Tudor Lodge is excited to launch Pheabs, a US-based site that is offering a range of loan options, purely for the American market. With our strength in implementing SEO for financial services in the UK (including Lending Expert and Get Indemnity), we have jumped at the opportunity to explore the US market, which is more than 10 times the size of that in the UK. However, to rank on Google’s search results in a different country comes with different practices and below we share the process we have taken and how our rankings have started to pick up in the last few months.
Setting up for the US Technically
We set up Pheabs using a wordpress site, which is typically our most popular choice for any CMS. The dream would be to use raw HTML code, but this would be a slower process to add and make changes, meanwhile, wordpress makes life easy to add and change content and there are a number of SEO tools for meta-data, redirections and site speed.
We choose to use a hosting provider based in the US, so that the site appears to be based in America and can rank effectively within the local area, rather than use a server based in the UK or in Asia.
We also changed the settings on WordPress to US-eng, to highlight that the site is targeting the US region. Plus, we confirmed the location on Google Search Console as American – so that all elements point to telling Google that it is a US-based site, targeted US search results.
In addition, we have a US partner that we work with and have placed their address in Florida on the footer of the site, contact page, terms and conditions and privacy policy, with a company phone number, again, confirming our location.
Use of American Language
The language used for an American site is going to be different to the UK. Not only are the spellings of some words going to include ‘z’ instead of ‘s’ – it is also the keywords and phrases that you target. Using SEMrush is a perfect opportunity to find out the right keywords and phrases to target, using their Keyword Magic Tool, and also using the platform to look at competitors in the space and what they rank for too.
Content and Link-Building
With content, we need to have a clear structure of Home, About Us, FAQs, Blog and Contact Us and around a dozen landing pages highlighting the key products that Pheabs offers. We regularly add guides and blogs ranging from 500-1000 words answering key questions about loans and in the industry and providing statistics where possible. With link building, we are looking for a majority of US-based websites, again to show that this is the region we are targeting.
Within the first 6 months, we only ranked for the brand name of Pheabs and a handful of specific keywords. There was a sudden turning point and we have started to rank for more and more keywords on a daily basis, reaching page 1,2,3 and 4 for some large keywords including payday loans near me. It is a slow process and we do not expect strong results to manifest until at least 12 months. Until then, it is more content and links to help grow the site!
