Uncommon Cents Investing is a fee-only, independent financial advisory team with over three decades of experience helping clients in Janesville and Rock County, Wisconsin.
We began working with them in November 2023. Despite having already created 92 quality articles, they weren’t seeing the traction they hoped for.
SEO Campaign
While this case study focuses on content strategy, these results wouldn’t have been possible without the foundational SEO work included in every campaign.
Content Strategy in Action
We began by looking at their existing content for quick wins – identifying articles already ranking (or almost ranking) for multiple keywords. We pinpointed 6 articles that would benefit from being rewritten.
The first article was updated and re-published in January, 2024. This article, along with the 5 that followed, helped us reach our first milestone of 1,000 organic visitors monthly by April 2024.
At that point we started writing and publishing two new, original articles per month. After a short pause, organic traffic continued growing, and and now brings nearly 2,500 monthly visitors to the website – an increase of 1,450 percent.
From Our Client
“Partnering with Brent at Advisor Rankings has been a transformative experience for our financial advisory firm. His deep understanding of SEO, particularly within the financial services sector, has significantly enhanced our online visibility.
By implementing tailored strategies, we have improved our search engine rankings, leading to a notable increase in client inquiries and scheduled consultations. His commitment to best practices ensures sustainable results, and the insights into prospect behavior have been invaluable.
For financial advisors aiming to elevate their digital presence and attract more clients, Brent has been able to deliver.”
~ Sheena Hanson, CFP
Results to Date
We often tell advisors that SEO results come in stages – first, keywords rank higher, leading to more search impressions, then more website visitors, and finally, leads and clients. Here’s what Uncommon Cents Investing experienced:
1. Ranking Keywords: The number of keywords ranking in Google’s top 100 jumped from 341 in November 2023 to 1,137 in October 2024.
The following charts show how many keywords are ranking in each range of positions:
a. Keywords ranking in position 51-100 (pages 6-10 in the SERPs)
b. Keywords ranking in position 21-50 (pages 3-5) in the SERPs)
c. Keywords ranking in position 11-20 (page 2 of the SERPs)
d. Keywords ranking in position 4-10 (bottom half of page 1 of the SERPs)
e. Keywords ranking in position 1-3 (top half of page 1 of the SERPs)
2. Search Appearances (Impressions): Better keyword rankings resulted in more search visibility – from about 500 monthly appearances in late 2023 to more than 3,000 in December 2024. (See the Google Search Console graph below for impressions).
3. Increased Traffic: Organic traffic increased nearly 15x from 156 visitors in November 2023 to 2,418 visitors in October 2024.
Additional Benefits
4. More Backlinks: A side effect of consistently publishing good content is that you have more linkable assets with which to attract backlinks. Backlinks help increase a site’s authority. The following graph shows “referring domains” – the number of different sites directing at least one backlink to Uncommon Cents Investing.
5. A.I. Search Readiness – ChatGPT:AI search engines like ChatGPT still rely primarily on the same relevance and authority signals as traditional search engines, making these improvements valuable across all search platforms.
Are These Result Types Typical?
While not universal, these results aren’t surprising for a site with an existing library of quality content and a team committed to SEO best practices.
Individual results will vary based on:
- Starting Point: Sites with existing evergreen content and authority typically see faster results than brand new sites
- Content Velocity: how frequently you are publishing high quality SEO content. Twice a month is better than once, but not as effective as four articles per month.
- Target Audience: A niche audience makes SEO easier. The narrower the niche, the better for SEO.
- Competition: Less competitive markets yield faster results.
- Commitment: Search Rankings within the financial industry are very competitive. You can’t pick and choose which “best practices” you implement and hope to be successful.
- Patience: SEO takes time. We are very up-front about this with all of our prospects, yet we still see client’s leave just as signals are starting to turn positive.
Looking Forward
We’ll continue to update this case-study as progress continues.
As we prepare to publish, we’re already planning to refresh some articles published in the past year.
Additionally, Uncommon Cents has been producing weekly radio programs since before our engagement began. They’re now exploring converting these into SEO-optimized podcasts, expanding distribution channels, and creating more SEO assets to further increase organic traffic..
