Situation
This Fortune 500 company's lending group is the nation's leading mortgage lender. The group services more than 4 million mortgage loans for customers throughout the United States and is the nation's largest mortgage originator and service provider. Its product line includes fixed rate loans, adjustable rate mortgages (ARM), government and jumbo loans, as well as prime and sub-prime mortgages (specialty home loans).
The client's most recent re-launch of their mortgage site was roughly two years before starting work with iProspect. At the time, the site had very little visibility within the major search properties.
Challenges
The online mortgage industry is extremely competitive, especially since refinancing has become so commonplace for homeowners and more and more Internet users are searching for loan information online. At the launch of the website, the market for paid search advertising on the client's targeted keyword was extremely competitive (therefore, expensive) making natural search results a more attractive alternative (less competitive and less expensive). Furthermore, all indications were that the cost of paid listings would only continue to rise. So the biggest challenge for the client was developing an effective natural search engine optimization strategy for their website in order to build their brand to compete in this competitive environment - starting with very little visibility.
Solution
iProspect formulated a comprehensive and aggressive natural search engine marketing strategy for the site that would generate search engine referrals and bring new customers to the website. At the outset, the iProspect team analyzed the behavior and language patterns of search engine users looking for loan information. Armed with that information, the team developed a robust list of target keywords and phrases that related to the mortgage and loan industry. iProspect then developed keyword-rich custom site optimization tags for key pages of the website and at the same time, sought strategic search directory listings. This process included a thorough analysis of all mortgage and loan-related directory categories, the development of keyword-rich titles and page descriptions for each listing, and manual submissions for directory editor review.
Results
Search referrals to the website have grown 235% since the outset of the campaign.
Position one rankings alone have increased 230%.
72% of the site's rankings are in top 10 positions.
The website continues to outpace all of its competitors in terms of overall online visibility. The site outranks its closest competitor, Countrywide, by a margin of 2 to 1 on non-branded keyword phrases.
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