It was important to see which types of websites were currently ranking for the main target keywords. We already knew we had to build the authority of the site and push the DR (Domain rating) up to coincide with the top competitors.
We looked at the current and historical search data to make sure none of the top page had recently entered the serps, this was to avoid false positives. We then took the first 6 main competitors for each of the main keywords on each of the service pages (five service pages in total) and ran a variety of audits and analysis. Our aim was to completely break down the competitors websites.

• Site structure -Number pages, menu and internal linking structure. Site metrics.
• Types of pages – The types of pages being returned for each keyword search
• Content – word count, elements used and type of blog content being used
• Social Media – Activity levels of the competion on social media. Volume of brand mentions.
• Backlinks – Type of backlinks, anchor text and link velocity.

The site has five main service pages offering different types of loans. Firstly we had to make sure the main keyword being targeted by the page was the correct term, searcher intent is paramount. once this was established we sperated each main seed keyword for each page into seprate groups, from there the real research began.

From the main keyword we looked at competitor keywords and cross referenced this with our own keyword audit data. Each page group had the main keyword and secondary keywords along with LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) Keywords.

From this research we built a site-wide group of keywords of 4100

Using all the collected data we were now in a position to make amendments to the existing content. We made some changes to internal linking to ensure that backlinks built to the site fully utilised.
Word count needed to be added on three of the service pages as it was under the average compared to the leading sites.

Some other actions taken were.

• Main keyword inserted into the prime ranking indicating areas of the page
• Word count increased with relevant keyword density and positioning
• Guided by the data added secondary keywords and LSIs into specific areas of pages
• Added ALT tags to all images
• Made appropriate amendments to the site to ensure site load speed.

It was important to gain Googles trust for the brand and as such social media presence was a key factor, not only this but an engaging social media following would also increase traffic. We created a number of branded social properties to strengthen the brand and created a posting campaign to increase social engagement.

To ensure a successful link campaign we looked at the current content and it was clear the site required more linkable assets. As mentioned previously its unlikely, and unnatural that service loan pages will attract backlinks, so we created a schedule for blog content.

A number of supporting articles for each of the service pages were scheduled which provided valuable information to the readers. These articles were internally linked a certain way to ensure link power. The result was articles that would attract backlinks and look completely natural.

We compliled an extensive report from our previous backlink competition audit to create the backlink campaign schedule. Foundation linking was applied first and then home page links to help push the brand authority up.
The aim now was to build up the number of links per month to keep a natural link velocity.

An outreach campaign was created and the team began to collect and qualify 100 sites per day which were added into the email campain sheet for this project. Our outreach managers then emailed a number of the contacts each day using a personal outreach message.
Once the DR reached 20 and organic traffic was increasing we increased linking to sitewide with the majority going to the home page and supporting articles. The link campaign is on-going and all backlinks secured have at least 1000 monthly organic traffic. The current link velocity currently stands at 10+ per month.