SEO Recovery Case Study – Lead Gen for YMYL in Finance

This case study is a client in a highly competitive finance space meaning it is in the realm of credit cards, insurance policies, SBA loans, credit card processing, etc… They are not one of the big brands, but they compete directly against them.  The website had a strong presence, but with each core update it fell a bit more.  They came to us to see if we could reverse the trend and since we started in November 2024 we’ve been doing just that.

The following case study walks through how we diagnosed the website and the steps we’re actively taking to get it growing.  Just like other case studies I’ll continue to update the screenshots as time progresses and share learnings while they keep us as their SEO company.  Just like the other SEO case studies from the past four or five years, we’re doing zero link building.

Backlinks are important, but they no longer matter nearly as much as they used to.  If you create good content and can help ensure it does not sound like or resemble AI and LLMs, people start to give you backlinks organically.  These are the valuable ones that boost content, product pages, categories/collections, and service pages.

Let’s jump in with the screenshots and then the step-by-step process for traffic recovery and growth.

Screenshots

Here are the original screenshots from when I first wanted to publish in late February 2025.

In this first screenshot you see things are looking good, there’s an increase beginning after stagnation and decreasing traffic.  A 16 month timespan shows a consistent decline. We were able to begin turning this around.

In the screenshot above from search console you can see that revamping the content is bringing life back to what was either outdated, needed proper sourcing and citations, or was created for SEO vs. for the user.  But we aren’t out of the weeds yet.

In this third screenshot you’ll see other pages are continuing to fall and some lost all of their traffic completely.  Sometimes in a recovery there is less traffic or equal traffic, but that doesn’t mean you’re falling.  The first few months look flat, but we saw new traffic and high-intent traffic coming in while older content continued to fall.  The result was an even balance that showed no net-gain as the falls were now equal to the gains.  Other times the layout of the search result change, so even if you’re in the top three positions, traffic decreases because of AI Overviews, more PPC ads, and rich results like forums and people also ask.

We’re continuing to implement more tech SEO changes and increase the quality of the content as we’re seeing the results and patterns we’re hoping for.

Update March 2025

I’m writing this case study in late March 2025, so its been a month since I took the first screenshots and figured why not do an update to show progress with apples to apples.  Here is how the site is progressing.

New and revamped content with some more of the tech changes is taking effect.  We now have about five months of changes to study so we know what is and is not working.  We’re using these learnings and applying them to the older pages that are continuing to slip.  The benefit now is that we have control groups and data to back up our decisions.  This makes it easier to know what to change and how to prioritize the next steps.

There’s no shortage of things we want to do, the data tells us which order we should do them.  We can combine this into the content team’s queue and work with the IT team based on launches and so we don’t add to the technical debt that almost all companies face.

So far we’ve added over 1 million impressions over the past three months YOY and increased website traffic.  This includes the lead gen pages that drive revenue for the company and is measurable.  So far its a big win all around and we’re excited to keep going.

The Steps to Recover the Finance Client’s SEO

To get traffic to recover we did five main things after the SEO audit in the first month:

1. Rebuild part of the template so it follows best practices
2. Locate and update evergreen and seasonal content
3. Fix sources and citations
4. Update internal links
5. New content and add whistles and bells

Rebuild the Template

The template wasn’t bad, but it didn’t do everything we needed it to do.  For example H tags were being used to style elements on a page vs. define what the topic of the content in a section is.  There were some excess scripts that didn’t need to be on the site, and a couple of rendering issues that needed resolved.

Talks were already in the works for a redesign, or partial redo, so we figured why not.  Multiple teams including us in SEO, PPC, and content were all on board so the stars aligned.  Nothing drastic or major was done, but we did redo some of the URLs and site structure, recoded the templates themselves to follow SEO and other best practices, and we took the opportunity to add some calls to action in places where we had pre-sold users on why they should trust the brand.

Locate and Update Content That Needs It

As with every site that has been around for a while, there is no shortage of content that has outdated information, thin copy, things done because of previous team members that don’t make sense now, non-evergreen topics to take care of, etc… So we put a game plan into place.

1. Find evergreen topics that have or had traffic
2. Locate seasonal topics that will be relevant in 3 or 4 months to see if we can get that traffic back
3. Deal with non-evergreen topics and articles
4. Look for entity based topics that are not covered or aren’t covered well
5. Do a GAP analysis and see what competitors show up for or write about that we don’t or haven’t
6. Look at what is hot, trending, or people are asking in forums and communities, and add them to our mix

The first step in the content evaluation was simple, find pages that used to have traffic or conversions and no longer do, or pages that are slipping in positions for important keywords.  You can do this in search console by searching for a 3 or 6 month comparison YOY, click on pages, and sort by loss in clicks.  If you use a different tool like quicksite, looker, etc… you can potentially go back further.

We found content that lost traffic but drove revenue and built a plant to get it back.  This starts by looking at what was missing or not formatted well in the content and mapping out how to improve it.  Some of it was formatting the content differently so it is easier to absorb like flipping paragraphs to bullet lists or tables, and other times it was deleting entire sections of content because it was there for SEO and not to back up the topic.

Next we looked for what people look for seasonally and found topics that could use a refresh for the upcoming season.  If it is holiday shopping, we updated the content in late Q2 or early Q3 so it can rank during the important season.  For content about taxes we update in late Q3 or early Q4.  Updating before the season gives you time to monitor how the changes impact rankings before you need the content to perform.

While doing this we looked for content that should have been evergreen but is dated.  Changing it to evergreen, or deleting it if it serves no value to current users and customers is almost always a good move.  If the non-evergreen is there for a purpose and can get backlinks because of its historic value, keep it and archive it.

Last we knew that we still have to publish new content to start building new business and develop readership.  We did not focus on keywords, we focused on what would help our users and included topics that we hadn’t covered yet.  Much like we’ve seen elsewhere, creating content for a user vs. an SEO keyword can result in traffic.  This is part of entities in SEO.

We scanned forums and used research tools to perform a content GAP analysis.  From there we looked at what entities have search volume and created content to meet the needs of the user.  For others we made sure the topics would help the end user make a decision, and these have the potential to get into Google discover or get backlinks and social shares.  By doing this we were able to start ranking for keywords in a competitive space, even when we don’t mention the keywords in the headers, etc…

Fix Sources and Citations

This is one of those little things that doesn’t move the needle on its own, but does build user confidence.  When it is added with other little things can move the needle, that is when your site can climb in a core update.  Other little things include fixing canonicals to make sure they match perfectly with trailing slashes or www and non www, a cleaner crawl via robots.txt and meta robots, undoing overoptimizations in content, and updating site structure.

Here’s my guide to sourcing and citations for SEO if you’re curious how we do it.

These are things in SEO that you can control because it is your website and you decide where you link too.  For sources and citations we made sure:

• The page still exists and is not a 404 or 3XX.  If it is a redirect, we linked to the new official page or picked a new source.
• We did not link to definitions or explanations.
  • People already know what something is, they want to know the reason why or how it is related to the topic.
    • This is the same reason we deleted headers and definition sections from other posts.
• All citations and sources to definitions and explanations were deleted unless there was a reason to keep it.
  • If you’re sourcing a topic and it is in your entity, create a resource that explains and details it and use an internal link instead of an external source.
  • Linking to definitions means you’re not providing the resources, so add a quick definition in after the jargon or concept and keep the person on your own page.
• Double checked the resources are still valid and accurate.
  • Studies are up to date.
  • Calculations and tables are correct and have been updated.
  • Formulas are presented in easy-to-understand and use formats or have calculators to assist.
  • The information on the page we sourced is still factual, and if it has been updated the updated content matches our claim.

People will always argue if you need to give backlinks vs. only get them.  I will almost always say you need to source things that don’t make sense for you to create, and to make sure they are trustworthy and reliable resources.  The sites where we do give backlinks regardless of domain authority, time in existence, etc… tend to rank better and do better because we’re concerned with the end user, not with giving backlinks.

Update Internal Links and Site Structure

I’ve talked about this a million times on this website, so will keep this section short.  We made sure internal links that would normally compete did not by basing internal links off of user intent.  It is similar to this post about how you can have two pages dedicated to the same SEO keywords and not have them compete.

Next we looked for internal links that go to dead pages and daisy chains redirects, and fixed those.  Last we made sure the blog posts, menus, etc… all has the right keywords to the correct pages based on intent and phrase.  Blogs can cannibalize conversion pages, so when looking at topics and categories, ask if they support the main products and services or if they compete.  If they compete then rename and refocus them.

New Content and Whistles and Bells

We have the site in good tech shape now, older content is climbing, and new content is working.  Our next step is to begin on things that are not vital for SEO but can help, and new content ideas to bring in users while building the strength of the website.  Whistles and bells for me are things like schema.

Schema isn’t going to help you rank if you don’t have a strong site.  Once your site does have strength and rankings, schema can help you get rich snippets and featured results.  That is where this website is at now.  We used crawlers and AI via LLMs to find topics that people ask about each year whether it is year round or seasonally in communities, and added in that nobody has answered it well.  If there are no good solutions and resources, this is a great opportunity for our client.

We began creating resources for these, and when relevant we added calls to action to our content.  The article builds trust by providing solutions.  Once we’ve earned the trust of the visitor we give them the option to try out our services.  Some of them do become customers because we built their trust and gave solutions without pitching services unless it was directly relevant.  The rest go to a remarketing funnel for the social, PPC, and possibly email/SMS teams if they opted in.

For now we’re going to continue creating new content, doing quarterly audits to look for changes and watch how they impact performance.  I’ll update the screenshots on the top of this case study throughout the year and hopefully for many years to come.  If you’re curious to see how the site performs, I share when the case studies are updated on my LinkedIn page and sometimes through my newsletter which you can subscribe to below.