1. The SEO Story: Rank for “Gold-Tier Keywords”
Client brief
A Cape Town-based provider of business funding and loans, Lula originally hired Mint Position to build their blog in late 2023. However, by the summer of 2024, the strategy had developed to also focus on product-related keywords that would be most valuable to their target market at the bottom of the funnel.
Strategy
We worked with the Lula team to identify a “Gold-tier keyword” list — high-intent terms that mapped directly to Lula’s funding product and the specific problems their buyers search for when they’re close to a decision. These weren’t the highest-volume keywords available. They were the most valuable.
This list helped our team focus on priority keywords that were so valuable for Lula that we had to rank for them.
Some of those keywords were covered by traditional blogs, which we produced by interviewing industry experts and creating added-value infographics. Here is an example of an article about cashflow forecasting problems, with a checklist.
However, because these keywords signaled a more commercial intent, we also had to build a series of use-case-focused landing pages — each one designed to speak directly to an SME owner researching a specific funding need, with an application form prominently placed at the top of the page.
Below is an example of one of those pages.
Many of these keywords had low search volume — intentionally. The goal wasn’t to drive broad awareness traffic. It was to be present and credible at the exact moment a buyer needed to understand a funding option Lula could offer.
Results
Within six months, Lula ranked #1 for almost every keyword on the original Gold-tier list.
As of May 2025, Lula ranked #1 for 25 use case pages (and a few blog posts) targeting our Gold-tier keywords list, including #1 rankings for valuable ideas such as ‘credit facility‘ and ‘bridging finance south africa.’
Keywords like “what is a credit facility” look like awareness-stage searches on the surface. But our research showed this was a term Lula’s buyers were actively clarifying late in the sales process — making it a high-value conversion topic disguised as a top-of-funnel one.
In total, Lula ranked for 34 Gold and Silver-tier keywords in the Top 3 positions of Google in their target market.
Many of these #1 positions also triggered Google’s AI Overview snippets — which can cannibalize click-through if the searcher gets their answer without clicking. We anticipated this risk by selecting topics that require buyers to compare providers and evaluate product details — searches that prompt a click regardless of the AI snippet above them. Organic traffic continued to grow through April as a result.
However, because we picked topics that require customers to conduct more research-heavy reviews and studies of the products on the market, we started to see a spike in organic traffic growth in April — all despite the AI Overviews.
This provides a good example of how important it is to choose topics that require customers to click beyond the AI snippet.
The final results — Lula’s B2B organic leads jumped to almost 1,000 per month by August 2025, with an additional 800+ leads coming from direct traffic, which included new leads from LLMs.
This was up from 700+ B2B organic leads in May 2025, and accounts for approximately 100 more leads from LLMs.
Additionally, May growth was almost double the amount of organic leads measured in the same period the previous month. (NOTE: We measured leads by GA4 conversion events, collecting data for ‘lead form submission.’)
2. The GEO Result: Outranking Legacy Banks on ChatGPT
This series of content was built to highlight the use of alternative business funding options for many industries, and in the process, showcase Lula’s offer transparently.
The same qualities that drove Google rankings — transparent product explanations, expert-quoted research, and depth of coverage on specific funding use cases — are precisely what AI tools like ChatGPT use to determine which sources to cite.
By the end of 2025, Lula had become the most-cited domain on ChatGPT for valuable SME funding-related prompts in South Africa.
When prospective borrowers ask ChatGPT about funding-related questions — credit facilities, working capital or bridging finance — in the South African market, Lula surfaces ahead of major legacy banks that have been in the market for decades.
Update: February 2026
Lula’s ChatGPT visibility continues to grow. In January 2026 alone, their average visibility for SME funding-related prompts increased by 10%, share of voice grew 3%, and average position improved by 0.3 — meaning they’re being cited earlier and more consistently every time ChatGPT answers a question in their market.
The gap between Lula and South Africa’s legacy banks — which have been in the market for decades — continues to widen.
This wasn’t the result of a separate GEO campaign. It was the natural outcome of building content that was genuinely more useful, more specific, and better sourced than anything else in the category.
This campaign continues to build momentum. We’ll update this case study as new data comes in.
