Griffin Funding is a mortgage lender specializing in non-QM loans. Although Griffin services most types of home loans, the mortgage industry is crowded and Griffin has carved out a few very specific niches in certain types of loans for individuals who may have trouble qualifying for traditional government-backed mortgages. Griffin operates in 20 states in the US and is continuously expanding its geographical reach.
6,000%
increase in qualified organic leads
60x
growth in non-brand organic traffic value
442%
non-brand organic visibility growth
Reducing internal responsibility for SEO strategy
Griffin Funding had been handling their SEO strategy in-house while utilizing various vendors for authority building and content creation. The team had gotten some traction but wanted to reduce internal responsibility for the channel and have a trusted partner take over the day-to-day responsibility of growing the SEO profile.
Although we have many different ways we work with companies on the SEO side, our ideal setup is to be a full-service partner and be fully responsible for the performance of the account. For Griffin Funding, the reality is that an SEO strategist typically needs to spend around 10 hours a month actually doing SEO work, while allocating the majority of the SEO investment to the expansion of content and authority.
Crafting a winning strategy to improve site relevancy and user experience
Although Griffin had a strong foundation, there were still areas that needed improvement. During our research phase, we identified some key areas of opportunity that we started executing immediately:
Stage One: Service page improvements
The majority of strength in the SEO profile was coming from a single page, “bank statement loans.” When we took over, Griffin Funding was ranking in position #7. The page that was ranking for this term had a significant amount of opportunity in our view. We designed and developed a new page with robust expanded content and focused on improving user experience. Since the launch of this page, Griffin Funding is now consistently in position 1 for this coveted term and many related variants of the term.
Stage Two: Architecture recommendations
One of the first things we noticed when auditing the site was a lack of subdirectories within the URL structure and a lack of architecture for the site in general. Not only did we need to improve the internal linking on the site, but we also needed to create a URL pattern that bots could understand.
We re-wrote all URLs on the site and reworked the navigation to include a number of our high-value pages. These changes helped to show the hierarchy of content and services on the site for a user but also added key relevancy signals through internal linking, breadcrumbs, and keyword optimizations.
Stage Three: Indexation issues
Just because a site is on WordPress doesn’t mean the site is technically sound. WordPress actually has many default settings that can inflate the index with low-quality pages. This was the case for Griffin Funding, and upon digging in, we learned that only about 40% of indexed URLs were true pages that we wanted users to see. These low-quality pages were coming from media attachment images, a common issue amongst WordPress sites.
We no-indexed these pages, and some other low-quality pages to help maintain the site’s technical health. Although there’s no evidence this was hurting the domain from performing well currently, there’s always the possibility if the issue were to exacerbate that it could be a hindrance to growth.
The organic channel continues to drive conversions and revenue growth
Griffin Funding has been able to acquire licenses across numerous additional states throughout the US. With each license acquisition, further SEO strategies continue to be implemented.
Through this SEO campaign, we saw an increase of +6,000% in qualified organic leads with the organic channel leading in overall lead generation. GriffinFunding.com experienced a +442% increase in non-brand organic visibility with 60x growth in non-brand organic traffic value.
Questions?
VP of Growth
Lou Amodeo
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