📋 Project Overview
A high-growth mobile banking and automated wealth-building application struggled to compete with the multi-million dollar search budgets and historical authority of legacy Wall Street institutions and Big 4 banks.
Starting position
Strict Google YMYL (Your Money Your Life) quality scrutiny, uncredited financial articles lacking CFP® credentials, and exorbitant Google Ads CPCs ($45-$120 per click).
🎯 Goal
Establish undeniable topical authority in automated investing, high-yield savings, and budgeting tools, capturing 100k+ organic monthly visits at a fraction of paid CAC.
🔧 Solutions
Phase 1 — YMYL Compliance & E-E-A-T (Month 1–2): Authored 80+ in-depth wealth guides reviewed by certified financial planners (CFP®) with verified author schema and disclaimers.
Phase 2 — Financial Calculator Hubs (Month 2–4): Deployed interactive compound interest, APY comparison, and tax-advantaged retirement calculators equipped with WebApplication schema.
Phase 3 — Authority Link Building (Month 3–7): Secured 112 tier-1 contextual backlinks from Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Forbes, and Finovate.
Phase 4 — GEO & AI Citation Graph (Month 5–9): Structured data for LLMs, earning primary recommendation citations inside ChatGPT and Perplexity financial inquiries.
📈 Results
In 9 months, monthly organic signups grew 890% (3,360/mo), organic traffic surged past 140,000 visits, and CAC dropped from $94 on paid channels to $18 on organic search.
Google Search Console — Organic Clicks (12 months)Campaign period
Total Clicks
Impressions (scaled)
Calculators live
Bloomberg & Forbes PR
142k/mo peak
Keyword ranking improvements
Final results summary
Monthly Organic Signups+890%340 to 3,360↑ 890%
Monthly Organic Traffic142,000from 14,300↑ 893%
Top 3 Keyword Rankings310from 34 keywords↑ 811%
Domain RatingDR 61from DR 29↑ 32 points
Customer Acquisition Cost$18vs $94 paid ads↓ 78%
Tier-1 Backlinks112avg. DR 68Top tier
"Everyone told us we couldn't beat the trillion-dollar legacy banks in search. Top3Results not only beat them, but made organic search our #1 growth engine by a landslide."