SEO

Introduction

Technosoft Solution won the SEO mandate for Bajaj Finserv, a leading Non-Banking Financial Corporation (NBFC) in India. When they approached us, the NBFC was making an entry into India’s gold loan market and they aimed to increase the overall volume of organic traffic and leads for their new offering.

At the time, they faced multiple and significant challenges which could be considered a barrier to entry.

For one, competitors like Muthoot Finance, IIFL Finance, ICICI Bank – who were widely accepted by the Indian audience – dominated the gold loan market, online and offline. The added advantage for these companies was deep market penetration as a splashback from their retail operations, long-standing customer loyalty, and customer trust.

Secondly, since Bajaj Finserv was a new entrant in the gold loan space, they obviously had no share of the corresponding search volumes in the gold loan universe. In March 2023, the brand search volume for Muthoot gold loan was 14,800 searches per month and Bajaj Finserv gold loan was 2400 searches per month.

Gold loans present an interesting challenge for customers and lenders, in that people have to physically deposit their collateral with the loan providers after they have located one – in other words, online traffic must translate to offline transactions.

So, one of the asks from Bajaj Finserv was also that they wanted more visibility and footfall for their physical locations.

On a different front, Fintech apps offering gold loan services also added another layer of competition.

All of this is to say that dislodging Bajaj Finserv’s competitors from their top-ranking SERP positions would be extremely difficult because our clients were not known for providing gold loans.

However, given their success with SEO over the years, Bajaj Finserv were firm believers in organic marketing instead of paid marketing – which made our path forward very clear.

Our mission was to create and execute an aggressive digital campaign led by SEO and content marketing to increase their visibility and establish them as a trustworthy gold loans provider.

Ultimately, Technosoft Solution delivered truly transformational results for Bajaj Finserv, helping them disburse gold loans worth more than INR 400 Cr., all through organic traffic.

Campaign Strategy

From the very beginning, we were very clear about our strategy for moving forward. We would move aggressively because we wanted to dominate the entire Google search universe.

An in-depth competitor analysis had shown us one thing very clearly – the established brands in the market had a few key gaps which hindered a smooth customer journey. For example, information related to gold rates was not available on their sites. And the loan calculators left customers wanting for more information. We saw this as a golden opportunity to draw attention to our clients’ offering and decided to fill this gap.

• Market Research and Keyword Opportunity: We identified over 2500 keywords as a launchpad for creating a comprehensive content & SEO strategy and for understanding user search behaviour related to gold loans.  Our keyword sets included search terms which addressed important customer concerns, e.g. “gold loan calculator”, “gold rate” and “gold loan interest rate”.
• Content Development: We created over 800 pages optimised for informational and transactional searches, addressing various stages of the customer journey from initial research to loan application.
• Local Search Optimisation: By nature, gold loans are conducive to local demand, primarily for three reasons.A) People must deposit their gold collateral at a physical location, andB) Owing to the first reason, people are not inclined to travel long distances to get the loans they requireC) Gold rates vary by time and placeKeeping these factors in mind, we established local pages and Google My Business (GMB) listings for 600+ physical locations so we could enhance Bajaj Finserv’s visibility in targeted geographic areas. We optimized for search terms like “Gold rate in delhi,” “gold loan in delhi”, etc.

Campaign Innovation

1. We leveraged the full potential of the Google search landscape

Brands have an opportunity to optimise and enhance a user’s experience by leveraging the full power of the Google search landscape, which is exactly what we did. We focused on increasing our visibility by increasing our share of the SERP page; we worked towards gaining visibility through multiple packs on Google, e.g. the local pack, the top stories pack, etc.