50 years ago, a mortgage lending institution’s physical location was their way to show themselves to the world. They might have sought out a prime location, invested in strong signage, and fitted the office with furniture to make potential borrowers comfortable. 

Today, things work a little differently. Nearly three-quarters of people start their loan journey online. They don’t just begin there, either. More than half of borrowers in a 2024 Fannie Mae survey said they took a hybrid approach, using their lender’s website just as much as in-person or over-the-phone service to finalize their loan. 

Long story short, your mortgage website matters. Instead of investing in your physical locations, you’ll probably see better ROI investing in your online presence in 2025. 

As you work on your mortgage website, be strategic. Following some best practices can help you warm leads and turn loan shoppers into customers without overextending your marketing budget. Here are a few things our team recommends from our years of working closely with mortgage lending institutions as they upgrade their sites. 

Build trust

When someone visits your website, you want them to immediately feel good about working with your team. You can take some steps to build trust by establishing your team’s expertise and track record of happy customers. Provide:

• Educational content: Your team is steeped in the world of mortgages, but don’t forget that most borrowers go years — or even decades — between home loans. You can help them navigate what’s ahead by providing blogs and other resources to teach them or refresh their memory. A glossary of common mortgage terms goes a long way toward demystifying the process, for example. And because your team was the one to provide that helpful resource, it helps the lead think more highly of you. 
• Current rates: Your competitors are doing this, and you don’t want to get left behind. Showcasing today’s rates with live rate tables shows leads that your company has its finger on the pulse of the market. That helps you build credibility while preventing leads from looking for that information elsewhere. And deploying live rates can be a lot easier than you might expect. Modern mortgage website tools connect to your product pricing engine to automatically pull in and display the latest data. This keeps rates updated without any work from your team. 
• Team bios with headshots: People want to feel taken care of as they make one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives. Highlighting the people on your team personalizes your approach, helping leads feel warmer and safer about working with you. As you have your loan officers write their bios, encourage them to include information that both showcases their expertise and highlights their personal interests. 
• Reviews: Showing reviews or testimonials tells leads that you have a track record of delivering good service and quality loan products. We recommend featuring this information prominently on your home page. 

Provide clear next steps

Once you’ve taken steps to establish trust, you want to help prospective borrowers move forward. Implementing these tips helps:

• Clear calls to action throughout: Find ways to regularly invite leads to move their loan journey forward. You might have “Apply Now” or “Start Your Prequalification” buttons on every page, for example. Any blogs you write should include a call to action (CTA) at the end, encouraging people to get in touch with your team. 
• Engaging lead workflows: Any CTA buttons you add should take leads to clear, short, engaging lead workflows. This way, they can quickly input pertinent information (e.g., their contact info, loan details) in exchange for something from your team, whether that’s a call from a loan officer or a personalized rate quote. 
• Dedicated loan officer pages: Even as people increasingly explore their mortgage options online, many folks still like to know they’re working with a real person — particularly one who’s an expert. You can give them this assurance by having landing pages for each of your loan officers. To help those pages inspire action from the lead, make sure they feature a “Contact Now” button. The easier it is for the lead to reach out, the more likely they are to do so. 

Be user-friendly

A user-friendly website helps you look like a competent company (building trust) and one that’s easy to work with (helping to inspire next actions). In 2025, user-friendliness means:

• Mobile-ready design: Almost two-thirds of website traffic now comes from mobile devices. If your website is clunky on a phone, you risk losing leads. After a long day of work, many people don’t want to pull out a computer. But they might plop down on the coach and browse loan info on their phone while they’re watching their show. Having a mobile-friendly site helps you tap into that audience. 
• Intuitive site navigation: It shouldn’t be hard to get information from your site. Make sure your menus are simple and it doesn’t take more than a few clicks to get key information like current interest rates.
• Interactive tools: User-friendliness doesn't just mean ease of use. It also means readily providing the information people are seeking. With interactive tools like mortgage calculators and personalized rate dashboards, you empower leads on their loan journey. (Bonus: you also get another opportunity to capture their contact info.)  
• Fast load speeds: This is a must in 2025. Your website should load in milliseconds. Google has a tool you can use to check your load speeds and get tips for improving it. 

Apply SEO techniques

Search engine optimization (SEO) helps your site rank higher on search engines like Google. This makes it easier for prospective borrowers to find you. Your website developer should be able to help you here. 

We can assist a little bit, too. To give a better understanding of SEO and how it can help your website, we have a couple of resources:

• A guide to ranking for the keyword “mortgage rates”
• A guide to on-page SEO factors (i.e., ranking factors over which you have full control)

Deploying these mortgage website best practices helps you create a digital presence that attracts leads and converts them to customers. And tapping into the potential here can be easier than you might think. 

To learn how we can deploy ready-made tools like rate tables, lead workflows, calculators, and loan officer pages for you, book a demo with our team today.