Blog, Finance, Marketing, Mortgage Broker Website, Search Engine Optimisation, Yabber

Why We Include a School and Childcare Search Engine on Mortgage Broker Websites

In this article we'll introduce the reasoning behind the inclusion of a school and childcare search engine on our mortgage broker website. Somewhat on the fringe of the typical mortgage broker website experience, the features simply provide information to your clients that supports their broader needs when considering a first home, new home, or investment.

The inclusion of information on the periphery of the finance world is what we know creates more online engagement. In fact, our BeNet AI engine - the only AI marketing system designed specifically for the finance industry - provides very clear, definitive, and rock-solid evidence supporting the claim. The various features we build on the periphery of your website are the metaphorical cat pics that will keep your audiences coming back for more.

A consumer is often less interested in reading about finance-related matters, and more interested in your services because you involve yourself in holistic support. Certainly, a broker that demonstrates their commitment to a lifestyle-related understanding of certain geographical areas is one that more quickly qualifies themselves as a broker of choice, leapfrogging those of their competition that mistakenly believe that selling is somehow related to sales.

Related: We include a geographical search engine on your website. The purpose of the engine isn't unlike the school and childcare searches - it creates engagement. Read our article titled "Why our Mortgage Broker Website Includes a Postcode-Based POI Search Engine". The purpose of the geographical search engine is to introduce property market indicators and pricing guides - we expect to have the enhanced features live soon.

As part of our email Symphony pattern (the email sequence sent to a user after a a subscription), we have a scheduled Delta email that is designed to re-engage a user after the inevitable drop-off that occurs with any email subscription. This Delta email is often determined by our AI, and it is most often messaging that introduces the style of resource we've just described - it's designed to reinvigorate the email communication and potentially change the shape of the continued experience. In fact, the click-through-rate on the email introducing this specific search module is 67.8%, and the open rate nearly doubles compared against the message that preceded it.

What is a Delta email?: The Delta email is named after the mathematical definition, meaning "change", and the email itself is sent just once in our early Sonata model, and then periodically throughout the following Symphony journey. The naming is a nod to to older DC Power transmission that required intermediate transformers to step up Voltage... since we're stepping up our engagement (or Voltage) in the same way. In our own email sequence we normally give away a website stamp duty calculator at the tail end of the Sonata model, and this single email has a very significant engagement level because it's a tool most brokers need.

Related: The mortgage broker website we provide clients also includes features such as a comprehensive BSB Number search engine, geographic search engine, and others.

Bottom line: You want potential clients to engage with your website assets rather than anything available elsewhere. You should appeal to your audience directly and provide them with a trove of resources that they may need to supplement that information that they do need. A customer or user experience should actually mean something.

It should be noted that each of the 'school pages' is indexed via a standalone sitemap for SEO (albeit usually with a canonical URL to avoid duplicate content issues), and each page includes a magnet subscription form with integrated calendar for obvious reasons.

Your Website Contains Thousands of Pages: With other search features made available on our broker website we ultimately return a couple of hundred thousand occurrences of calendar-based subscription experience on these potential organic entry pages (remembering that every page is a type of landing page and therefore must provide a top-of-funnel subscription asset).

We have a number of features scheduled to be implemented into our broker websites - this article introduces just two of them.

School Search Engine

There's nothing more important than the education of our children. In fact, my own reasoning for remaining in my current locality is based almost exclusively on proximity to a particular school.

When buying a new home, moving into a new home, or when researching services near an investment property, educational facilities are a clear attribute that influence a purchase decision. Given the value of the information it only makes sense that we'd include a basic school search feature on your website.

The search engine will search nearest schools within a defined radius based on a postcode input, and we also return the top-performing schools for each state in Australia. Each panel returned in the search (pictured below) links to a more detailed page with the rank of each school, teaching resources, a map, and other details.

Pictured: Showing side-by-side panels of the top schools in Australia. Note the panel below the title showing Australian states (and the National option).The "Detailed Information" link direct a user to a new page with more information.

ICSEA Score: The ICSEA was created by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) specifically to enable meaningful comparisons of National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) test achievement by students in schools across Australia. ICSEA values are calculated on a scale which has a median of 1000 and a standard deviation of 100. ICSEA values typically range from approximately 500 (representing schools with extremely disadvantaged student backgrounds) to about 1300 (representing schools with extremely advantaged student backgrounds). When the SEA percentile is the same we will generally rank each result by the number of each student in each school represented by the top percentile band.

Pictured: School search information on the details page. We expect to build in a large number of graphs in this container, including a comparison to other nearby schools.

Numerous features are forthcoming.

Childcare Search Engine

Anybody that has ever researched childcare recognises the difficulty in sourcing suitable facilities. The search engine makes this task a little easier in identifying appropriate and nearby centres. Less of a decision-attribute when buying a home (kids are little for only a short time) it's still a handy search feature to provide.

Pictured: Childcare facility search engine. A 'details' page for each centre is forthcoming.

Additional features are forthcoming.

Conclusion

Your website is a vital component of any paid promotional campaign, and obviously necessary for any organic success. Your partnerships, conversions, authority, and trust factor, are all predicated upon providing a level of authoritativeness that exceeds that of your competitors... so your web presence, social activity, and relationship programs have to be supported by technology that actually works and elevates your presence above those that share your space.

BeliefMedia provides the only integrated, full-stack, and full compliant digital system in the industry. It is, without question, the leading digital solution for any broker. Our high-quality lead cost is around 94% less than those that ridiculous pay-per-lead services (and all hosted on your own website, of course, and the lead cost is even lower when you factor our organic and relationship assets). Call us to learn more.

Featured Image: Electric trams outside the old David Jones building on George Street, Sydney, c1901. The furthest building to the left is the old Australian Bank of Commerce (now the Apple Store). The bank was known as the Australian Joint Stock Bank from 1852 to 1910, after which it became the Australian Bank of Commerce, and then was taken over by the Bank of New South Wales in 1931. After multiple mergers, the Bank of Commerce is now known as Westpac. [ View Image ]

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