Finance SEO Case Study: How a Financial Firm Achieved 1M Monthly Visitors

The financial services industry is packed to the brim with SaaS startups and FinTech companies eager to become household names, which is becoming far easier said than done. 

While the pandemic brought a huge boom to the finance sector due to an increased demand for mobile payments, online banking, and digital wallets – things have begun to cool off in the years since. 

In particular, the FinTech market reached its lowest point since 2018 in 2022, and the trend hasn’t reversed yet. 

What can financial services companies do to not only survive but thrive in the current market?

Finance SEO has been the saving grace of many companies, including the client that we’re going to cover in this finance SEO case study. 

However, there’s a catch. 

Out of all the offshoots of SEO (and there are many), finance SEO is one of the most challenging. 

This is because finance is a YMYL (your money, your life) topic on Google, meaning finance content receives more in-depth quality vetting than content from non-YMYL industries. 

Whenever a topic has the potential to affect someone’s happiness, health, or wealth – it qualifies as a YMYL topic. 

In this finance SEO case study, we’ll tell the story of how we catapulted a financial services company’s organic traffic into the stratosphere, helping them generate 1 million organic visitors on average each month. 

Other amazing results we achieved include:

• Ranking for 2,000 keywords in the featured snippet position 
• Dominating keywords with difficulty scores of 30 – 80 (which is NOT easy) 
• Diversified link profile through outreach and syndication 
• Ranking for 13,000+ finance keywords in the top 3 

There’s a lot to unpack here, so stay tuned to learn how we yielded these incredible results and how we can do the same for your finance business. 

The Client: A Financial Advising Firm Offering Retirement Plan Recordkeeping

Our client is a major financial advising firm that provides retirement plans and wealth management to individuals and organizations of all sizes. 

While we tend to work with small-to-medium sized companies the most, we’re no stranger to working with enterprise-level clients, either. 

This client was already extremely well established in the financial services industry, as they’re one of the largest retirement plan providers in the United States. 

As a result, their website was generating hundreds of thousands of organic visitors, and it was ranking for several thousand keywords in the top 3 of search engine result pages.

While these would be outstanding numbers for smaller companies, our client knew they could be doing WAY better. 

They were being overshadowed and outranked by their competitors, so they knew that their current SEO efforts just weren’t cutting it. 

For example, they were ranking in positions 5 – 15 for TONS of crucial financial services keywords, which aren’t high enough to generate much traffic at all. In the organic SEO world, it’s all about ranking in position #1 for your most important keywords (also called ‘money’ keywords because they direct users to product and service pages). 

Why is that?

It’s because the website ranked in position 1 receives the lion’s share of clicks. Research has shown that position 1 on Google has a click-through rate (CTR) of 74.5%, which is huge. Compare that to the CTR of position 2, which drops all the way down to 43.4%. 

By position 5 (where the client was ranking for tons of keywords), the CTR is only 32.6%. 

This is why SEO is very much a race to the top, with websites from all industries competing for the #1 position for their respective keywords. 

Setting up a HOTH X campaign 

Since our client was seeing a marginal SEO performance, they were ready to let an expert agency like ours take the wheel. 

When doing research online, they came across our numerous five-star reviews and testimonials, and decided to get in touch with us for a consultation. 

During the initial call, they let us know their current situation. 

Despite being an enterprise-level financial advising firm, their online visibility wasn’t where they wanted it. 

We then started talking about potential goals, such as:

1. Pushing lower ranking keywords (positions 5 – 15) into the top 3 (preferably position #1) 
2. Starting to rank for featured snippets 
3. Diversifying their stagnant backlink profile 
4. Boost organic traffic as much as possible 

After talking for a while, we determined it was best for the client to sign up for a HOTH X campaign. 

HOTH X is our fully managed SEO service, where we take the entire process off your hands. 

You get a dedicated campaign manager who puts together a long-term strategy, and our team handles things like content creation and backlink outreach. 

We recommend HOTH X whenever our clients need cohesive SEO work to achieve their goals. If a client has simpler goals (and their website is in good shape), we recommend individual SEO products like HOTHBlogger and Link Insertions. 

HOTH X, on the other hand, uses the best combination of our SEO products to achieve the client’s goals (as decided by the campaign manager). 

In this case, the client’s campaign made use of the following HOTH SEO offerings:

• HOTHBlogger for top-tier content creation
• Link Outreach and Link Outreach Pro to build valuable backlinks 
• Content Syndication to build backlinks and generate referral traffic 

The campaign lasted a total of 11 months and yielded exceptional results for the client. 

Remember the potential goals we mentioned earlier?

We wound up achieving ALL of them and then some, so stay tuned to learn more about the results later. 

In the meantime, let’s take a closer look at the campaign details. 

Kicking Things Off with an SEO Audit 

Every HOTH X campaign begins the same way: with a thorough audit of their website’s current SEO performance. 

This is because an audit provides us with the foundation we need to develop a killer campaign. In particular, the audit is where we catch any potential issues that may negatively impact our future efforts, such as:

• Duplicate content 
• Thin content (pages with less than 1,000 words) 
• Broken links 
• Lost backlinks 
• Indexing errors (which can cause your content to disappear from the search results if left unresolved) 
• Missing metadata 
• Images without alt tags 
• Keyword spam (using a target keyword too many times on a web page) 

Besides looking for errors, we also ensure SEO best practices are in place, such as:

• Proper keyword placement on existing pages (i.e., first 100 words of content, title tag, H1 tag, etc.) 
• Fast loading speed, stability, and interactivity 
• Readable content formatting (i.e., bullet points, short paragraphs, subheadings, etc.) 
• High-quality content that provides real value to target audiences 

We don’t simply rely on our five senses to do this work, either. There are plenty of digital tools that help us with SEO audits, such as Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Ahrefs, and SEMrush. 

These tools help us quickly identify things like broken links and indexing errors, which are a huge help during the audit phase. 

In the case of our financial services client, their website was largely immaculate. This was to be expected since they were an enterprise-level website with a large online presence before we ever started working with them. 

Our primary role during the audit phase was to look for easy-win keywords, which ended up having a major impact on the campaign as a whole. 

Targeting easy-win keywords during the audit 

We always target easy-win keywords for all our clients, but they played a special role in this particular case. 

Why is that?

It was because they had so many easy-win keyword opportunities that it was almost funny. 

As stated before, the client’s site was ranking for THOUSANDS of keywords ranked in positions 5 – 15. 

Coincidentally enough, we consider any keyword ranking in positions 4 – 30 to be an ‘easy-win keyword,’ so we had our work cut out for us this time. 

Why are they called easy-win keywords?

The reason has to do with how long SEO usually takes to start generating results. 

It’s a notoriously lengthy process that typically takes 6 months or more to start gaining serious momentum. The only problem is it’s a very long time to wait for an ROI. 

This is where the power of easy-win keywords comes into the picture. 

Since the client’s website is already ranking for these keywords, it usually only takes a few simple optimizations to get them ranking higher. 

Moreover, the content is already indexed, so you’ll only have to wait for Google to recrawl your page, which won’t take as long (indexing can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months). 

This means easy-win keywords provide speedy results for our clients, which ensures they don’t wait too long before they start ranking higher and generating more traffic. 

Parsing out the client’s easy-win opportunities 

Normally, we would uncover and capitalize on any easy-win keywords for a client before moving on to the meat and potatoes of the campaign. 

However, this case was entirely unique. 

Since our client had so many easy-win keywords, they soon became part of the main strategy. 

Each month, we would target approximately 8 pages ranking for relevant keywords in positions 5 – 15. 

From there, we would build 4 backlinks for each page (mainly using traffic-based guest posts, but we’ll cover specific link-building strategies later on). 

The client had enough easy-win opportunities that we were able to repeat this process for all 11 months of their campaign! 

This tactic worked like a charm and helped the client finally penetrate the top 3 for its most important finance-related keywords. 

The backlinks we built for each page established trust with Google (specifically, that our client’s content was high-quality and worthy of #1 rankings) – which is one of the best ways to move the SEO needle. 

Speaking of which, let’s take a look at the link-building and content creation tactics we employed during the client’s campaign. 

Campaign Strategy 1: Produce Top-Notch Finance Content 

Since the client was already a major player in the finance world, they already had an established, well-working content strategy. 

However, they needed a bit of guidance in terms of making their content SEO-friendly. 

The second month of the client’s campaign included two orders for 2,000-word articles produced by our team of in-house writers. They also ordered one infographic containing 500 words. 

The content that we produce for clients is always designed A) to rank and B) to convert. 

Not only that, but we go out of our way to ensure the content:

1. Provides valuable insights for the client’s target audience 
2. Demonstrates first-hand experience and expertise 
3. Is engaging to consume 

Our writers are also formatting masters, and we know what Google (and readers) want to see in a quality post. 

Namely, we shoot for short paragraphs, detailed subheadings (to make the post easy to scan), and high-resolution images to break up long walls of text. 

Both blogs dealt with breaking news topics in the finance world, and the infographic broke down a complex financial concept into easily digestible bites. 

Producing content for YMYL topics 

As stated in the intro, finance content is a YMYL topic, so we had to ensure the content we produced was 100% accurate and trustworthy. 

Why is Google so sensitive about YMYL topics?

They are because their reputation as a search engine is on the line whenever someone searches for a YMYL topic. 

For example, just imagine how poorly it would reflect on Google if they ranked a spammy website selling potentially lethal medical products in the #1 position?

Whenever someone’s mental well-being, finances, or physical health are on the line, Google pays special attention, which is something to keep in mind if your website covers YMYL topics. 

Luckily, our team is more than familiar with Google’s YMYL policies. Moreover, we always produce immaculately researched, 100% accurate content, so it’s business as usual for us.

Campaign Strategy 2: Link Outreach 

By far, link-building accounted for the bulk of this campaign. Each month featured numerous orders for packs of Link Outreach Pro guest posts. 

Link Outreach Pro is a souped up version of our Outreach product that’s reserved for more complex niches, and financial advising fits the bill.

Our team of link-builders reached out to financial bloggers, journalists, influencers, and website owners to accrue guest post opportunities, and we were very successful. 

In fact, we built approximately 30 links per month for all 11 months, thanks to our outreach expertise (and massive existing link infrastructure). 

Since retirement planning is undoubtedly a YMYL topic, our writers had to be especially diligent when writing guest posts, which were typically 500 to 1,000 words in length. 

These posts dealt with the same types of topics as the Blogger articles we produced, mainly covering financial news topics (but we also produced some helpful how-to’s). 

Each guest post included a link back to one of our client’s web pages depending on our goals at the time. For the most part, the links pointed to the client’s easy-win pages that were already ranking. We also built backlinks for their homepage and service pages. 

However, our goal wasn’t only to generate backlinks with these guest posts. 

We were also eager to start generating referral traffic for our client. 

What’s referral traffic?

It’s whenever a visitor on another site ventures to your website through a backlink. 

In the case of our guest posts, users had the option to explore our client’s website via the backlink included in the article. 

Referral traffic is valuable because it exposes your content to new audiences, and it can also generate leads and sales. 

Campaign Strategy 3: Content Syndication 

The other link-building tactic we used during the campaign was content syndication. 

This is where we take existing articles from the client’s website and syndicate them on relevant publications, outlets, and news sites. 

It’s the same process as when TV shows begin re-airing on other networks (i.e., whenever they go into syndication). 

Since our client had a considerable library of excellent blog content, we thought we’d put it to good use. 

After all, why only capitalize off a blog post’s initial run?

The idea behind content syndication is to keep your best pieces of content in circulation so that they continue to generate traffic, leads, and sales. 

However, content syndication isn’t something just anyone can do since it requires a large network of syndicators. 

We’ve spent years building up our network of over 300 media outlets and news websites, and we put it to good use for our finance client. 

The very first month of the campaign saw us syndicating a whopping 20 blog posts, and that trend would continue (albeit at a slower pace) for all 11 months. 

Syndicated articles provide SEO benefits through A) backlinks and B) referral traffic. 

The content our client produced was genuinely engaging, so it syndicated very well. It didn’t take long for the client to start seeing boosts in rankings and organic traffic due to our syndication efforts (they also picked up quite a few new customers in the process). 

The Results: A 552,270 Boost in Organic Traffic in 6 Months, 2,000 Featured Snippet Keywords, Cracked 1M Monthly Visits (And Climbing) 

The link-building and content creation we did for the client paid off in a massive way, as their organic traffic shot up by 552,270 in 6 short months. 

Not only that but 2,000 of the keywords they rank for bring up a featured snippet result. 

What’s that?

A featured snippet is one of Google’s SERP (search engine results pages) features that appear at the very top of the search results page (even above the organic results). 

They look like this:

You’ve definitely seen them if you’ve done any Googling in your day. 

Anyway, they’re extremely valuable because of their position on the page. 

According to Engine Scout, featured snippets and knowledge bars snag 42% of the clicks whenever they appear. 

Featured snippets also take up 50% of the visible space on mobile devices, meaning you’re literally pushing your competitors off the screen! 

Here’s a look at the site’s organic traffic and keywords at the very start of the campaign:

Here’s what they looked like after:

As you can see, their organic traffic skyrocketed from 420,019 to 1,054,014, and it’s still climbing! They also saw a massive increase in keyword rankings, both in the top 3 and the top 10. 

Also, take a look at some of the keyword difficulty scores they’re ranking for (lots of KD scores in the 50 – 80 range, which is insane). 

These results prove the effectiveness of smart link outreach paired with a consistent content strategy. 

The client’s sales have also shot up like CRAZY since we yielded these results, so it goes without saying that they’re thrilled with the work we’ve done! 

Using SEO to Dominate Your Financial Niche

This is by no means the end of the client’s SEO success. 

The great thing about SEO is the results keep coming in long after the hard work is done. 

The content we syndicated and backlinks we built aren’t going anywhere, and the client will enjoy stellar rankings and traffic generation as long as they last. 

Do you want to enjoy similar results for your financial services company or FinTech startup?

Then, it’s time to sign up for a HOTH X campaign today to take your SEO success to the next level!