Let us imagine a couple in Surrey, renting, with a baby on the way. One evening they type "how much house can we afford" into a phone. The next evening it is "first time home buyer mortgage broker near me". A week later one of them asks an AI assistant which broker in their city works with a partner who is self-employed. Three searches, spread over ten days, and at the end of it they call one broker.
That broker is the one whose pages answered all three questions before the phone rang. And, naturally, since the subject is money and a regulated profession, those pages also had to follow the rules on advertising. For a mortgage broker the two tasks are one task. The truth is that the rules, read properly, describe the same things a nervous borrower wants to see.
In short: borrowers search by situation (first purchase, renewal, self-employed, bad credit) and they check who is licensed before they call. A broker gets found with a Google Business Profile, one website page per borrower situation, rates shown only with a date, reviews that describe the situation, and the licence details shown in the way each regulator requires.
How does a borrower look for a mortgage broker?
The searches change with the stage of the decision. Early on, the borrower asks general questions: "how much mortgage can I qualify for", "how does a mortgage broker get paid", "broker vs bank mortgage". Closer to the decision, the questions carry a situation and a place: "mortgage broker for self employed Vancouver", "first time home buyer mortgage Ontario", "mortgage renewal broker near me", "mortgage with bad credit Surrey".
Then there are the questions asked to AI assistants, which are longer and more personal. A borrower may type "which mortgage broker in Burnaby is good for new immigrants with less than two years of Canadian credit". An assistant answers from pages and reviews that say those things in plain words. If your website says "we find you the best rate" on every page, and nothing else, there is nothing specific for the assistant to repeat.
So the method is simple to describe. Write down the ten borrower situations you handle most, and make sure each one has a page, a few reviews and a line in your profile that speaks to it.
What do the advertising rules say about a broker's website?
This part deserves care, because the rules are specific and a website counts as advertising in every place we checked.
British Columbia. The new Mortgage Services Act comes into force on 13 October 2026, according to the BC Financial Services Authority (BCFSA), and it replaces the Mortgage Brokers Act. The Mortgage Services Rules that come with it define "mortgage services advertising" as any form of identification, promotion, solicitation or representation relating to mortgages or mortgage services. Section 55 then sets the requirements: the licensee name of the mortgage brokerage "must be displayed in a prominent and easily readable way" in all cases. An advertisement that names a broker must use that broker's licensee name. If the advertisement shows an office address, it must be the address of the related brokerage office. A registered team must show the team's name. Section 56 forbids advertising that the licensee knows, or reasonably ought to know, contains a false or misleading statement.
Ontario. Mortgage brokering in Ontario is regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA). Ontario Regulation 188/08 says a brokerage "shall disclose its authorized name and its licence number in all of its public relations materials", and that the name and number "must be clearly and prominently disclosed". When materials refer to a broker or an agent, at least one reference must carry a title such as "mortgage broker" or "mortgage agent". Section 7 forbids false, misleading or deceptive information.
United States. The Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS) gives each mortgage loan originator a unique number. The NMLS page on required use of that number quotes the model state law, adopted by "the large majority of states": the identifier "shall be clearly shown" on solicitations or advertisements, "including business cards or websites". Each state writes its own version, so confirm the exact rule with your state regulator.
What does this mean for the website in practice? Put the brokerage name and licence details in the header, or in a visible band near the top of every page. Put each broker's licensed name and title on their bio. And treat every number on the site as something the regulator may read.
Why do rate pages cause so much trouble?
Rates change often, and a website page does not update itself. A page that shows a five year fixed rate was true on the day somebody typed it. Three months later it is a claim about a mortgage that no longer exists, and under both the BC and the Ontario wording above, a claim that has become untrue can become misleading advertising.
Google has its own view of this problem. Its guide to helpful, reliable content lists one warning sign of pages made for search engines: changing the date on a page to make it look fresh while the content stays the same. So the trick of updating the date without updating the numbers is also the wrong move for search.
There are two honest choices. The first is a rates page with a visible "last updated" date and a named person who updates it on a fixed day each week. The second is a page that explains what moves a rate (the term, the down payment, whether the mortgage is insured, the borrower's credit history) and invites the reader to ask for a quote on the day. The second page stays true for years. A borrower reading it learns something, and an assistant can quote it without repeating an old number.
Which pages earn the call?
A page for each borrower situation. First-time buyers. Renewals. Self-employed borrowers. Refinancing to pay down debt. New arrivals to Canada. Each page explains, in plain words, what the lender will ask for in that situation, what usually goes wrong, and what you do about it. Name the documents. Name the common surprise (the self-employed borrower whose declared income is lower than their real income, for example). This is the page the borrower searching at night is hoping to find.
A first-time buyer guide for your province. First-time buyers have the most questions and the least experience, and they are the ones who most need a broker. Explain the steps in order, in your own words, and link to the government pages that hold the official facts. For a Canadian buyer, the Canada Revenue Agency page on the Home Buyers' Plan states that "currently, the HBP withdrawal limit is $60,000", and that is exactly the type of fact to link to the source instead of copying, because the source will change first.
A calculator only if it adds something. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada already offers a free mortgage calculator that "determines your mortgage payment and provides you with a mortgage payment schedule". Your page earns its place by explaining the result: what the payment means for a family in your city, which costs the calculator leaves out, and what to ask you next.
A page on how you are paid. A borrower who cannot find the answer starts to wonder, so explain it plainly.
An About page with the licence details and a link to the regulator's public lookup, so the borrower can check you in one click.
We wrote about the same trust problem for a neighbouring profession in how financial advisors get more clients, and most of it applies to brokers too.
Why does Google look harder at mortgage content?
Google's guide says that for topics that could affect a person's health, financial stability or safety, its systems "give even more weight to content that aligns with strong E-E-A-T". Those four letters stand for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. The field calls these topics "Your Money or Your Life", and a mortgage is exactly that.
In practice, this rewards what the regulators already require. The same guide asks whether pages "carry a byline, where one might be expected", and whether that byline leads to more information about the author. A guide signed by a named, licensed broker, with a bio that shows the licence, gives Google and the borrower the same reassurance.
What about reviews and the Google profile?
Most borrowers meet you first on the map, so the Google Business Profile deserves a careful hour. Use your licensed brokerage name exactly as it appears on the licence. Google's guidelines forbid adding keywords or locations to the business name, and the regulators require the licensed name anyway. If you work from a home office in British Columbia, read section 52 of the new rules before you show an address anywhere, because it forbids showing a personal office address on mortgage services advertising.
Reviews carry more weight here than in most trades, because the decision is large and private. Ask every client after the deal closes, using the review link or QR code that Google provides in the profile. Suggest they mention their situation in their own words: first purchase, self-employed, a difficult renewal. Google's content policy forbids offering "payment, discounts, free goods and/or services" in exchange for a review, and it forbids asking only the happy clients. So ask everyone, in the same way. Our guide to getting more Google reviews covers how to ask.
Which mistakes cost brokers the most?
The first is a rate on the homepage with no date, left for months. The second is a brokerage name and licence number hidden in a footer, in grey text, when Ontario asks for them to be "clearly and prominently disclosed". The third is a website full of articles copied from a lender or a franchise, which Google has already seen on many other sites. The fourth is testimonials with invented first names and no situation, which a borrower does not believe. And the fifth, the quiet one, is a site where no broker's name appears at all, so neither the borrower nor Google can tell who stands behind the advice.
Each of these has the same fix: say who you are, say when a number was true, and write about the situations you handle in your own words.
Where should a broker start this week?
Check the header and bio pages against your regulator's wording. Put a date on every rate, or remove the rate. Then write the page for the borrower situation you handle most, and ask your last ten clients for a review that describes their situation. Our guide to how ChatGPT and Perplexity choose which businesses to recommend explains why those specific words matter for assistants.
Licheo builds the website, search and AI work that big companies pay whole teams for, for small businesses like a brokerage. If you want to see what a borrower and an assistant find today, the free Get Found Check reads your homepage, your domain settings and your security certificate, and returns a grade in under 60 seconds.
Sources
- Mortgage Services Act: Rules & Regulation, BC Financial Services Authority, accessed 29 September 2026.
- Mortgage Services Rules, Order in Council 352/2025, Province of British Columbia, accessed 29 September 2026.
- O. Reg. 188/08: Mortgage Brokerages: Standards of Practice, Government of Ontario, accessed 29 September 2026.
- Required Use of NMLS ID, Nationwide Multistate Licensing System, accessed 29 September 2026.
- Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content, Google Search Central, accessed 29 September 2026.
- Mortgage Calculator, Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, accessed 29 September 2026.
- Prohibited and restricted content, Maps User Generated Content Policy Help, Google, accessed 29 September 2026.