Summary
Product Unavailability Challenge: Successfully addressed the absence of specific loans like amount-based and types by optimizing our category page, securing high rankings for related keywords. Inactive Paid Campaigns: Efficient SEO strategies sustained organic traffic and business growth seamlessly even after pausing paid campaigns, showcasing adaptability and maintaining online visibility.
Challenge
1. Minimal Discoverability on Search Engines 2. Coping up and adapting to Google's Algorithm Changes 3. Intense Competition making it difficult to secure top rankings for popular keywords 4. Technical SEO Issues such as duplicate content, site speed, poor site performance 5. Changing Search Behavior evolving over time, influenced by technology, trends, and societal changes 6. Penalties and Deindexing:Staying compliant and avoiding black-hat SEO practices is crucial to maintaining a positive online presence. 7. Measuring ROI: Proving the SEO efforts turning into business proposition.
Objective
Improve Discoverability of Personal Loan Product led searches Improve organic search rankings: Increase visibility in SERP: TOFU, MOFU & BOFU led keywords. CTR Improvement: Focus on creating click-worthy SERP Generate high-quality links: Develop link building strategy to acquire relevant backlinks & internal links Traffic improvements: Increase organic traffic from brand & non-brand keywords Increase Engagement of Users: Enhance user experience: Improve page load speed to provide seamless experience Optimize website content: Create and optimize content basis EEAT theory. User Interface/User Experience enhancement: Focusing on empathy mapping, improve dwell time, better user experience Drive Personal Loan leads Digitally: Cross Selling & optimizing User Interface Funnel Analysis: User Drop Off Audit Microscopic CRO (CTA Audit, Testing Communications) Removing Technical Bottlenecks Leveraging High Visibility Assets like Homepage, Netbanking, ChatBot & Near Me Domain.
Strategy
Identified Personal Loan led Searches to understand the total addressable market (TAM) online basis competition analysis Developed strategy to get the maximum share of Voice (Relevant Traffic) of total addressable market online Focused on ranking for "High Intent + High Decision" led keywords which used to drive loan disbursal for paid campaigns the previous financial year e.g. apply for personal loan online Improved CTR by SERP Enhancement: Implemented structured data codes, Optimized content for Featured Snippets, integrated link in RHS for sitelink appearance. Identified & Optimized Low Hanging Opportunities (keyword Ranking in 5-20 positions) Created & Optimized 100+ Articles to address informative queries Generated high-quality backlinks: Generated 32K Anchor Text Backlinks for "Personal Loan" anchor text from subdomains https://near-me.hdfcbank.com/branch-atm-locator/ Resolved Technical bottlenecks & content plagiarism: Blocked duplicate indexed websites in Google like https://newsite.hdfcbank.com/ , https://portalnetuat.hdfcbank.com/ from getting indexed in Google. Thus, ensuring we weren't impacted by Google's content helpful update in Aug'22 & Dec'22. Vernacular: Tapped into vernacular queries in the below 8 languages Hindi Marathi Malayalam Kannada Gujarati Telugu Tamil Bengali Amount Based: Created 10 Amount based articles to tap "amount based" search queries. E.g. "how to get 1 lakh personal loan" How to get 1 lakh personal loan How to get 2 lakh personal loan How to get 3 lakh personal loan How to get 4 lakh personal loan How to get 5 lakh personal loan How to get 6 lakh personal loan How to get 7 lakh personal loan How to get 15 lakh personal loan How to get 20 lakh personal loan How to get 25 lakh personal loan Improved Conversions with CRO Activities: Chatbot Audit: Using EVA Chatbot to answer user related queries and accelerate the loan disbursal Leveraging website assets like Branch locator Pages Via Targeted banners to highlight key features of HDFC Bank.
Data
Impact of CTR Enhancement Activities: Featured Snippet: Mar'22: Keywords - 464, Search Volume - 84.8K Mar'23: Keywords - 1065 (130% Increase), Search Volume - 115.1K (36% Increase) Sitelinks: Mar'22: Keywords - 1.9K, Search Volume - 614.9K Mar'23: Keywords - 5.2K (174% Increase), Search Volume - 1.0M (63% Increase) FAQ Schema Appearance: Mar'22: Keywords - 2.7K, Search Volume - 851.6K Mar'23: Keywords - 6.1K (126% Increase), Search Volume - 1.2M (37% Increase) Improved Keyword Ranking of "Personal Loan": Rank Improvement: Jan'23 - 7, Feb'23 - 2, Mar'23 - 6, Apr'23 - 6, May'23 - 6, Jun'23 - 5, Jul'23 - 2, Aug'23 - 5, Sep'23 - 5, Oct'23 - 2
Solution
Business Driven Keywords: Focused on ranking for "High Intent + High Decision" led keywords which used to drive apply loan for paid campaigns the previous financial year (e.g. apply for personal loan online) Identification & Rectification of High Traffic & Low Converting pages: Call to action Audit, Content freshness, communication testing with personalized banners, AMP User interface update Early Adopter for "Amount based loan" Searches: Very few competitors are focusing on "amount based loan" searches, which we had created leading to first movers advantage Leveraged on every theme in search universe: Covered themes like Informative, Hyperlocal, vernacular, types of personal loan, marriage loan, loan for students, High Intent + high Decision & core keywords Traffic Retention: Dominated the search space for non-brand keywords by retaining the rankings in top 3 positions (every month for whole financial year) User Engagement Retention: Multiple Content Format Integration (Relevant video + Content Update + Adobe targeted Banners + Infographics on AMP) Improved Conversions with CRO Activities: Mobile First Approach: Overcame CMS challenge of page load time, by Creating Accelerated Mobile Pages for top performing pages Enhancing User Experience/User Interface: Identified High Traffic, Low Converting Pages & Optimized AMP UI for better conversions with the Serial Positioning Effect, contextual CTA placement & testing of communication.
Results
In the organic business performance from March 2022 to March 2023, the results showcase a remarkable surge: 246% Increase in Non-Brand Search Volume (Top 3 Keywords): Signifying a substantial growth in the number of users searching for non-brand keywords related to the business. 174% Surge in Non-Brand Traffic Share (Top 3 Non-Brand Keywords): Reflecting a significant increase in the proportion of overall organic traffic generated from non-brand keywords. 73% Growth in Non-Brand Clicks: Illustrating a notable rise in user engagement through clicks on non-brand content. 50% Upsurge in Organic Traffic: Demonstrating a substantial overall increase in organic traffic to the website. 68% Expansion in No of Keyword Rankings (Top 3 Positions): Highlighting an impressive increase in the number of keywords securing top positions. Additionally, in the comparison of non-brand traffic share for March 2023 (HDFC Bank vs. Competition), HDFC Bank outperformed competitors, securing a substantial share of non-brand traffic. With 3.6K, HDFC Bank significantly surpassed other banks like ICICI, Bajaj Finserv, Kotak, and IIFL, showcasing dominance in both brand and non-brand traffic.
