We were approached by a company specialising in bad credit to help build up their online presence and ultimately help them rank to the top of Google. The demand for bad credit financial products online is very high, as those looking for funds are keen to borrow and may have to go to several places before finding a lender that accepts them. The options for those with bad credit is offering products with higher interest rates, or security such as lending against an asset or adding a person to guarantee repayment. What our client Payday Bad Credit does is focus on financial products that last 30 to 60 days and aggregates a number of lenders in one place to help customers find the fastest source of finance.
Web Design
Layout: The design had to be responsive on all devices including desktop, mobile and tablet. Mobile was a huge priority for us as we understand this is overtaking desktop users, especially amongst a younger demographic. We opted for a scroll down method which is a very popular technique today, as it mirrors the style of Instagram and Facebook. We incorporate large images of people and subtle things like making the peoples’ eye-line direct towards an application button.
Calls-to-action: It is essential to offer customers the opportunity to make an application in several ways. This includes add numerous apply now buttons across the page, including header, middle and footer. This idea always fits in with Google’s updated algorithm for SEO and the idea of “user intent” which highlights the need to give people places where they can apply or buy things, rather than tonnes of information.
Trust signals: We had to emphasize trust on the website and why it is safe to give your details. We started by adding the site on a secure server to make it https (secure), and this also meets any GDPR requirements. In addition, we added a variety of logos including to the BCCA, FCA and CCTA.
SEO
Competing in the loans industry comes with a very alternative approach to SEO, especially keeping in line with Google’s specific payday loans algorithm.
Content: We have been working on building up authority for the website, adding around three blog posts a week surrounding information and guides on credit cards, personal loans, credit ratings, debt and more. The idea is to regularly put out content to show that we are proactive and build up the site as a useful resource for adverse credit and consumer finance.
Links: Acquiring links in the loans industry is a careful science. Whilst getting featured on news and press is always ideal, for this specific algorithm, the approach we took involved looking at what links the companies had that ranked top and trying to emulate them, approaching companies for similar links.
The result has been a strong start. Within 2 months, we have reached page 3 and 4 for some key terms and have generated 12 applications. We appreciate that SEO is a long term proposition and may be around 6 months before we reach the dizzy heights of page 1, but this could potentially generating hundreds of applications per day for the client.