Let’s talk mortgage landing pages. These are dedicated webpages hosted on the website of a lending institution. Unlike, say, your homepage, which you use to provide a broad overview of your company and its services, landing pages for lenders are generally designed to get high-quality leads for one specific product. 

The trick to scoring a mortgage landing page conversion comes down to one goal: piquing the lead’s interest enough that they’ll take action on that page. Generally, that’s filling out a contact form or providing their info in some other way (e.g., in exchange for a free ebook or a personalized rate quote).

You can use a landing page to capture web traffic from a specific keyword, paid ad, or lead generation platform. But once someone lands on that page, what happens next is up to you. 

To help you build mortgage or refinance landing pages that convert, here are four best practices. 

#1: Meet user expectations

First things first, you’ll make a stronger impression if you give your potential lead what they came for. 

Let’s say your company wants to build VA landing pages and runs a Google Ad for the keyword “personalized VA loan rates.” If someone clicks your ad and consequently visits your landing page, what do you think they expect to find? Personalized VA loan rates. Don’t muddy the waters by showcasing other things your lending institution can do or giving them a bunch of extra info about other loan types.

The same goes for FHA landing pages: they should be focused exclusively on FHA loans. That’s also true with mortgage landing pages, refinance landing pages, or any other landing page you build. Essentially, the headline, the copy, and the graphics on your landing page should align precisely with whatever users first clicked to find themselves there.

Carry that through, too. If you have a button on the landing page that says “View More Rates,” users should see more rates when they click it. You’d be surprised how often companies use buttons to lead to contact forms rather than the promised information. This frustrates website visitors. In an age where people are impatient with high expectations online, it doesn’t help your mortgage landing page conversion rate. 

#2: Optimize user journey flow

Once you get people to your mortgage or refinance landing page and fulfill their initial expectations, you want to make their next steps clear. 

For that, a lot of successful mortgage lead generation platforms — from LendingTree to Bankrate — use workflow questionnaires on their landing pages. This invites the user to answer a series of questions in exchange for the information they want (usually, a personalized rate). 

Whether you choose a questionnaire or a more traditional webpage layout, make sure that as people scroll or click through your landing page, you’re taking them on a well-designed journey. 

Here, less is more. Share key details so people can skim it and get the big takeaways. On FHA landing pages, for example, you might have a numbered list laying out the FHA loan application process, then a contact form that says, “To start your FHA home buying journey, get in touch.” 

As you design the user journey flow for your landing page, remember: less is more. You want the webpage visitor to reach the call to action at the end (more on that in #4). Know that their time is valuable and they likely won’t give you very much of it, so make it snappy. 

To keep users on the landing page’s journey, many lending institutions remove the main navigation menu from their landing pages. 

#3: Vet lead quality

Those workflow questionnaires we mentioned earlier are a popular choice because they build lead vetting into the process. When a website visitor fills out one of the questionnaires, they’re investing their time. LendingTree’s questionnaire usually takes about a minute, for example.

That might not seem like much time but online, it is. And that time investment indicates that the lead is serious about getting the information they want. In many cases, that means they’re serious about buying or refinancing a home. 

You don’t want to make your landing page burdensome for your potential leads, by any stretch, but you do want to get a pulse check. Asking them to provide some additional information — like how soon they plan to purchase/refi and their budget — can help you pick out higher-quality leads. 

#4: Encourage them to action

Now, we’ve reached the most important part of landing pages for lenders: the call to action (CTA). This means presenting your potential lead with an opportunity to take an action (usually, providing their contact info). As the name suggests, the CTA means encouraging that user to take that action, e.g., “Get In Touch,” “Click Here For Personalized Rates.” 

Notice that we’re not suggesting generic “Submit” or “Click Here” buttons. A strong CTA has to be more compelling than that. 

If, for example, your landing page features a contact information form you want the lead to fill out, think about the button that will submit it. You could label it “Submit,” sure. But you can build excitement with your lead and remind them of what they’re trying to accomplish with something like “Get My Personalized Rate” or “Start My Home Buying Journey.” 

To really encourage action, some landing pages for lenders include features that add urgency. Several Bankrate landing pages, for example, have a “Lock Rate” clock countdown timer to encourage people to act fast. 

Weigh what’s right for your specific lending institution. Put some thought into your CTA and how to strengthen it. It could mean the difference in mortgage landing page conversion.

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Want help here? Don’t hesitate to request a BankingBridge demo. We can help you build compelling mortgage or refinance landing pages that convert.