The mortgage industry won’t be returning offline anytime soon, quite the contrary — there are more online mortgage lenders today than ever before.

Today’s prospective homebuyers are expecting a seamless, home loan online experience, and won’t settle for mediocre websites any longer.

Offering your website’s visitors a great digital experience will make all the difference between generating mortgage leads and losing potential clients.

In this article, we’ll cover the top features that all of the best mortgage websites have, so you can copy their approach to start generating your own exclusive mortgage leads.

What are the top features of the best mortgage websites?

The best websites offer their readers an intuitive user experience. 

You want them to quickly find answers to their mortgage-related questions in hopes that the readers will take the next steps to become a lead.

Instead of bombarding readers with pop-up ads, animations, and videos, keep your mortgage website’s design relatively minimal. Again, we want readers to quickly find your loan options or apply online, and fill out their contact info for more information.

Let’s look at the top features of the best mortgage sites.

About us page

Every company’s website usually includes an About page. Besides being customary, its purpose is to confirm that you’re a legitimate company.

Not only that, but your About page is also important for SEO purposes — generally the more pages you talk about being a mortgage company, the more pages Google will index into its search results. 

When people search for “mortgage companies” your company’s website will be a relevant search result.

Progressive forms

Instead of displaying a boring contact form on your website, just have a couple of clickable buttons that say “Apply online” or “Refinance a Home.”

Then when a user clicks on these buttons, they’ll be redirected to a progressive form.

Progressive forms are a smarter type of contact form that just asks one simple question at a time and remembers your reader’s answers so it doesn’t ask duplicate questions — often the ire of many people filling out forms.

Thank you page

There’s nothing worse than entering your personal information into a website and getting no confirmation that your information was sent through. This can be alarming and anxiety-inducing to your readers.

Instead, just create a simple “thank you page” after completing a form submission. It’s a nice thing to do and gives your new lead peace of mind.

Blog page

Mortgages are confusing for the average reader. This is why you should invest in writing blogs about each of your loan products, and blogging often about them.

When people discover your website for the first time, it’s usually because they stumbled upon your mortgage-related blog while researching mortgages on Google.

The more answers you can put onto the internet (in the form of helpful blogs) the more leads you will attract through Google searches. 

Mortgage calculators

Don’t be afraid of adding mortgage calculators, even if prices are increasing. Mortgage calculators are a big draw for websites, and if you don’t include one, your readers will likely look for another mortgage website that has one. Once they get their results, give them the option to apply online for preapproval right on that page.

Calls-to-action optimized on every web page

Your readers might be so caught up reading your website’s content that they forget to actually reach out to you.

This is why it’s important to add calls-to-action (CTAs) such as “Calculate Your Payment” or “Apply online” or “Start mortgage preapproval” to suggest your reader takes the next steps to fill out a contact form, or contact you directly.

Simple, intuitive design

The last thing you want to do is distract readers from filling out contact forms. This is why Kaleidico believes in a simple, minimalistic design.

Don’t overwhelm your audience with too many bells and whistles, or else they’ll bounce off your site before they can fill out their form.

Also, don’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to redesigning your website. Keep your logo in the top left, and stick to traditional navigation.

Our list of the best mortgage websites in 2022

A great website is the first step in our proven mortgage marketing strategy. 

Browse through our list of the best mortgage lender websites, and see if you can spot the recurring website design trends of 2022.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo has a modern, user-friendly homepage, with its own section for updated mortgage rates and an educational blog. 

We especially like the “Buying a House?” tab near the bottom of the page. When a user clicks on it, it directs the right to a contact page for an easy lead conversion. This is the perfect example of a “lead path” that grabs a reader’s attention, gets them to click, and then directs them to fill out a form. We find this is more effective than just putting a generic form on the side of the page.

New American Funding

New American Funding has a simple homepage, clearly labeled options for user scenarios, and uses progressive forms.

You’ll notice the green boxes that say “Buy a House” or “Refinance.” These lead paths generate a lot of clicks out of curiosity and are less imposing than a contact form that asks for personal information.

Carrington Mortgage

Carrington Mortgage’s homepage is family-oriented, simple, and user-friendly.

Again, this website uses progressive form lead paths as clickable buttons that are directly in the line of sight.

Also, you’ll notice a simple mission statement “A leader in Homeownership.” Adding mission statements ensure your reader will stay on the page longer because it verifies they’re on a website that can help them.

What I also love about their website is it shows a simple comparison chart for each loan product offered, which is important information home buyers are always searching for.

Ally

Ally has a minimal, clean design with easy navigation to let borrowers find loan options, mortgage calculators, mortgage rates, and FAQs all in one place.

A contact form is at the bottom, and a button to start the preapproval process is also included.

This homepage truly does offer a “simpler, faster way to get a mortgage” as promised.

Reali

Reali has clear options, minimal design, reviews, and multiple starting points for a user to stay on the site, including an informative blog.

Homefinity

Homefinity’s design is clean, modern, and simple with a strong mission statement of “Make it affordable. Make it home.”

The most important navigation is “above the fold” meaning a user doesn’t need to scroll down to get access to the most important information.

Assist Home Loans

Assist Home Loans also includes a strong mission statement and lead paths in the form of clickable buttons that start the lead generation process. 

Compass Mortgage

Compass Mortgage’s website follows the same trends as the previous websites: 

• A strong mission statement
• Clickable lead path buttons
• Professional stock imagery
• Clean navigation

Kaleidico — a mortgage marketing agency 

Kaleidico is a full-service marketing agency and lead generation firm for mortgage lenders, loan officers, and fintech companies.

We leverage fifteen years of online marketing experience to build lead generation websites for mortgage lenders that work.

Ready to revamp and optimize your website to generate more monthly mortgage leads?

Reach out today to schedule a Discovery Session. You’ll be amazed at how many leads we can generate for you.

Photo by Pixabay.