This next statement won’t make us many friends with web designers or DIY website companies, but that’s OK. We prefer to be on your side — the side of the mortgage professional.
Standard web design will ruin your conversion rate and mortgage lead generation.
Why?
Most web design (yes, even the neat ones with the flash and lightbox images) make for poor mortgage websites. These websites are better suited for bloggers or boutique retailers, not for mortgage professionals who are leveraging the internet to gain leads.
What you need is a mortgage website that brings in traffic, is visually appealing, user-friendly, and maximizes your conversion rate, all on a platform that helps you to manage and grow your mortgage business.
Can Wix do that?
What about Squarespace?
Before you answer that, let’s go over the web design mistakes that can kill your mortgage lead generation. Then you can decide whether you want to fix these mistakes on your current site or if you’d rather get a mortgage website template that takes care of most of these things for you. The choice is yours.
Already have a digital mortgage platform with LenderHomePage? Check out this next level mortgage marketing post for increasing leads to your mortgage site!
Mistake #1 Un-responsive Design
A responsive website (meaning that your site intuitively adjusts both look and function to the user’s computer or mobile device) is necessary for 2018 mortgage websites.
If your site isn’t already responsive, it’s killing your conversion rate right out the gate.
A mortgage website that’s difficult to view and navigate is frustrating and will force your prospect to click out without hesitation.
An unresponsive website also affects your search ranking!
Google doesn’t give too much away when it comes to their ranking algorithms, but they’ve mentioned that responsive web design is one factor they consider for ranking.
Mistake #2 Getting Too Creative With Your Design
Trying something different to stand apart from the competition may seem like a good idea, but it’s killing your lead generation. When a user goes onto a mortgage website, they expect it to look like a functional and practical mortgage website.
Of course, you have some design flexibility but all within reason. Your navigation, contact information, digital 1003, all need to be easy to find.
Mistake #3 Inconsistent User Experience
Every part of your website, from homepage to loan programs to your application should have a consistent look and feel. Imagine this — a prospect is ready to apply, but when they click over to your digital 1003, it looks different than the rest of your site. They click back thinking they went through the wrong link.
They check and double check, but it’s too late.
They don’t trust the site because it looks different. They click out of your site, and you lose the lead.
The fix?
A customizable Mortgage POS. Read more about this new feature here.
Mistake #4 Busy Color Scheme
Just like mentioned above, colors help to tie your website together for consistent user experience. Using pops of a different color can bring attention to special messages but do so sparingly.
Too many colors (a common mistake in DIY websites) and you risk looking unprofessional.
Consider your logo and go with a simple color scheme that goes along with it.
Mistake #5 Odd Font and Spacing
If your typography can’t be read at a glance, you’re making your visitor work too hard. And loan prospects don’t want to work hard; they just want a loan.
Make sure you use fonts that are easy to read, with just enough white space between the letters, words, and sentences to read comfortably. Check out the font and spacing of the example below.
Mistake #6 Cluttered Design
When you sell multiple loan products, the temptation is to list all of them on your homepage. This mistake is killing your conversion rate. Too much information all at once both overwhelms your visitor and makes them lose interest fast.
Actually, it’s unlikely that they will know which loan product they need (that’s where you come in) so there’s no need to list every loan product you offer.
What they would rather hear about how you can help them (read more about this in the next point below).
Mistake #7 Making Your Content all About You
Mortgage websites with most of their content focused on them rather than the loan prospect are killing their conversion rate. While loan prospects want to know about you and the mortgage services you provide, above all else, they want to know what’s in it for them.
Make your content focused on your prospects and you’ll see an increase in your mortgage leads.
Mistake #8 Not Enough Quality Content
There are two kinds of loan shoppers out there: the one that knows what they want and applies right away and the one that needs to explore the site before they apply.
For the second type of loan shopper, you’ll want to have plenty of quality mortgage content on your site detailing the different loan products and the process of getting a loan.
Build a library of mortgage content along with a blog, and your site will entice prospects to stick around your site long enough to convert.
No time to write all this content yourself? Consider mortgage website with LenderHomePage where we have a done-for-you blog and over 100 pages of mortgage content included!
Mistake #9 MIssing Legal Disclaimers and Privacy Policy
While most visitors will overlook your legal disclaimers and privacy policies, about 20 percent of visitors read them. Even they don’t, it gives prospects reassurance of the transparency of your business.
Trust is essential to lead conversion and plainly displaying your policies helps to build trust.
Let’s not forget that this information may be required in your state, too.
Mistake #10 No Reviews or Testimonials
Expanding that trust idea from above, mortgage websites without testimonials are missing out on a ton of leads.
You may think that there’s no need to list testimonials on your site if you already have some on Yelp or Facebook, but consider this: a visitor looking for validation to fill out your lead capture form will get it from a testimonial –so don’t let them click out to find it!
They’re already on your site, why have them to click out when they’re already so close to converting?
Mistake #11 Poor SEO
This mistake can come in two versions. Either SEO is wholly neglected, or the content is written entirely for SEO purposes and not for human loan prospects. Either mistake is killing your mortgage lead conversion.
Read this post on how to write SEO mortgage content and this post to learn how to improve your mortgage content for conversion.
Mistake #12 Confusing Call to Action
A call to action tells your visitor what the next step is after they’ve read your content. Don’t make the mistake of telling your visitor that the next step is to follow you on social media!
Too many times we’ve seen mortgage sites with social media icons front and center, enticing readers to follow them on Twitter or “like” their Page.
Remember that the purpose of your mortgage website is to generate mortgage leads, not increase your social media following.
Make contacting you or filling out your digital 1003 your only CTA on your website.
You can still display your social media icons at the very top and bottom of your pages, but always in a way makes them secondary to your CTA.
Mistake #13 Not Personalizing Your Mortgage Template
One of the benefits of using a template is that the bulk of the design is already done for you. However, this makes it tempting to leave everything as is. But this could kill your conversion rate with local loan prospects.
Home loan shoppers have a natural preference for local lenders, and you can let them know you’re a local with your content and images. Mention the cities you specialize in and post pictures of recognizable points of interest.
If you’re using any one of our 35 mortgage templates, customizing your entire site with your images and local SEO keywords take just a few minutes.
Now that you know 13 web design mistakes that are killing your mortgage lead conversion, the only question is how will you fix it?
Will you DIY it on your current site or will you choose the mostly-done-for-you mortgage template with LenderHomePage?
