(Description)
As a leader in the competitive South African financial landscape, FNB needed a digital platform that didn’t just meet industry standards but actively set the global benchmark for technical performance and customer acquisition efficiency. Designtalks partnered with FNB to transform its primary lending vertical portal from a legacy system burdened by technical debt into a lightning-fast, E-E-A-T-validated, and AI-cited acquisition engine.
We built a powerful, bespoke platform designed for content governance and high-speed data access. Key efforts included creating a structured, taxonomy-driven Research Hub for their extensive Economic Impact Research (EIR) and Environmental & Social Research (ESR). We also integrated a secure membership area to facilitate access for their exclusive community of over 200 CEOs and private sector leaders, ensuring that all published content is easy to find, share, and cite.
The goal was clear: dominate both the traditional search results (SERPs) and the emergent Generative AI Overviews to capture pre-vetted, high-quality leads at a lower Cost Per Acquisition (CPA).
Before Designtalks’ intervention, FNB’s online lending portal faced critical challenges that hampered customer acquisition and eroded E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) signals:
Zero AI Citation: FNB content was absent from Google’s AI Overviews for high-value terms like “best home loan rates South Africa”, despite deep content, limiting brand trust and accelerating acquisition. Failure to capture the “new #0 spot,” missing out on instant, massive credibility and pre-vetted leads.
Our partnership was driven by three quantifiable, measurable objectives:
1. Achieve “Good” status across all Core Web Vitals (LCP < 2.5s) and secure a PageSpeed Score above 90.
2. Increase the primary conversion goal (Loan Application Completion Rate) by 30% within 4 months.
3. Secure a minimum of 18 verified AI Overviews/Featured Snippets for high-value financial keywords via our proprietary GEO methodology.
To meet FNB’s aggressive acquisition goals, Designtalks implemented a multi-faceted strategy that addressed both the technical foundation (Trust and Experience) and future search positioning (Expertise and Authority).
We leveraged our specialized experience in enterprise performance optimization to eliminate technical debt, mirroring the success of the Sasol speed remediation project. The project was backed by a Google Core Web Vitals Guarantee.
LCP Optimization: Optimized the loading sequence of critical elements, reducing third-party script reliance and aggressively compressing hero images to ensure the main content loaded under 2.5 seconds.
Interactivity Refinement: Re-engineered the loan calculator and application form to ensure Interaction to Next Paint (INP) remained below 200 milliseconds, eliminating frustrating delays for users.
The content strategy focused on transforming expertise into verifiable trust signals, which are essential for AI citation.
Topic Clusters for Finance: Developed deep, authoritative Topic Clusters around key financial decisions (e.g., first-time home buying, investment portfolio setup) to establish topical authority.
Hyper-Accurate Structured Data (Schema): Implemented highly specialized Schema Markup to explicitly signal the financial Expertise and Trustworthiness of the content to Google’s algorithms, making it easily digestible and citable by AI Overviews.
AI Appearance Monitoring: Actively monitored and optimized content specifically for Generative AI search engines (Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity AI) to ensure citation frequency and quality.
The combination of the CWV Guarantee and the GEO Strategy delivered profound and measurable success across performance, conversion, and future search visibility. Technical Health (PageSpeed) From Google PageSpeed Score: 55. to Google PageSpeed Score: 95+72% improvement in technical quality. Achieved Good CWV status for 90 days, fulfilling our guarantee and reinforcing Trust and Experience.
Loan Application Completion: 24.4% +32% increase in conversion rate (CRO). Higher funnel efficiency led to a documented +55% increase in Net New Customer Acquisition over 4 month
From Verified AI Citations: 0 to Verified AI Citations: 22. Secured 22 new AI Overviews/Featured Snippets in 4 months. Established FNB’s content as the Authoritative source for financial terms, driving instant credibility and reducing CPA.