Table of Content:

👉🏻​Overview
👉🏻​Professional Summary
👉🏻​Goal Attributes
👉🏻​Screenshots of outcomes
👉🏻​Strategic Approach
👉🏻​Conclusion
 SEE HOW I WAS ABLE TO GENERATE NEARLY
2 CRORES OF REVENUE THROUGH SEO ONLY

Overview:

For the past few years, the marketing and advertising industry have changed
significantly. The new era of the internet has given entrepreneurs & businesses a
chance to promote their product/service to millions of users.

Though SEO has a Great ROI, most of the businesses focus on social media & paid
ads for promotion. SEO requires hell lot of up-front effort, once you rank, sales
will skyrocket with no repetitive expenses. That’s an overview but, doesn’t the
idea make you drool?

In case you are looking to hire an ​SEO Expert​ or want to get your hands on some
proven SEO strategies, this case study is for you.

So, grab a cup of coffee, open up the Notebook and settle in.

This amazing case study on SEO will help you understand what works best in SEO
to drive traffic along with qualifying leads that converts.
Professional Summary:

Hey, everyone! This is​ ​Sourav Kumar​. Revenue driven SEO Practitioner & Digital
Marketing enthusiast. I help businesses drive organic growth. Started from Internship &
became a growth manager in less than a year! I managed to work with national and
International Clients as well..

Note:​ I’m here to help those who are struggling with ranking, content distribution,
contextual link building etc..

The Goals:

• To drive traffic from 1k to 50k

• Reduce the spam score
• Generate Organic Leads
• Build contextual Links
• Outrank the competitors (Banks, NBFCs)
• Increase the Domain Authority

Organic Stats when I joined Afinoz(Sep 2018)

Traffic 1148
DA-PA 18 & 25
Alexa Rank 110432
Spam Score 30%
Impressions in Search Console 30k
Number of Keywords Ranking on 50
1st page
Organic Lead 10-15
Organic Stats after 1 Year(per month)(March 2020)

Traffic 90.5k+
DA & PA 29 & 32
Alexa Rank 7631
Spam Score 36%
Impressions in Search Console 7.75M
Number of Keywords Ranking on 3k+
1st page
Organic Loan lead 400+(Daily)

After putting lots of up-front effort, we managed to achieve more than we

committed to the management. Check the below screenshot out.

PS : ​If anyone thinks this is a fake screenshot then buy some tools & check it by
yourself & you will get a clear picture out there…

Feb 2019:
May Traffic 2020:
Top performing CTR Pages:

Before I describe my all strategies & steps, I took to achieve these numbers I want to
drop a disclaimer that the steps & strategies mentioned below may give you results in a
month or they can take a year to show results.

The above results for Afinoz is a result of regular work for a year. SEO is not a 4 month
process. It’s very Important to keep updating your website to regularly gain trust of
Google.
 Step by Step How I Achieved these Number

Step 1 - Website Audit

On Day 1 I did the entire website audit of afinoz & made a list of all On
page & Technical Issues found in the website.

Some issues which I found (or you can find) -

○ Unoptimized or No Meta Tags at all on many pages

○ Pages with low or very thin content
○ Orphan Pages
○ No Schema
○ No proper Internal Linking & outbound links
○ 404 Error Pages
○ High Loading Time
○ Pages with unnecessary Nofollow or NoIndex Tag
○ Mixed Content (When HTML loads in https & other resources
(CSS, JS, Images) loads
○ In HTTP
○ Broken Links
○ Open Graph Missing
○ Duplicate Content
○ No Breadcrumb
○ Canonical Tag
○ TOC(Table of Content)
○ Sitemap Structure
○ Keyword Cannibalization
○ Keyword in H1, H2, H3 Tags
○ Mobile Optimized
These are some errors which usually everyone finds in their finds, the more
pages your website contains more possibilities of finding such issues.

After finding out these issues my job as a SEO Manager is to categorise

these errors on basis of their types & send it to the concerned team who
can work to resolve these, such as sending all technical issues list to
developer & thin content issues to content writer.

Step 2 - Creating your SEO Strategy

As an SEO Manager your job is mainly -
1) Optimize your current website as per search engines rules & ensure
your website follows all right practises to look authentic in the eyes(or
algo) of search engines.
2) Increase organic traffic of your website

So after you have analyzed all On page & technical issues of websites &
sent them to their respective teams to resolve them, your job is to create a
solid SEO strategy.

But, what is Exactly a SEO Strategy?

I am not sure about how other guru’s explain in fancy terms, for me it's just
a plan which explains how exactly we will increase our website traffic.

And when it comes to increase organic traffic of your website, there are
only 2 ways to achieve this -
- Increase ranking of current pages
- Create more pages & make them rank on search engine

And since we did not have enough pages already in our websites we had to
do both.
Working on current pages to make them rank seems okay, but various
beginners get stuck while creating a plan of writing content (or better
relevant content) which not only ranks on Google but also bring traffic &
conversions (which was loan leads for us)

Creating such a type of Content requires a good understanding of Content

Marketing.

Only with a solid Content Marketing Strategy we can bring relevant traffic to
our website which will eventually bring business to us.

There are a lot of things covered in Content Marketing Strategy but this
case study is not for it.

For people who do not have an idea what Content Marketing is, It's a type
of marketing where we leverage content to attract & retain your target
audience.

The process of Content Marketing starts with finding the target audience &
what their needs are.

Our Target audience was major Salaried persons who may require loan.
And we decide to create quality content to attract them.

The process of creating Quality Content for your website starts with
Keyword Research. Lets learn both the concept in our next step

Step 3 - Keyword Research & Content Creation

Keyword Research is a simple method to find what exactly your target

audience searches in search engines.
My aim in keyword research was to find keywords with low/medium
competition with decent to good search volume.

There are various tools which you can use to find such keywords.

After researching for keywords, save them in a spreadsheet or a Content

requirement Sheet for your content writers to get an idea on what type of
content they need to create.

Use this process to create enough content ideas even for coming months for your
content writing team.

Always remember creating a great piece of content is key to rankings.

Note : if you write anything you have to expert on your niche -​ E-A-T

My Content Plan
Every month Our Team does Keyword research and makes a Content
requirement sheet for content Writer.

On Page Content:
Our competitor has lots of pages related to banks,nbfcs, instant loan so that
every month I research Content Gap what we are missing. So every month we did
these things.

1. Content Updation : ​ Our team updates at least 15 pages per month and I’m
talking about only adding some sentences or adding an image. Also adding
a new paragraphs, Insert internal link , deleting irrelevant paragraphs and
you can re-writer some paragraphs as well. If you fix your thin content
pages then it will be more beneficial.
 2. Creating New pages:​ we have very few pages and they are very much
competitive so I research for new pages which are related to our business.

3. Creating Blogs: ​ You must have a blogs section because you can give
backlinks for your target pages.

Note : ​you have to think outside the box. You have to find out what your user
behavior is if they are not searching your business keyword then what they are
searching in google. Make your audience funnel. Let’s suppose if you're going to
rank “​online physics tuition in India​” then your user is also looking for physics
material. So, you should also create blogs for the other relatable
Keywords.

Step 4 - Generating Backlinks & Promotion

Many SEO Guys put so much upfront efforts on link building. But still they
are not getting good results. Let me tell you what exactly I did for the same.
So, I want to rank "​SBI personal Loan​" what will be my link building
strategy?

Steps:

I will make a list of top competitors. (use excel sheet)

I will also check all the competitor backlink profile (what type of backlink
they created)
Also I have to check their internal link.
Most importantly, I will check their Anchor text.
I will surely Check Referring Domains.

Now, I’m clear to my competitor that what type of backlink needs to be

created.

Backlink Strategy that actually works for me:

1. Spy on Competitor - ​I almost created backlinks wherever they

created.

2. Guest post -​ My Team is very active on this because it will impact on

your ranking quickly. if you post an article on a relevant website, you
can get traffic as well. I have elaborated about this in detail towards
the end so that you don’t miss out on some kickass PR opportunities!

3. Web 2.0 -​ I see many of the SEO people getting huge backlink
through web 2.0. we also managed to get a bunch of backlinks from
web 2.0 sites along with the proper strategy. We published 100%
unique articles with proper internal links, keyword rich anchor text.

4. Article submission -​ we have published a huge number of article

submission sites which are very active and less spam.
5. Social Bookmarking –​ We shared blogs on social bookmarking sites
and also promoted web 2.0 & guest post articles.
6. Classified -​ Classified links improved local ranking as well.
7. PPT & PDF Submission
8. Video Submission
9. Q & A (we found finance related Q & A sites)
10. Local Listing
11. Startup Directory
12. Link exchange
13. Press Release
14. Image sub
 15. podcast Sub

Necessary Work : Keyword Rich Anchor Text

Having Keyword Rich anchor text is an important element in ranking for
competitive terms. Because if you create a backlink with an exact match it
will consider spamming.

For example: ​I want to rank on "sbi personal loan '''.I will use anchor text
like; Personal loan from sbi, personal loan in sbi, apply loan from sbi, apply
personal loan in sbi bank. The mix of anchor text would look pretty natural
to Google.

Bonus Tip:​ promote your Target page through facebook but before
promoting make sure you implemented Hotjar (heatmap tracking tool) you
can check that user behavior.

Step 5 - SPY on your Competitor

There are a few objectives for analyzing your competitors:

● To find New Keyword Opportunity
● To see what type of content are performing well
● To find link opportunity
● Check their Top performing pages
● Check their On page Strategy ( internal link, anchor text ratio,
outbound links, side-wide links, CTA(click to action button), Content
Structure,
●

Last Concern:
In concrete terms, performing an SEO competitor analysis lets you:
 1. Learn what works and what doesn’t in your industry.
2. Find competitors’ weaknesses, and capitalize on them.
3. Find competitors’ strengths, and replicate them.
4. Understand what SEO tasks to prioritize going forward.
5. Understand how difficult outperforming competitors in the SERPs is likely
to be.

​(By Ahref)

Note : Download SEO Competitor Analysis by Moz - ​Click here

The X Factor - Holistic Branding & PR

One thing that many of us tend to sideline is the power of Branding &
PR. ​Apart from publishing the desired volume of content and creating
quality backlinks, we never ignored the look and feel of our website. The
use of creatives and the kind of colour pattern that goes with it are a very
crucial part of this exercise. Let's have a look at some of the screenshots
attached below:
As you can see from above, we changed the complete look of the blog
section and each post had a set of identical patterns for creatives, which
gives Google the notion of a brand when it crawls the website periodically.

What about the External Branding?

To rank higher on any high competitive keyword is no child’s play. We took

refuge in branding our content on different platforms where we also got the
hyperlinks pointing to our mainsite.

Check a few of the links where we have published our content with
hyperlink. One thing to note is that getting a do-follow backlink from good
volume sites may not always be necessary as if not for core SEO, it would
always add to your branding!

Economic Times -
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/afinoz-ai-based-instant-loan-ma
rket-place-receives-seed-funding-from-top-silicon-valley-investors/articleshow/72543254.
cms

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/borrow/cash-salary-no-experience-at-credit
-now-avail-instant-loans-at-nominal-interest-rate/articleshow/73803529.cms

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/borrow/bid-adieu-to-multiple-lending-apps-
afinoz-app-is-your-one-stop-shop-for-all-borrowing-needs/articleshow/74294334.cms

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/borrow/how-fintech-startup-afinoz-is-riding
-on-young-indias-cash-crunch/articleshow/74395249.cms

WCRC Leaders - Awarded as the most promising brand in Fintech 2019

https://wcrcleaders.com/afinoz-indias-most-promising-digital-finance-brand/
Deccan Chronicle
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/business/in-other-news/131119/impact-of-an-online-fin
ancial-marketplace-on-todays-millennial.html
Yourstory
https://yourstory.com/2019/12/weekly-funding-roundup-startups-raised-2465-m-in-e
inc42
https://inc42.com/buzz/top-indian-startup-funding-galore-134-december/
BW Disrupt
http://bwdisrupt.businessworld.in/article/AI-Based-Instant-Loan-Market-Place-Afinoz-Rec
eives-Seed-Funding-/16-12-2019-180540/
IBS Intelligence
https://ibsintelligence.com/ibs-journal/ibs-news/afinoz-receives-seed-funding-from-top-sil
icon-valley-investors/

What about the PR?

Getting desired PR value is no child’s play and for us it was a herculean

task as well. So what did we do??
Well for starters we started publishing content on some of the high authority
websites and of course the media portals as shown above. It is always
advisable to keep some money for submitting your guest posts on high
authority websites as it will contribute the link juice to your main site in the
longer run. Normally, publishing your article takes around $10-15 dollars for
a 900+ word article with 2 do-follow backlinks.
If you are looking for a massive boost with PR then you can also go for
some good websites listed in our ​PR Portals sheet
The combined outcome?

At the beginning of December we were reeling with a direct traffic of around

3000 monthly visitors, which rose more than 6 times in a span of the next 3
months. So, by the end of February our monthly direct traffic swelled to
around 18000 visitors. After posting on different good DA websites, we
were finally being taken seriously Google!This is the impact of doing your
branding on different portals. Please note that direct traffic is of the users
who land directly on your website.
In case you need any kind of assistance related to media or press
releases(PR) of any kind then swiftly get in touch with me. I can bring out
some amazing options for you.

Step 6 - How i Reduced Spam Score( 36% to 1%)

When I joined Afinoz, our major concern was traffic and spam score. Since
then traffic was hardly around 900 & the spam score was 30%.

After 2 months, it increased to 38% & traffic was constant there. I was
worried about how spam scores are increasing day by day. I don’t know
much about spam scores but somehow, I need to decrease them.

So, I started reading too many blogs regarding the same. I asked on fb
groups, SEO community, but I didn't get a genuine way to reduce spam
score.

The conclusion is, It takes time to reduce spam score by performing such
tasks …

1. Remove your backlink from spammy sites.

2. Don’t get too much backlink from web 2.0 sites.
3. Remove Copy content.
4. Get High quality backlinks through guest posts, blogger outreach,
web 2.0.
5. Don’t use spammy-looking anchor text.
6. Disavow highly spam score sites.
7. Remove or improve your thin pages

Reference : I​f you want to know more that how moz spam score is works
then - click here

Note:​ I Just want to inform you that Search Engines like Google does not
consider the spam scores.
Before :

After :

7th Steps: Track Your SEO Monthly

I have made an SEO Goal Sheet Where we are tracking monthly keyword
ranking, Backlink status, monthly traffic (direct, referral, organic), organic
lead, Brand Search, Total number of pages Ranking on 1st page, 2nd page
and 3rd page. Crawl budget.

What You Can Track

1. Monthly Traffic (Organic, referral, Direct, others)
2. Check Monthly Ranking of your keywords
3. Top 10 Ranking keywords
4. 10 to 20th position Ranking Keywords
 5. Bounce Rate
6. CTR
7. User Behaviour ( by hotjar)
8. Meta Data
9. Content Structure
10. Page Speed
11. Brand Search
12. Low-Quality Links
13. Crawl Budget
14. CTA performance ( We are getting 200+ leads through CTA Button)

Extra Tips
What other things to keep in mind -
1)Keep your pages & post updated
2)Keep Updating Meta Tags to improve CTR
3)Focus on getting returning visitors (Building subscribers )
4)Branding to increase Brand Name Searches

Conclusion:
The above SEO case study shows how businesses can be improved by
the right use of SEO. I have Increased numbers of active visitors,
generated growth in organic traffic, spike in total sales are all proof that
SEO is a highly effective business investment in the long term.

If you want the right results, you must hire the right people. SEO is one of
the most underrated forms of marketing on the internet. Without having
much knowledge of SEO, many companies & freelancers guarantee a top
ranking. They are in the chase of after your money and will not be
interested to grow your business.

You must know how to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Hiring An SEO Consultant? Ask some of the key metrics mentioned
above, which will help you hire a trustworthy Guy. I hope the above key
points will help you to drive organic growth to the next level.
Cheers :)

Ready to work together? ☺

• Get a free proposal​: ​send your detailed

requirement on this mail id:​souravkumar5252@gmail.com

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