From a Local Service in Lutsk to a Global FinTech Platform — The Rates.fm Case

Why FinTech Is a Whole Different Ball Game in Digital Marketing

Fintech is one of the most competitive and fast-growing industries — online banking, digital wallets, currency exchange services, financial consulting, you name it. It’s all rolled into one space and needs a well-rounded approach to building a marketing strategy, especially when it comes to SEO.

Most fintech business models aren’t overly complicated. They usually monetize financial services through common revenue models, such as commissions, subscriptions, freemium models, B2B and B2C segmentation, advertising, and affiliate programs.

However, given that the niche moves so quickly, businesses often hit walls that wipe out growth efforts. Here are a few of the biggest challenges:

• High competition. The fintech market is crowded. Traditional banks are adapting fast, and new startups keep popping up left and right. With everyone moving in the same direction, it’s tough to stand out and clearly show why your service is better.
• Users distrust. Fintech isn’t just about money anymore. It’s about convenience and user experience. Most people still trust their regular bank more than some new digital finance apps, especially when money’s involved.
• Scaling struggles. If only we could just copy-paste a working business model across markets, everything would be much easier. Alas, clients have different hobbies, habits, and ways of analyzing information, making localization and personalization critical if you want to become a serious player in this niche. That means choosing the right direction for growth, researching the market, defining your ideal customer profile, and staying on top of local trends.
• Customer churn risks. News spreads fast these days. A single poorly handled data breach, new regulation, bankruptcy, scandal, or service outage can trigger a wave of user drop-offs overnight.

We rely on the Internet for pretty much everything these days, so the quality of online information has a huge impact on our lives. When it comes to SEO for fintech companies, we are dealing with what Google calls a YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) niche. Basically, these are websites where the content can affect people’s health or financial well-being.

To evaluate the trustworthiness of this kind of content, Google considers something called E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). Here’s how that plays out in fintech:

• Content is created by financial experts.
• Only real authors, legit company information, licenses, and news sources.
• Websites utilize HTTPS protocols and user data protection.
• Content with no clickbait and fake promises.

Most of these points come down to your content. That’s why one of the most important pieces of SEO in fintech is building what we call a “trust cushion,” and one of the best ways to do that is through a solid, expert-driven blog. But even here, you need to watch out for:

• Poor content written by generalist copywriters with zero financial background.
• Companies focusing only on commercial keywords like “open an account” or “apply for a loan” and completely ignoring information queries.
• Businesses that operate in multiple countries but don’t localize their content for each market.

Next, we will show you exactly how our team helped one fintech company go from local to international.

About the Client and How It All Started

Rates.fm was launched on October 6, 2015, as a pet project by ideil, a company focused on building websites and APIs.

At first, it was just a simple one-pager that showed currency exchange rates in Lutsk, serving around 2,000–4,000 users per day. The website had an almost nonexistent backlink profile, with only 3 or 4 links from local Lutsk newspapers. And while the traffic was solid, the functionality was limited and mostly useful only for a local audience.

But as the user base started to grow, so did the demand. People from other cities were asking for the same features to be rolled out in their areas. At the same time, developers started requesting an API to integrate Rates.fm’s features and data into their platforms and apps, even things like smart home systems.

That demand prompted the team to expand the project’s geography and build out mobile apps for Android (in Java and Kotlin) and iOS (in Objective-C and Swift). The most recent app, version 3.0, was built on Flutter, making it fully cross-platform. The app development process also gave the client a chance to test out different libraries and frameworks.

Homepage of Rates.fm

The client came to Livepage pretty early on. At that point, they didn’t have a fully formed product strategy yet, so the best move was to start building traffic in advance and slowly grow a loyal audience.

That is, when there’s already an audience around a product like Rates, building out new features or even launching entirely new business directions becomes a lot easier than starting from scratch. At that point, the client saw serious potential in scaling Rates beyond Lutsk:

• Expanding the service across Ukraine by creating dedicated pages for each city, showing local exchange rates and banking information.
• Entering the international market, starting with Poland, Spain, and other countries.
• Rolling out a fully optimized mobile app for both Android and iOS.
• Launching an English version of the website with data on top foreign banks, exchange offices, and currency rates.

After meeting with the client, we realized it wasn’t just about building a local tool anymore, as the audience had grown beyond individual users to include financial institutions and third-party platforms. But as always, chasing big goals comes with big challenges.

First off, the website didn’t have a strong backlink profile (both the number and quality of inbound links), which made it harder to rank well on Google, especially considering the E-E-A-T factors we talked about earlier.

Second, the website’s internal structure wasn’t great. Pages weren’t well interconnected, which made it more challenging for search engines to crawl and index the content effectively.

Finally, to support the broader functionality of real-time currency tracking, we needed to do more research and invest in stronger technical tools for gathering and updating data.

The good news is that last challenge was tackled on the client’s side. They made the call to build out a full-on financial media platform powered by ideil’s custom system, Published!

Expanded functionality for tracking exchange rate dynamics on Rates.fm

Despite all the weak spots we mentioned earlier, the website was still getting a few thousand visits a day. That’s because the product itself was genuinely useful and in high demand. When you fully meet user intent and have at least some branded traffic, growth is still possible, even without a strong backlink profile or polished website structure.

But the drive to scale never went away. After aligning with the client and refining our joint vision, we came up with a clear roadmap:

• Expand the website structure by adding a blog and boosting nationwide reach across Ukraine by launching currency rate pages for banks and exchange offices in various cities.
• Attract more traffic by rolling out an English version of the website with currency data from foreign (later Polish and Spanish) banks and exchange offices.
• Build a solid URL logic by ensuring all pages are interconnected in a way that strengthens the content structure and enhances page rankings.
• Add filters to currency pages to support broader geographic targeting.

Before we could drive traffic to these new commercial pages, we had to build interest around them. That meant putting a real focus on the blog.

We went all in on researching relevant financial topics and closely tracked our rankings using tools like Serpstat, SE Ranking, Ahrefs, Google Analytics, and Google Search Console. We will break down the nitty-gritty of that work in the next sections.

Project Promotion Strategy

The first big question was: How do we set up the team to follow through on our strategy with as little rework as possible? We knew from experience that most bottlenecks happen at the team alignment stage. So we went with a “transparent system” approach, where everyone on the team needed to understand not just what we were doing but why we were doing it.

That’s why we involved both our team and the client’s team in open, ongoing conversations. This collaborative setup helped us stay aligned, quickly adapt proposals, and move faster from strategy to execution.

Given how fast the fintech niche evolves, we focused on building a strategy that was solid but flexible — a system we could adjust without losing sight of its core.

To hit the top 3 positions for high-volume keywords, we developed a clear SEO strategy based on competitor research and the Pillar approach — creating a strong, interconnected content structure to ensure a high position in search engines. We also segmented the audience to better understand which topics were most interesting to users and why. This insight guided the creation of several new content categories, which we planned to expand over time.

Rates.fm competitor research

For such a large-scale project, keeping a constant eye on technical issues and fixing them fast was absolutely critical. Even a minor mistake could ripple across tens of thousands of pages due to the way internal linking worked, directly affecting the website’s functionality.

Since we were building the website from scratch, we used a test version of the project to guide the process. This allowed us to evaluate whether both the content and technical setup met the needs of users and search engines.

This test environment proved especially useful because the website was being developed by specialists from different departments. It helped us make smarter calls about which content to publish and catch potential technical issues before anything went live.

To stay ahead of these problems, we conducted monthly technical audits and provided the client with actionable recommendations on what needed fixing.

Rates.fm traffic growth

Next up in the strategy was building out dedicated landing pages focused on currency exchange rates at specific banks and money exchange points. At the same time, we ramped up the production of informative content, collaborating with some of the best fintech experts in Ukraine.

However, our SEO team ran into common indexing issues. That’s something you often face with new websites, especially in the YMYL niche. The website was getting traffic on less important pages, while key landing pages were lagging behind in search rankings.

As a new brand, we had to prove our expertise and knock out long-established competitors that already had the trust of both users and search engines. Thus, we began by focusing on the core pages that targeted high-competition keywords. These pages were built using auto-generated content combined with a unique, human-written copy.

This hybrid approach allowed us to use valuable API data while still staying relevant to search algorithms. Around those core pages, we developed content clusters comprising evergreen articles — always useful, always relevant, not just for businesses but also for everyday visitors.

That kind of content broadened the website’s overall topical coverage and answered a wider range of user queries. As a result, it drove stable, long-term traffic.

Clicks comparison for Rates.fm over the past 6 months

All the pages were internally linked to support a clear hierarchy. This setup helped boost rankings not only for the core pages but also for the themed blog pages, creating a comprehensive SEO model that improved the website’s visibility in a highly competitive niche.

Before diving further into the strategy, let’s rewind to one of the client’s main goals: expanding the website’s reach across different regions. To do that, we had to build a well-organized website hierarchy that would support future growth without migrating or redirecting language versions.

We built out the website structure for each region separately, starting with Poland, Spain, and the US. Each of these areas had its own demand patterns and standard expectations for how websites in the region should look and function. Considering this, one key aspect of our approach was keeping the commercial and informative parts of the website connected.

Rates.fm traffic share by region

At first, the Ukrainian version of the website was the primary one. However, after reviewing the market and discussing it with the client, we decided to make international English the main language version.

To reflect this change, the Ukrainian version was moved to the subfolder https://rates.fm/ua-uk/.

At the same time, we actively worked on expanding into other countries, including Poland, Spain, and the UK. Localized versions for these regions were also placed in their own folders (/pl-pl/, /es-es/).

Polish version of Rates.fm

Since we were just starting to build out Ukrainian content at that stage, it didn’t make sense to rush into launching content in other languages too early.

Instead, we decided to create equivalent landing pages with updated currency rates, but for foreign banks and exchange offices. This approach also made it easier to integrate the data into the client’s mobile app using APIs.

For Poland, Spain, and the UK, it was relatively easy. We could get reliable currency data by scraping the central banks and other major financial institutions in each country.

The real challenge came with the international version of the website. It was unclear which banks or payment systems to prioritize or where to begin pulling data from. The goal for the international version was to keep it truly global, not too closely tied to any country. It needed to grow in sync with other active or planned language versions.

For example, mentions of Ukrainian partners may appear on both the Ukrainian and international versions. So, we decided to anchor the currency data to the US dollar (e.g., EUR/USD) and show currency rate dynamics for popular international payment systems like Wise, PayPal, Revolut, and Payoneer.

Now, the website supports real-time currency rates from Wise. We are planning to integrate other global payment platforms in future updates.

International version of Rates.fm

Since collecting currency rate data was much easier for individual language versions, we decided to move in parallel to the international website, combining content efforts with the development of the blog section. It was similar to the Ukrainian version but with a slightly different focus.

For example, the international blog would pay more attention to topics like “Taxes,” “Cryptocurrency,” and “Deposits” since tax and regulatory systems differ widely across countries.

That’s why, before creating and publishing content in these categories, it was essential to research the market and build a tailored content plan.

Now, blog content is also being created for the other localized versions of the website, but at a slower pace compared to the Ukrainian and international versions. That’s because the main priority in those versions is still sourcing accurate currency exchange data.

Sample article from the international version of Rates.fm

We kicked off the content part of the project with a goal to cover the full range of search intent in the niche. The process included:

• Researching hot topics and tracking updates.
• Building out and filling in the content calendar.
• Writing page metadata manually.
• Creating clear technical briefs for writers.
• Writing and publishing the actual content.

As a result, the blog began to steadily grow, featuring high-quality content on a variety of finance-related topics. The website quickly hit top rankings for relevant informational keywords.

We also internally linked these blog posts using the previously mentioned Pillar system, which helped redistribute link equity more effectively and increased average session duration across the website.

Keyword rankings trend for Rates.fm

Later on, we began working with fintech companies on a partnership basis. They started contributing highly targeted expert content, often extremely niche. For each contributor, we created dedicated author pages and added structured data (schema markup) to their articles.

One of the first partners was BEPS.space. As part of a full-scale collaboration, their authors produced valuable content and, with support from the Rates.fm team, began creating video podcasts and running a YouTube channel.

Rates.fm partners

Bringing in partners allowed us to create high-quality expert user-generated content that not only attracted new traffic but also helped retain the existing audience.

Over time, trust in the platform grew both among industry professionals and users arriving via organic search. The experts we collaborate with are well-known figures in Ukraine’s market with verified credentials and active professional profiles on social media.

This had a positive impact on trust signals within the YMYL framework. You can view an example of one of our expert author pages via this link. Some of the professionals we work with are even mentioned on official government websites.

Mentions of our experts on official government websites

Involving partners also unlocked new business monetization opportunities. Every mention of our partners and the services they provide, placed on our trusted, high-traffic website, generated additional revenue for the client and opened new traffic growth potential by expanding the scope of blog topics.

One standout example is an article about losing tax residency in Ukraine that generated the first qualified lead for one of our partners, which means potential earnings for the client as well.

First qualified lead from a blog post on Rates.fm

Since fintech is a fast-evolving niche, our content team used an iterative approach when managing new content:

• One month after publication, articles are re-optimized based on Google Search Console data by adding relevant search terms.
• After five months, we update the content again, aligning it with any niche changes and ensuring the page stays up-to-date.

Click growth trend for the Ukrainian page “Currency Card by PrivatBank”

We applied a similar strategy to existing content:

• Evaluated pages based on traffic, engagement, and conversion metrics using Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
• Updated the content with fresh information and integrated new relevant search queries.
• Rewrote titles, descriptions, and tags to improve how the page appeared in search results.
• Linked older pages to newer ones for better rankings.
• In cases where pages couldn’t be improved with unique content, boosted them through targeted link building.

Click growth trend for the page “Converting Currency with PayPal: A Step-by-Step Guide”

To continue scaling the website with tools like API integrations (e.g., credit calculators) and new partner collaborations, it made sense to roll out new blog categories and topic clusters. This helped us cover more search queries by improving blog navigation and internal linking across related content. At the same time, we ensured the URL structure mirrored the category hierarchy clearly and consistently.

Keyword ranking trend for Ukrainian articles on Rates.fm

While expanding the blog section, we also focused on optimizing existing pages for banks and currency exchange points. One of the key improvements was implementing a system to display currency rates not only for banks but also for exchange services in cities like Lutsk, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Kyiv, and others powered by an advanced filtering system. These same updates were gradually rolled out for the English version of the website as well.

Currency rate content structure on Rates.fm

The website’s backlink profile was initially one of its weakest points. That’s why our link-building strategy was aimed at high-quality outreach. The main goal was to acquire strong backlinks from relevant target areas to consistently strengthen a wide range of pages every month.

We concentrated most of the external link equity on well-performing, traffic-generating pages. The rest was distributed between blog posts and currency-related pages for banks and exchange offices.

Backlink profile growth over time for Rates.fm

As a result of this approach, the website’s backlink profile gradually improved, with both the number of referring domains and the total backlinks growing steadily in quality. With smart internal linking in place, link equity from high-traffic pages was passed on to lower-tier pages.

A well-structured backlink profile also increased our website’s authority, positively influencing how search engines evaluated the platform in terms of E-E-A-T.

Results and Future Plans

The project evolved from a local service in Lutsk into a large-scale financial platform with ambitions to compete internationally. Expanding the website structure via blog and geotargeting significantly increased its overall reach.

The Pillar-based content system helped establish a robust internal linking strategy that improved rankings for both informational and commercial pages. As a result, we achieved:

• + 11,000% increase in website traffic
• + 53% improvement in page CTR
• 61% of all keywords ranking in the top 10
• 750 referring domains added to the backlink profile

Traffic growth throughout the project lifecycle

We continue to work systematically on enhancing the website’s visibility, developing both hub pages and the blog section. Thanks to a well-executed, scalable strategy and a steady stream of fresh, relevant content, we are constantly creating new entry points for users. At the same time, we are increasing the platform’s authority by relying exclusively on white-hat SEO tactics.

What did we learn from this collaboration? First and foremost, in-depth market analysis is essential. It helped us understand exactly what our audience needed and what was missing in our competitors’ content. By analyzing all relevant keywords and topic clusters, we were able to collect valuable insights to shape and grow a sustainable SEO strategy.

Another key takeaway: high-quality, user-centered content is a must. Our goal was not only to meet the requirements of search engines but also to give visitors valuable insights from fintech niche experts. This approach led to a growing library of authoritative content, which in turn attracted more organic traffic.

We also learned that technical optimization isn’t something you can overlook. Stable growth simply wouldn’t have been possible without it. We focused on improving page load speed and mobile responsiveness, as well as properly setting up unique meta tags to ensure the website runs quickly and smoothly.

Growth in users by device type on Rates.fm

Another important lesson is not to underestimate the power of a strong backlink profile. By earning links from reputable sources, we boosted both the website’s credibility and visibility in search engines.

At the same time, we know that SEO is never a one-and-done effort. Thus, we continually adapted our strategy to reflect changes in search engine algorithms and shifts in the fintech landscape.

One of our top priorities was optimizing for user experience. With search engines becoming increasingly user-focused, we made sure our website was not only fast and functional but also easy to navigate on all devices.

If there’s one key takeaway from this case, it’s that real results come from a comprehensive approach. Going forward, both our team and the client are fully committed to continuing the partnership built on shared vision, active planning, and alignment across all internal and external processes.

An essential driver of success is total synergy with the client and their clear ambition to become a leading voice in international financial media. That kind of motivation pushes us to keep delivering high-quality solutions and ensures consistent growth. Looking ahead, we are planning to:

• Expand our reach by covering more topics and regions.
• Add a variety of tools (converters, calculators, and more).
• Launch monetization strategies tailored to different user segments.
• Further develop the blog’s structure and drive traffic to hub pages.

Livepage has years of hands-on experience with SEO for financial platforms. Our team understands all the nuances of the industry and offers fully customized strategies for every project. With a deep understanding of the financial services sector, niche market dynamics, and audience behavior, we help brands grow and thrive through search engine optimization.

We take a hands-on approach to every project, from in-depth competitor analysis and content creation to technical improvements and link-building that drive real authority. Our strategies are flexible yet robust, built on proven best practices, and constantly evolving to stay ahead of market trends. That’s how we help businesses grow even in the most competitive environments.

Contact us, and we will help you not only improve the visibility of your brand but also secure a better market position. We understand the importance of top rankings to your business, and every step we take is dedicated to delivering tangible results.