The Google Battle for Lending & SMB Finance Keywords Revisited
When it comes to Google’s organic search for major keywords, companies like Nerdwallet and Fundera still dominate. A few players, however, have gained or lost significant ground since last year.
The Small Business Administration relinquished its place on the first page for words like “business loan” and “business line of credit” while PayPal and Credit Karma have begun to make major appearances as their activity in these markets increases.
Take a look:
| Keywords | Fundera | Fundera | PayPal | PayPal | Credit Karma | Credit Karma | Kabbage | Kabbage | OnDeck | OnDeck |
| Date | 9/14/17 | 8/29/18 | 9/14/17 | 8/29/18 | 9/14/17 | 8/29/18 | 9/14/17 | 8/29/18 | 9/14/17 | 8/29/18 |
| business loan | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||||
| merchant cash advance | 3 | 2 | 2 | 4 | ||||||
| working capital | 8 | 9 | ||||||||
| commercial loan | 3 | 1 | 5 | |||||||
| small business loans | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 4 | |||||
| business line of credit | 2 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3 | |||||
| fast business loan | 4 | 5 | 1 | 4 | ||||||
| business loan with bad credit | 7 | 5 |
| Keywords | Lending Club | Lending Club | Nerdwallet | Nerdwallet | National Funding | National Funding | Traditional Banks | Traditional Banks | SBA.gov | SBA.gov |
| Date | 9/14/17 | 8/29/18 | 9/14/17 | 8/29/18 | 9/14/17 | 8/29/18 | 9/14/17 | 8/29/18 | 9/14/17 | 8/29/18 |
| business loan | 9 | 6 | 3 | 7,8 | 5 | 4,7 | 6 | |||
| merchant cash advance | 4 | 1 | 8 | 9 | ||||||
| working capital | 4 | |||||||||
| commercial loan | 2,7 | 3,8,9,10 | ||||||||
| small business loans | 9 | 3 | 7,8 | 5 | 7 | 1 | 2 | |||
| business line of credit | 11 | 1,4 | 1 | 6,7,8,9,10 | 4,6,7,9,10 | 5 | ||||
| fast business loan | 2 | 3 | 5,6 | 8 | ||||||
| business loan with bad credit | 1,4 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
As mentioned in previous posts, this is not a scientific analysis. Keywords are measured using a wiped browser on my own computer.
The value of a Page-1 ranking too, is not as valuable as it once was, due to the heavy placement of paid ads above the search results. Ads, however, are not a factor for the keyword “merchant cash advance” since Google banned all advertising for that search term last Fall. Originally it was theorized that the ban was accidental, but ten months later it is still in place.
No such ban exists on Bing.
Read my previous analyses on the industry’s search war over the years:
September 2017 The Google Battle for Lending and SMB Finance Keywords
December 2015 Google Serves Low Blow to Merchant Cash Advance Seekers
March 2015 Google Culls Online Lenders – Pay or Else?
October 2014 Merchant Cash Advance SEO War Still Raging
August 2014 Six Signs Alternative Lending is Rigged: Do Lending Club and OnDeck have a helping hand?
October 2013 Google Penguin 2.1 takes swing at the MCA industry
August 2013 Your merchant cash advance press release may be hurting you
December 2012 Is Google your only web strategy?
July 2012 The other 93% [of leads]
April 2012 The SEO war continues
February 2012 The SEO War for Merchant Cash Advance: The first story on this topic
Last modified: August 29, 2018
Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future deBanked events here.
