. Wrong! Running a successful notary business is a business. In business you have competition, and if you’re not out hitting the pavement meeting new potential clients I can guarantee your competition is.
2. Be different - How are you different than the other mobile notaries in your area? Why should a company hire you vs. your competition? Do you have a real estate background? Special connections at Fedex? Make sure you bring something different to the table in 2008 if you want to win
3. Diversify - Business that can survive downturns often have diversified their services. Have you? Can you do edocs? (this is a must) What about on-site inspection work? General notary work? You should offer a number of different services beyond just mobile closings to your clients. The more versatile you are, the more valuable you are.
4. Take advantage of technology - One of our main focuses here is utilizing technology to improve our results for our customer accounts who find notaries through notarybay.com. Do you have a cell phone? That’s the baseline for a mobile notary. Can you get e-mail on your phone? Do you have a printer in your car to print docs out on the go? Even better.
5. Go Premium - Our premium membership at NotaryBay offers more than just an advantage in getting jobs. Premium members also get access to exclusive videos and content for growing and building your notary business. We cover topics from collections to fee negotiation to building your own webpage, but you can’t get access without upgrading! Login to your account and upgrade today.

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1. Premium Members Get More Time

Premium members now get first crack at all automated alerts coming through NotaryBay.com. This means all automated job requests put in by customers through the big blue button will go to premium members first. If Premium members do not respond in time, or there are not enough results, the next round starts based on proximity and points. Click here to login to your account and upgrade.

2. Opening Up To More Companies (even some signing services)

When we originally came up with the NotaryBay concept, the biggest concern was signing companies abusing the automated features of NotaryBay. That, and of course my general disdain for most signing companies.

But, as we’ve continued to add features we’ve given and will continue to give our members complete control over the notifications they receive. Since our members have control, I feel better about allowing more companies to use the site. This means more work for our members. We’ve also noticed that most of our members minimum prices are within many signing companies pay ranges.

We aren’t opening the automated features up to all signing companies. Heck no. We will allow certain reputable companies only on a case-by-case basis. So, if you receive a notification from a signing service, and you want the job, great. If you don’t, make sure to update your minimum price to price yourself out of those notifications.

With the current slowness of the market we want to get our members as much work as possible. If you’d like to nominate a company that:

1. Pays on time
2. Pays decent
3. Treats their vendors well

Please e-mail us, and we’ll evaluate sending a proposal to the company. If the company begins using NotaryBay we’ll give you a 1 to 6 month premium membership based on the size and usage of the referral.

3. Time and Date in Alerts

We’ve added the ability for searches to add the time and date of the closing into our alert system as well. That way you’ll be able to see when the closing needs to take place without having to call in. Good for the searcher, good for the notary.

Coming Soon:

- Ability to adjust your minimum price for each type of service (single edoc, overnight, HELOC, on-site inspection, etc)

- Language Filter - Will give searchers the ability to filter by language spoken

+ More!

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Here’s what’s new this week:

Limit your geography

You can now limit yourself from being alerted to jobs too far out of your geographical range. Don’t like driving more than 50 miles? No problem, make sure and login to your account to set your distance preference to a 50 mile maximum. The default is set at a 100 mile maximum (the highest level), but you can set it as small as 10 miles.

Personal Documents 101

We’ve added a new video covering personal and legal document work. I think you’ll find it helpful for expanding your mobile notary business to include services outside just mortgage closings. This video is only available to premium members. Login to your account to view the new video.

Referral Winners Announced!

Here are the winners of our October refer-a-notary contest. In order of most referrals:

1. Kelly R.
2. Jim L.
3. Zandra W.
4. LaShon J
5. Gladys F.
6. Eunice J.
7. Mary B.
8. Katherine S.
9. Joyce S.
Kelly and Jim will be receiving a new iPod Nano courtesy of NotaryBay! The other winner will get their upgrade bonuses completed after the holiday break. Thanks to everyone who referred other notaries, please continue to refer your friends to earn points!

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Running a survey here to see people’s favorite larger company to work with. I have a feeling I know who’s going to end up last in votes..but we’ll see.

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NotaryBay is a web application that we will continue to improve for searchers and notaries. That being said, we improved a few things this weekend that I’d like to point out:

1. Feedback form added

When notaries are logged into their account, there is a new feedback form where they can e-mail our support staff with feedback, or comments about the application. See screen shot at bottom of post.

2. Advanced Search Features

We added an advanced search tab so that companies can specify what type of signing and what fee they are paying when they search on NotaryBay.com

When companies use the advanced search feature you will be notified of the zip code of the signing, the type of signing, as well as the fee offered. If you do not want to be notified of signings under a certain $ amount, you can update that number in your account control center.

3. More Localized Search Results

We tweaked the search algorithm a bit to favor more local results. Try searching in your home zip code. As NotaryBay continues to grow the search algorithm will be tweaked to return the best results for our searchers and members.

4. Performance Improvement

We significantly increased the speed of searches by make some database improvements. Speed is good!

Account Screenshot:

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So, what can you do as a Notary? There are a few options

1. Keep doing what you’ve been doing and hope things will get better
2. Buckle down, hit the street and market, market, market
3. Turn in your stamp and call it a day
4. Look at ways to use your stamp outside the mortgage industry
5. Realize that you must change as the industry changes

Personally, I like options 2, 4, and 5.

Many notaries will choose option 1, and many option 3. The day’s of 15 calls in a day are gone, and most likely won’t be returning anytime soon.

So what’s a notary to do?

First off, go back to all your clients you’ve had in the last year and let them know you are still around. Don’t beg for work, actually ask them how they are doing. With many notaries leaving the industry you might be able to pick up some extra business just by following up with past clients.

Secondly, if your state laws allow this, look at doing more personal document work. These jobs are usually pretty straightforward (ie, a family will) and pay cash right away. No waiting for a check in the mail. For example, here in Seattle we’ll charge a $25 trip fee + $5 per notary act. Of course, this fee is not set in stone, but it’s a good base price to tell people when they call to weed out those who think you’ll travel 20 minutes for $5.

Thirdly, keep watching us here at NotaryBay.com. Our application is a new way of finding notaries for companies. New things take some time to getting used to, but we think we’ve built something really revolutionary. As we continue to show off our application some are very responsive, others are content to their standard operating procedure of calling, calling, calling. Well, you can’t please everyone. But, as companies look to cut their costs and increase their efficiency we think they will choose NotaryBay vs. laying off workers or trying to lower fees to their notary vendors.

What do you think? Which option are you choosing for your business?

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