📋 Project Overview
An independent mortgage brokerage was losing high-intent borrowers to national lead aggregators (LendingTree, Bankrate) who charged $150–$300 per shared lead while outranking them for essential home purchase and refinancing terms.
Starting position
Lack of structured calculation tools, thin borrower guides, missing FinancialService schema, and zero presence in Google answer boxes.
🎯 Goal
Capture high-intent position-0 snippet boxes for mortgage calculation queries and rank top 3 for regional home purchase and refinance terms.
🔧 Solutions
Phase 1 — Interactive Mortgage Calculators (Month 1–2): Built custom mortgage, PMI, and refinance calculators with FinancialCalculator and HowTo schema.
Phase 2 — Featured Snippet Engineering (Month 2–4): Formatted concise definition tables and Q&A blocks to capture 22 Position-0 featured snippets.
Phase 3 — First-Time Homebuyer Silos (Month 3–5): Authored step-by-step state and national loan program guides (FHA, VA, USDA, Jumbo).
Phase 4 — Financial Authority PR (Month 3–6): Acquired 46 contextual backlinks from real estate associations and financial news outlets.
📈 Results
In 6 months, qualified pre-approval mortgage applications grew 240% (130/mo), the firm captured 22 Featured Snippets, and originated loan volume exceeded $42M from organic search.
Google Search Console — Organic Clicks (12 months)Campaign period
Total Clicks
Impressions (scaled)
Calculators launched
22 Snippets captured
34,200/mo peak
Keyword ranking improvements
Final results summary
Monthly Loan Applications+240%38 to 130 leads↑ 240%
Featured Snippets Won22Position 0 answersTop snippets
Monthly Organic Traffic34,200from 8,300↑ 312%
Originated Loan Volume$42M+from search leadsNew volume
Domain RatingDR 45from DR 21↑ 24 points
Cost Per Application$24vs $180 aggregator fees↓ 86%
"We now own the answer boxes for 22 of the most critical mortgage queries. The quality of pre-approved buyers reaching out to our loan officers is unmatched."