How We Got Naked Loans to The #1 Spot On Google
The climb to #1 (screenshot from SE Ranking)
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can be a tricky beast. It’s constantly changing, the competition is fierce, it can take a long time to see results and Google can change their algorithm at any moment. But with the right strategy, you can climb your way to the top!
We’ve been able to do this for several clients, but today we wanted to break down how we got Naked Loans to position number 1 (not just page 1 but position 1) for the term bad credit car loans which brings in over 2,000 website visitors every month with just one keyword.
1. Choose the right keywords.
When it comes to SEO, picking the right keyword is critical because everything you do afterwards is centred around it. When we are researching keywords we have a 3-part checklist. It has to have:
High customer intent (something that indicates a customer is looking for a solution).
Strong search volume (so if we rank highly we can get decent traffic).
Realistic difficulty (not so much competition that we’ll never rank).
During our research we find lots of ideas, then we narrow it down to 3 - 10 keywords to focus on.
2. Optimise the website.
Next, we needed to make sure the website ticked all the boxes with great design, easy to use navigation, pages that load quickly, mobile optimisation, SEO friendly URLs and a bunch of other things we have in our internal checklist.
This is known as Technical SEO and it’s one of the first things you need to do. We won’t go into too much detail here (click here for a bit more info if you’re interested) but it’s something you can’t skip, so it’s worth mentioning!
3. Create a power page.
A power page is a page that you want to rank for a specific keyword. A power page has unique and high-quality content that is better than the competition. This is actually a strategy called the Skyscraper Technique where you look at who’s outranking you, and then make something better.
Once you have the content you need to optimise the crap out of it with what’s called On-Page SEO. Basically, you’re trying to make Google happy by including keywords in the page titles and descriptions, in your headings and text, having a user-friendly design with relevant images and resources etc.
What you’re trying to do is get Google to realise that your content is more helpful to searchers users than what they’re currently seeing.
In our case, it wasn’t the home page (which is nakedloans.com.au), it was a landing page we made specifically for the term bad credit car loans (nakedloans.com.au/bad-credit-car-loans).
Pro Tip — you also want to include your keyword in their other profiles like Google My Business, Facebook etc.
4. Drive traffic.
Once your power page is created you want to send as much traffic as possible with things like social media, paid ads, Google My Business and anything else you can do to get visitors. You also want to get backlinks where you can, which is where another website links to your website from theirs.
It’s an ongoing discussion whether paid ads help give your site an SEO boost but in my opinion, it certainly doesn’t hurt. Paid ads bring in traffic which can then give your site more general exposure.
(Whether it does or not, I’m a big fan of PPC ads because it speeds everything up!).
PS — while we’re on the topic, click here to see how we reduce Naked Loans’ cost per lead by 83% with Facebook and Google Ads.
5. Keep creating content.
Creating an epic power page and generating traffic will definitely give you a boost, but we’re not done yet! You want to keep creating new content and refreshing your existing content.
We wrote several blog articles like How To Get A Car Loan (Even If You Have Bad Credit) which goes into even more detail on the process, and links back to the power page regularly.
We also update the power page each month with new content, images, information, FAQs etc. It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on the competition and see what they’re doing, so you can figure out how to do it better. That’s what we did, and we kept picking them off until we get to number 1.
PS — Updating your site frequently and adding new content keeps Google happy because it shows you’re active.
6. Be patient!
SEO is a long game. Whilst we got to page 1 relatively quickly (within 3 months or so), it took another 3-4 months to get to the number 1 spot. It’s also quite likely that we’ll dip back down as other competitors are doing the same thing we are, and the cycle repeats!
SEO can be very technical and it’s too much detail to break down in one blog article, but what I’ve outlined are the basics you can follow to make your way up the search engines.
Want better SEO results?
If you want to improve your Google rankings, our marketing agency can help. Click here to chat with our team, or click the button below and we’ll help you find your high-value keywords for free. Either way, I wish you all the best on your journey to page 1!