SEO Case Study: 2X Non-Branded Organic Growth in 6 Months (Step.com)

📅 Period: January 2025 – July 2025
📍 Role: SEO Specialist (Client: U.S.-based fintech app)
🛠 Tools: SEMrush, GSC, GA4, Contentful, On-page SEO, Content Strategy

🟣 Challenge

When I joined in January 2025, the website had:

• 6.9K total keywords
• 23.7K organic traffic
• Only 9K non-branded traffic
• Majority of content was pages, with just one branded blog
• Informational keywords dominated (56.4%) while commercial intent was under-optimized (17.5%)

🔧 Actions Taken

1. Non-Branded Content Strategy
   • Launched 20+ intent-driven blog posts targeting non-branded, commercial, and transactional keywords
   • Prioritized topics around cash advance, building credit, secured cards, financial tips, etc.
   • Used internal linking, schema markup, and semantic keyword structuring
2. On-Page & Semantic Optimization
   • Optimized H1s, meta descriptions, and intro paragraphs to improve Google snippet control (e.g., fixing the issue where Google was pulling descriptions from the footer)
   • Refined existing service and product pages using targeted commercial keywords
3. Content Mapping by Intent
   • Shifted focus from purely informational to commercial + transactional topics
   • Rebalanced keyword strategy toward monetizable search intent
4. Performance Monitoring
   • Tracked keyword movement, CTRs, and SERP features using SEMrush and GSC
   • Built monthly reporting dashboards in Looker Studio

📈 Results by July 2025

• Keywords grew from 6.9K → 8.3K
• Organic traffic increased from 23.7K → 29.3K (+15.8%)
• Non-branded traffic doubled from 9K → 18.7K (+107%)
• Commercial keywords share increased from 17.5% → 20.7%
• Blog content, which was non-existent in Jan, became a major traffic driver by July (top blogs bringing 3K+ visits)

🔍 Key Takeaways

• You don’t always need more backlinks or product features — sometimes non-branded content with strong intent mapping is enough to drive 2X growth
• Fixing technical SEO issues (like meta snippet override) and pairing it with content strategy leads to compounding results

📸 Visual Proof:

I used the following screenshots to support this growth:

• 📊 1.png: Jan 2025 baseline (6.9K keywords, 9K non-branded traffic)
• 📊 2.png: July 2025 results (8.3K keywords, 18.7K non-branded traffic)
• 📈 3.png vs 4.png: Keyword intent improved — commercial share up from 17.5% → 20.7%
• 📝 5.png vs 6.png: From a branded blog-only structure to high-performing non-branded blog content