Situation
A regulated UK direct lender wanted more qualified applications from search, without increasing media spend. The site was already generating 1.5 million Google impressions each month, but only 1.17% resulted in clicks. Its average ranking position was 21, placing it in an area of the search results that receives limited attention.
The site ranked second among four key competitors. Several pages were competing for the same commercial search terms, effectively competing against each other, dividing their authority and making it harder for Google to determine which page to rank.
Response
Search engines and AI assistants both need a single clear source to answer a query. When several pages on the same site chase the same term, that signal is divided, and a competitor with one authoritative page takes the position instead. The SEO 2.0 programme therefore began with subtraction rather than addition.
Key strategic elements included:
- Consolidating competing pages, merging and redirecting them so a single page owned each commercial term outright and authority was concentrated rather than split.
- Rebuilding the commercial pages around the language and intent behind real searches, structured so that Google and AI search can both read and quote them cleanly.
- Technical work across crawling, indexation and site structure, so the pages built to perform were the pages search engines and AI systems could actually find and assess.
- Answer Engine Optimisation and Generative Engine Optimisation work, so the brand is quoted by AI assistants alongside its traditional rankings.
- Widening coverage deliberately once authority was consolidated, growing the tracked keyword set from 138 terms to 173 and competing for terms the site had previously ceded.
- Reporting against a single defined conversion, the loan application, so progress was judged on applications rather than on traffic alone.
The Results
Loan applications from organic search increased by 214% over seven months, rising from 5,490 to 17,242 a month and 79,838 across the engagement. Organic became the site’s largest traffic channel, increasing its share of engaged sessions from 21% to 45% and driving 96% of the site’s overall growth.
- Loan applications from organic search up 214% – to +17k month.
- Organic engaged sessions up 183%, to 38k month.
- Monthly clicks from Google up from 18,000 to 45,700, with impressions up from 1.5 million to 3.2 million.
- Click through rate improved from 1.17% to 1.43%, as rankings moved into positions that attract attention.
- Keywords at position one grew from 22 to 59, and keywords in the top ten from 53 to 124.
- Organic visibility more than tripled from 3.41 to 10.39, overtaking the leading competitor in the tracked set, which also grew during the period.
- Referral traffic from AI assistants rose from 429 to 1,096 engaged sessions, with ChatGPT accounting for 99%.
// Testimonial
What the
client says
“We came to Woya wanting more applications, not more traffic. Seven months later applications from organic search have more than tripled and organic is the biggest channel on the site.”
