A financial services provider specializing in reverse mortgage solutions partnered with Shortlist to strengthen their online visibility and capture a larger share of organic traffic.
In a competitive financial niche, our client sought to become a dominant presence for high-intent queries, targeting both national and geo-specific keywords tied to reverse mortgage services.
SEO Lifecycle: From Strategy to Execution
At Shortlist, we follow a strategic SEO lifecycle—from discovery and foundation building to authority development and acceleration. Our clients campaign exemplifies how a focused, data-driven backlink and keyword strategy can elevate rankings and drive measurable business impact over time.
Phase 1: Foundation Building (April – May 2023)
We began by identifying seven key landing pages and prioritizing high-converting, intent-driven keywords. To test the waters, we launched a modest link-building initiative to observe how a steady flow of backlinks—12 high-quality links per month—would influence early performance, including:
- 3 Standard
- 5 Premium
- 4 Platinum
This early phase laid the technical and topical groundwork necessary for scalable growth.
Phase 2.1: Scaling Link Acquisition & Targeted Optimization (June – December 2023)
As we laid the groundwork—optimizing the key pages around carefully-researched keywords and running small-scale tests to gauge Google’s response—the early positive signals gave us the green light to turn things up a notch.
With that initial traction in place, we pushed our backlink program to 39 links per month, allocated as follows:
- 15 contextual guest-post links on DR-40–60 niche blogs, each article written to add genuine value and drive referral traffic.
- 10 niche-edit placements (contextual links inserted into existing, aged content) on DR-50+ sites to tap into the authority of pages that already rank.
- 8 digital-PR placements on DR-70+ publications—thought-leadership pieces, data-driven stories, and expert commentary that also built brand awareness.
- 6 local citation links and industry directories to reinforce geo-relevance and diversify our backlink profile.
Over nine months, 280 backlinks were successfully delivered, with an average Domain Authority of 47, pointing to significant domain relevance and trust. Links were strategically aligned with priority pages, which included the homepage, guides, and location-based content.
Targeting by Page and Keyword
Each backlink was assigned based on page potential, keyword relevance, and ranking opportunity. Notable ranking improvements included:
| Page | Starting Main Keyword Ranking | Current (Diff) | Highest |
| Home Page | 42 | 17 (+25) | 11 |
| Directory Page | N/A | 19 | 16 |
| Reverse Mortgage Guide | N/A | 22 | 14 |
| What is a Reverse Mortgage | 26 | 43 (−17) | 10 |
| How to Apply for a RM | 19 | 1 (+18) | 1 |
| Hawaii Reverse Mortgage | 10 | 10 (0) | 9 |
Phase 2.2: Growth & Visibility Acceleration (July – December 2023)
The SEO investment began yielding significant results, reinforcing the campaign’s ROI:
| Performance Highlights (April – December 2023) | ||
| Metric | April – Dec 2023 | YOY Change |
| Organic Clicks | 21.9K | ▲10.3K |
| Organic Impressions | 2.69M | ▲1.71M |
| Avg. Ranking Position | 29.4 | ▲4.8 Positions |
| CTR | 0.80% | ▼0.4% |
Keyword Expansion of 214 %
A cornerstone of our strategy was rapid keyword expansion through both link and content alignment. In just nine months:
- +2,622 new keywords were ranked
- Keywords in positions 1–3 doubled from 25 to 54
- Keywords in positions 4–10 increased from 40 to 234
This growth reflects a substantial increase in topical relevance and organic authority across the site.
Click Expansion: 89% Surge in Organic Clicks
The SEO campaign delivered an impressive 89% surge in organic clicks period over period, growing from 11.6K to 21.9K clicks between the periods of Nov 1, 2022 – Mar 31, 2023, and Apr 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
This increase, totaling 10,300 additional clicks, was driven by strategic keyword expansion, targeted backlink acquisition, and optimized content alignment. Notably, queries related to the main pillar keywords—centered around reverse mortgage services—accounted for 40% of the new clicks, contributing 4,120 additional clicks.
Challenges and Strategic Considerations
While the Directory Officers Page achieved 61,500 impressions, it underperformed in engagement (low click-through despite high rankings). For example:
- One keyword had 17,007 impressions, 0 clicks
- While another had 3,586 impressions, 8 clicks
This signals a misalignment between search intent and the page’s content or its appearance in the SERPs, prompting a re-evaluation of continued investment in this URL for 2024.
In response, we’ve developed a detailed improvement plan, including content refinement and necessary CRO adjustments. This page will be a key focus in Q2 2025, as we aim to test, measure, and optimize its ability to attract and convert visitors more effectively.
SEO as a Scalable Asset
In just 9 months, we helped our client transform its digital footprint:
- Keywords up 2.6K+
- Traffic doubled
- Clicks up by 89%
- Keyword rankings surged across 7 high-priority pages
Now the client has decided to enter a new phase in 2025 and double down on their SEO efforts. Here are our projections of how their campaign will run in the next quarters.
