Although Griffin had a strong foundation, there were still areas that needed improvement. During our research phase we identified some key areas for opportunity that we started executing on 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 to 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 noindexed 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.