How Hokodo ranked 1st in organic search, working with Passionfruit

Hokodo, a B2B Fintech company, aims to empower the B2B space with it’s innovative ‘Buy now, pay later’ solution. It makes payments fair and accessible to both sellers and buyers and removes the hassle and risk associated with businesses offering payment terms online.

Their mission is simple. To enable 1 million businesses to access a better way to pay by 2025.

With a talented and forward-thinking internal team, Hokodo had confidence they would achieve their mission. But, in March 2023, it became clear that to achieve this, areas of their marketing strategy needed to level-up and be improved.

The team knew exactly where to start. They had to dive head-first into the world of SEO and SEO Content.

Hokodo’s team were lacking expertise when it came to search engine optimisation. But, they understood the importance of SEO — specifically good SEO content — and the role it plays in overall brand and website health. After all, how could potential customers find them if they didn’t appear in a Google search?

To level up their team’s SEO knowledge and strategy, and to set themselves up for success long-term, the company decided to invest in a freelancer.

Hokodo were looking for an experienced SEO specialist who could confidently join the team and audit their current efforts, identifying what they were already doing well and where they could improve.

Ideally, the specialist could then help them set and implement an SEO strategy — from both a technical and a content perspective — to help them achieve the best results going forward.

As Hokodo began their search, they found Passionfruit.

Hokodo’s team was intrigued. They registered interest and four days later, they were matched with Nik.

Nik, an SEO and Content Marketing Specialist, had previously worked with many incredible companies, including Confused.com, Lucky Saint, Peckwater Brands, and Experian Consumer Services.

At Experian Consumer Services, Nik was responsible for executing all SEO activities informed by continuous research and analysis, as well as reporting to senior stakeholders. During his time there, his SEO department was recognised in 2021 by the European Search Awards, the Global Search Awards, and by the Drum.

No big deal.

Nik’s unique background in both SEO and Content made him the perfect fit for Hokodo. With his previous experience, he was extremely comfortable using existing data to understand how Hokodo could improve and optimise their content more effectively.

Two weeks after Hokodo found Passionfruit, Nik got to work…

And he wasted no time delivering results.

He identified opportunities for improvement on different Hokodo landing pages and supported the Hokodo team in implementing technical SEO fixes. From there, he carried out keyword research, ensuring existing informational landing pages were targeting the correct topics and search terms, whilst also filling gaps and removing duplications if needed.

Next, Nik carried out an in-depth content audit to understand how Google was viewing Hokodo’s content, collecting data and analysing critical SEO elements, including traffic, indexation, conversions, and more.

Using the information he gathered from the audit, Nik helped Hokodo formulate an SEO content strategy, creating optimisation briefs and recommendations which would improve the search value of Hokodo’s existing informational content.

But Nik didn’t stop there. He went one step further and conducted keyword and topic gap research — gathering data through competitor analysis, trend analysis and online community analysis. He produced a data-informed list of new content ideas to cover all relevant content gaps.

The result?

Just type ‘b2b bnpl’ or ‘b2b buy now pay later’ into Google’s Search Engine. They rank first in organic search. Yes, you read that right.

And on top of that, Hokodo’s overall website health has significantly improved and they are seeing signs of their content being included on Google Discover.

"Hokodo is a fast-paced business with a highly autonomous team. Passionfruit was able to match us with a freelancer who shares our work ethic and was able to adapt to our ways of working.”

— Lucy Heavens, VP of Marketing at Hokodo

According to the Hokodo team, the audit not only allowed them to take action but also helped them prioritise their short-term and long-term goals for their overall SEO strategy. And to achieve these goals, they extended their contract with Nik to 6 days per month so he could help them continue to better their overall SEO and SEO content production.

So what’s next? Well, rumour has it they’re in the market for Content Marketing Specialist to complement the work they’re doing with Nik.

Stay tuned…