Squirrel Mortgages: 79% more new organic users in 12 months

Overview

Squirrel Mortgages is a New Zealand mortgage broker offering personal, impartial advice and access to an extensive lending network. By the time of this campaign, the business had written more than $4 billion in loans.

The Challenge

Squirrel was already in the top three positions for “mortgage brokers Auckland”, supported by its physical presence and more than 1,150 five-star reviews. The next opportunity was to reach home buyers earlier in their research, where major banks and interest.co.nz occupied the first page for valuable searches.

Paid-search costs of $35–$50 per click made organic visibility particularly important. The campaign targets were 20% annual growth in organic traffic and leads, doubled organic visibility, and an average first-page position of ten for ten high-priority keywords.

Our Strategy

Find the missing search opportunities

We audited the existing SEO campaign, technical setup and site architecture. Keyword research and a review of competitor rankings and link-building strategies helped distinguish purchase intent across short- and long-tail searches.

The research uncovered additional keywords representing 22,000 monthly searches. We developed a content marketing and internal linking strategy to address these opportunities.

Build authority and engagement

The strategy focused on strengthening authority and trust, increasing direct visits and improving engagement. Useful content and internal links connected the research-led topics with the wider website.

The Results

Organic acquisition and goal completions

• 79% growth in new organic users over 12 months, against the client's 20% traffic-growth target.
• An increase of 41,522 organic users.
• 68.25% growth in organic goal completions, compared with the 20% growth objective.
• 510% growth in the reported value of monthly organic traffic.

Broader and stronger search coverage

• The number of keywords appearing within the first ten pages of search results grew from 380 to 4,100.
• Organic visibility for the ten priority keywords increased from 2.7% to 48.6%.
• The average position for those ten keywords improved from 28.4 to 4 within 12 months.
• Organic visibility across the top 35 keywords increased from 7.2% to 23.9%.