How Absolute Digital Media diversified an FCA-authorised direct lender away from the category’s own vocabulary and grew completed applications 150% inside forty days.
Absolute Digital Media's SEO campaign for QuidMarket delivered +150% completed applications (first 40 days), 132,915 peak monthly organic sessions (from 10,087), 1,882 keywords in the top three (from 40) and 4,051 keywords in the top ten (from 190).
QuidMarket is a direct lender rather than a broker, operating under FCA authorisation with a proposition built on responsible, transparent lending and affordability-led decisions.
The brand is well known in its category. It draws 14,000 monthly searches for “quidmarket” and a further 9,700 for “quid market”, and holds position one on both. Strong brand demand of that kind is a considerable asset, and QuidMarket’s ambition was to build acquisition strength to match it: a keyword estate broad enough that no single term, and no single algorithm decision, could define the business.
Forty-day figures are drawn from the client’s own analytics. Traffic and keyword figures are from Ahrefs Site Explorer, UK database, measured from campaign start to peak. The two sources agree on direction and scale.
Integrated Agency of the Year - SilverEuropean Agency Awards 2026
Best Use of Search B2C (PPC) Small (The Swallow Co.)European Search Awards 2026
Standout B2C Ecommerce Website of the Year (Stelrad)UK Digital Excellence Awards 2026
Best Integrated Paid Media CampaignUK Paid Media Awards 2026
Best New Business CampaignUK Agency Awards 2025
Best Use Of Search (Retail/Ecommerce) - SEOUK Search Awards 2024Integrated Agency of the Year - SilverEuropean Agency Awards 2026Best Use of Search B2C (PPC) Small (The Swallow Co.)European Search Awards 2026Standout B2C Ecommerce Website of the Year (Stelrad)UK Digital Excellence Awards 2026Best Integrated Paid Media CampaignUK Paid Media Awards 2026Best New Business CampaignUK Agency Awards 2025Best Use Of Search (Retail/Ecommerce) - SEOUK Search Awards 2024 
The defining decision, made by SEO strategy lead Ben Austin, was to reduce dependence on “payday loans” while the term was still delivering, rather than after it stopped. The rejected alternative was to keep defending it. The term carries volume, and moving from an incumbent position that is working takes conviction. But a single-term dependency in a category under permanent regulatory and algorithmic scrutiny is a structural risk, and the language itself was drifting away from how customers described their own need. We mapped and built for short and long-tail finance terms across the full estate: instalment lending, loan amounts, use cases and brand-intent variants. The outcome: top-ten rankings from 190 to 4,051, with keywords in the top three up from 40 to 1,882 while the original positions held.
One of the largest brands in UK payday lending exited the market and took its search demand with it. Those customers did not stop searching, they carried on typing the brand name into Google and finding nothing that could serve them. We built a dedicated alternative page for that orphaned demand, and it holds position one on the term today. This is one of the most reliably underused plays in a consolidating market: when a competitor exits, their brand searches persist for years, and almost nobody builds the page that catches them.
The content audit and cannibalisation resolution came before the expansion. Overlapping pages targeting the same queries were identified, consolidated into single authoritative pages, and the redundant variants redirected. Diversifying a keyword estate on top of unresolved cannibalisation multiplies the overlap. Each new page joins an existing internal competition rather than claiming new ground. Fixing the overlap first is what allowed the expansion to add rankings rather than redistribute them.
Informational content was built around financial clarity and customer guidance rather than around product promotion, reinforcing the responsible lending position. A lender making affordability-led decisions does not want maximum applications, it wants applications from people who will be approved. Content that explains how borrowing works, what the checks involve and who a product suits filters the audience before the application starts, and better-informed applicants convert at higher approval rates. It also earns the brand-trust searches: the about page holds position three for people searching whether the brand is legitimate, a query every lender receives and most leave to third parties to answer.
The user account area was redesigned mobile-first so applicants could track loan history and manage their journey from a phone, and the application flow was simplified by removing dropdown inputs and reducing steps. Most SEO engagements stop at the point of conversion. On this account the application form and the logged-in area were treated as part of the same job, because a campaign measured on completed applications rather than on sessions cannot ignore the thing standing between the two. The 150% increase in completed applications inside forty days came from the traffic growth and the friction reduction together.
Ben Austin made the call that defined the account: diversify away from the category’s signature term while it was still performing, on the judgement that concentration risk in a regulated category is a structural exposure however well the term is working. The competitor-capture play and the consolidate-first sequencing followed from it, and the estate that resulted grew from 190 top-ten rankings to 4,051 with the original positions intact.
Alex Stott led the content estate: the diversified commercial pages across instalment lending, loan amounts and use cases, the dedicated alternative page that holds position one on a departed competitor’s brand demand, and the financial clarity content that filters applicants upstream. That trust-led approach earns the brand-legitimacy searches too, with the about page at position three on the query every lender in the sector receives.
Jack Hawtin led the off-site corroboration behind the responsible-lending position. In UK consumer finance the customer and the algorithm are both checking the same thing, whether the operator is who it says it is, and the off-site profile supplied that confirmation at the standard a sector under permanent quality scrutiny demands, supporting an estate broad enough to hold 4,051 top-ten rankings.
Shofiur Rahman led the technical delivery on both sides of the conversion point: the consolidation redirects that resolved the cannibalised estate, and the mobile-first rebuild of the account area and application flow, with dropdown inputs removed and steps reduced. That friction reduction is half of the 150% application growth, because a campaign measured on completed applications is only as strong as the journey that completes them.
Lewis Esson is Head of SEO at Absolute Digital Media, leading a team of seven across organic strategy for gambling, lending, adult and regulated ecommerce brands. He joined ADM as…
Shofiur Rahman is Head of Technical at Absolute Digital Media, leading the team responsible for everything the agency builds and runs: client websites, internal applications, infrastructure, AI systems and the…
Alex is Head of Content at Absolute Digital Media, overseeing content production and ideation for regulated-sector clients in iGaming, finance, and healthcare. He specialises in creating content that performs reliably…
Jack Hawtin leads the outreach team at Absolute Digital Media, running link building and outreach strategy mainly for iGaming clients, alongside adult industry brands, interior design, and a smaller portfolio…
Completed online applications rose 150% within the first forty days, alongside a 101% increase in sessions and a 67% increase in keywords ranking on pages one to three, on the client’s own analytics. Across the full engagement, measured in Ahrefs, organic traffic grew from 10,087 to a peak of 132,915 monthly sessions. Keywords in the top three grew from 40 to 1,882, and top-ten rankings from 190 to 4,051.
The composition of that growth is the point. The estate now spans instalment lending, loan amounts, use cases, brand-intent variants and a departed competitor’s demand, which means no single term decides the business’s visibility. That is what the diversification was for.
| Page | Lead keyword | Volume | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Competitor alternative page | quick quid loans | 450 | 1 |
| Quick loans | quickloan | 900 | 1 |
| Homepage | quidmarket | 14,000 | 1 |
| How it works | quid market | 9,700 | 1 |
| Instalment loans | instalment loans for bad credit | 150 | 2 |
| £300 loans | 300 pound loan | 350 | 3 |
| About us | is quidmarket legit | 400 | 3 |
Source: Ahrefs Site Explorer, UK.
Completed online applications rose 150% within the first forty days, and organic traffic grew from 10,087 to a peak of 132,915 monthly sessions across the full engagement. Keywords in the top three grew from 40 to 1,882, and top-ten rankings from 190 to 4,051.
By mapping the adjacent demand and building for it while the incumbent term is still performing, rather than after it stops. On this account the estate grew from 190 top-ten rankings to more than 4,000, which removed the concentration risk without giving up the original position.
Where a competitor has exited the market, yes, and it is one of the most underused opportunities in a consolidating sector. The brand searches persist for years after the business closes. A dedicated alternative page built properly can hold position one on that demand, as this one does.
It is several pages competing for the same query and splitting the ranking signal. Expanding a keyword estate on top of unresolved overlap means each new page joins an existing internal competition. Consolidating first is what allows expansion to add rankings rather than redistribute them.
By filtering upstream with content. For an affordability-led lender, applications that cannot be approved are a cost. Content explaining how the product works, what checks apply and who it suits produces better-informed applicants and higher approval rates.
By answering them on its own domain, with the authorisation position stated plainly. Every lender in the sector receives that query, and most leave a third-party review site to answer it. On this account the about page holds position three for the brand-trust search.
When the campaign is measured on completed applications rather than sessions, yes. The form and the logged-in account area sit between the traffic and the result. On this account the mobile account redesign and the simplified application flow contributed directly to the 150% rise in completed applications.
Faster than most expect where the constraint is structural rather than authority-based. Completed applications rose 150% within forty days here, because the work addressed cannibalisation, keyword coverage and application friction together.
If your visibility depends on one term, you have a concentration risk rather than a strategy. Book a consultation and we will show you where the biggest gains are.
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