Trustpair case study: Fintech SEO content
Since January 2023, I’ve been working on a fintech SEO content campaign with the lovely team at Trustpair, a payments technology company focused on preventing fraud. Following a very strong SEO strategy, based on pillar pages, categories and an internal linking matrix, I’ve been writing at scale to secure the top spots in search, and drive customers to Trustpair’s website.
In this case study on fintech SEO content, you’ll learn the situation that initially led Trustpair to working with me, the results we’ve been able to generate together, and how it all happens.
Table of contents:
The problem: launching in a new market and language
The results: 650% growth
How we did it: pain point SEO, structure and original research
Is there still a place for fintech SEO content in 2024?
The problem: launching in a new market and new language
Trustpair is a well-established fintech company in France, having operated in their home language since 2017. The internal team knew their local market, could expertly pinpoint what their customers wanted, and were able to network easily in-person and online.
But payment fraud does not discriminate based on location. And with Trustpair’s regular fraud study showing that US enterprise businesses were among those hit hardest, it was time to bring their product to the American market.
Launching in a new market is difficult. First off, all of Trustpair’s website content was in French, meaning that it was virtually inaccessible to most potential customers in the US.
Secondly, they hadn’t built much SEO kudos with English Google. Since the website was all in French, Trustpair didn’t have many English rankings. This meant that it would be harder to be seen via search, and that any strategy would have to take into account this limited start point.
Finally, Trustpair’s ideal customer had changed. While the French customers valued security and smooth integration, insights into American buyers revealed much more emphasis on convenience and reputation. This means that the content would have to reflect the needs of US customers, instead of French customers.
To recap, the problem was that:
All of the website content was in French, which wouldn’t suit an American audience
They didn’t rank for any English keywords, making it harder to be seen via search
Their ideal customer had changed, requiring different writing styles, TOV and focus on different features
The results: 650% growth in traffic
Since we began working with Trustpair in January 2023, the company has reported a sustainable 650% growth in traffic.
Just imagine the revenue you could generate if 650% more people got onto your fintech site? It’s like going from 10,000 visitors per year to 75,000 visitors in just 16 months. But Trustpair’s scale was much higher.
The impact of content
Let’s talk about the specific impact of our content. With a strategic plan in place, we wrote between 4-8 blogs per month that targeted relevant keywords. In the last quarter alone, Trustpair has had a 108% increase in impressions from Google, and a 122% increase in clicks compared to the previous period.
More than double!
Plus, the average ranking position of tracked keywords has decreased by more than half, with several page 1 rankings.
It’s important to note that these results come from a team effort of three writers, a content manager and an SEO manager. But at The Search Cure, we have directly contributed to the growth of Trustpair.
In fact, six of the ten top performing web pages were written by Shan, our founder. And these six pages are responsible for generating more than 25% of the site traffic.
Content marketing manager, Clementine, said, “really good work on your end, it's growing exponentially.”
How did Trustpair do it?
The overall strategy at Trustpair was coined by Clementine, the content marketing manager, and her SEO aide.
Pain Point SEO
Structure and Hierarchy
Original Research
Pain point SEO
Since we had such detailed avatars of Trustpair’s customer base, we were able to speak directly to these niche individuals. Using pain point SEO means searching for keywords where the buyer is already problem-aware.
The ‘jobs to be done’ framework is typically used to manage pain point SEO and identify the primary keywords with intent to buy. Without explicitly searching for your solution, prospects are searching for the answers to their problem, and these are the keywords we target.
Such as:
How to protect your business against Fednow fraud
How does Sox Law apply to your business?
Solving the challenges of cross-border payments
By targeting these pain point keywords, we’ve been able to find problem-aware searchers and meet them with Trustpair’s solution.
Structure and hierarchy
The internal link-building matrix is part of the furniture at Trustpair, and we use it in every single article. It’s become the best way to build out site hierarchy, by creating pillar pages, categories, and topics that relate to one another.
As you can imagine, across 16 months we’ve generated hundreds of articles for Trustpair that all surround the payment and fraud topics, making it very tempting to include relevant links on every other line.
But too many links impacts the UX for the reader.
Likewise, the algorithm could struggle to promote our pieces for their primary search queries if internal links go in too many directions.
By relying on a matrix, we can set the structure of the site in a very logical manner. Pages are grouped by category and overall theme. We tend to only link to relevant topics within the same category, or theme at a stretch.
Here's a totally off-brand example:
Theme - olympics
Category - running
Pages - sprints, middle distance, long distance, hurdles, road running, relays
By following the strategy I've used at Trustpair, I'd link each page back to it's pillar category (running), and add internal links to the other types of runs where relevant. We typically add no more than six internal links per article of approx 1500 words so as not to confuse the reader or algorithm.
By interlinking these few pages, we create topical clusters that inform the algorithm, and provide value to the human reader. It's a win-win!
Original research
But it’s not enough to just go after keywords and try to relate to the reader. Only by including genuine and authentic insights from real-life experiences can we give the reader content that is better than what’s already out there, and that deserves to rank.
That’s where the original research comes in.
Every quarter, Trustpair’s internal content team develops reports and whitepapers. Recent titles have included:
Navigating the risks of instant payments
Instant payment fraud: insights from the Head of Anti-fraud at UniCredit
Fraud in the cyber era: 2024 trends
These gems always include insights from industry experts, such as their CEO Baptiste Collot, or insights from partners like the UniCredit example above. Better yet, we get access to the latest data in terms of rising trends or case numbers. Since Trustpair surveys its target audience for their opinion on these threats, we also get qualitative data on how the target reader feels about the problem, and how to approach the solution.
These types of reports drive backlinks to the Trustpair website, increasing overall domain authority. And as a secondary benefit, we as writers can use the findings in our SEO content articles to further provide value, even when prospects haven’t seen the whitepapers themselves. It’s a smart way to re-distribute a mammoth piece of content.
So, there’s still a place for fintech SEO content in 2024?
If you listened to all the noise online, it would feel like SEO is firmly in the bin for some fintech firms in 2024. But having made it a success, and with the results still growing exponentially, we have proved that a clever fintech SEO content strategy can still generate results in 2024.
If you’re interested in replicating these results, get in touch with our founder, Shan, to chat.
We take a bespoke approach to each and every client, and will adapt our strategy based on factors like your business goals and available resources. Let’s grow your traffic in a sustainable and relevant way for your business: fill out the form below.