How Novalab Helped a Prop Trading Firm Turn Organic Search Into a Real Challenge Starts
Client: PropFunding
Industry: Fintech / Proprietary Trading
Website: propfunding.com
Audience: Traders looking for funded accounts with no upfront payment
Goal:
Increase qualified organic visibility, grow authority, expand AI search visibility, and turn search demand into real challenge starts.
The objective was not only to improve rankings. It was to attract traders with clear commercial intent and guide them toward starting a funded challenge. This required aligning search visibility with user expectations, improving how the offer was presented, strengthening trust signals, and reducing friction across key landing pages.
For PropFunding, organic growth needed to support real business outcomes by bringing in users who were ready to take action. That meant focusing on traffic quality, not just volume, and building a stronger connection between search demand, brand trust, and conversions.
The Situation
PropFunding had a strong offer. Traders could start the evaluation for free and only pay after passing. Despite this, the brand was not getting the level of visibility it needed when traders searched for prop firms, funded accounts, free evaluations, and challenge-based trading programs..
Competitors with weaker offers were capturing attention simply because they appeared first.
The issue was not the offer. The issue was that search engines and users did not have a clear enough path to understand, trust, and act on the offer. PropFunding needed stronger technical foundations, clearer commercial pages, better internal structure, and stronger authority signals to compete in a finance-heavy category
The Problems We Found
Before working with Novalab, growth was limited by several connected issues.
PropFunding had low visibility for high-intent searches. Commercial and trust pages were not earning steady discovery. Important content existed, but it was not fully supporting trader decision-making. Key pages were isolated because of weak internal linking. Technical inconsistencies were affecting crawl clarity. The backlink profile was also too weak for a competitive finance and trading category.
More content alone would not solve this.
The site needed structure, clarity, technical cleanup, stronger authority, and better measurement. SEO had to be treated as a growth system, not a checklist.
Our Approach
We treated SEO as a growth system with one clear focus: make PropFunding easy to find, easy to trust, and easy to act on.
The work was built around six core areas:
- Fixing the technical foundation
- Making commercial pages clear and useful
- Connecting the site with an authority guide
- Consolidating subdomains
- Growing authority and backlinks
- Tracking what actually matters
1. Fixing the Technical Foundation
We started with the basics that allow SEO to work properly.
The site needed clean crawl paths, consistent indexation signals, stronger technical organization, and fewer mixed messages for search engines. We aligned robots and sitemap signals, enforced a single HTTPS version, standardized www and non-www usage, reviewed crawl behavior, reduced wasted crawl activity, strengthened canonical signals, and improved linking between important pages.
We also focused on keeping the site technically clean as authority and visibility grew.
What changed: Search engines could crawl the site more clearly and understand the website structure without conflicting signals. This created the foundation needed for content, authority, and visibility improvements to compound.
2. Making Commercial Pages Clear and Useful
With the foundation stable, we focused on pages that drive sign-ups.
The homepage and funding program pages were reworked for clarity. Headings and page structure were improved so traders could understand the offer quickly. Titles and descriptions were updated to improve relevance, reduce duplication, and better match the intent of users comparing prop firms.
The goal was clarity, not keyword stuffing.
Traders needed to understand what PropFunding offers, how the free evaluation works, what happens after passing, and why the model is different from other prop trading options. Commercial pages had to move users closer to action, not just bring them to the site.
What changed:
The commercial pages became more useful for both users and search engines. Traders could understand the offer faster, navigate with less friction, and move toward starting a challenge with more confidence.
3. Connecting the Site With an Authority Guide
Important pages existed, but they were not connected. To fix this, we built a single evergreen guide that explains the full PropFunding model in one place.
To fix this, we built a single evergreen guide that explained the full PropFunding model in one place. This guide gave users and search engines a clearer understanding of how the offer works, what makes it different, and where to go next.
The guide covered how the free evaluation and activation model works, challenge steps and rules, pricing, payouts, platform stats, leaderboard performance, community context, privacy, security, compliance basics, and clear next steps to start a challenge.
The guide linked directly to the homepage, rules, stats, leaderboard, and privacy pages. This removed isolation across the site and helped trust content support conversion pages.
What changed:
Trust content stopped sitting on its own. It began supporting commercial intent, helping users move from research to action while strengthening internal authority across key pages.
4. Consolidating Subdomains
Authority was being split across subdomains.
The blog was migrated from blog.propfunding.com to propfunding.com/blog. We also recommended keeping documentation and supporting content under the main domain where possible.
This helped concentrate authority and made it easier for search engines to understand PropFunding as one connected website instead of separate disconnected sections.
What changed:
All content contributed to the strength of one domain, improving crawl clarity, internal relevance, and long-term ranking potential.
5. Authority Growth and Backlink Progress
Once the site structure and content foundation were stronger, we focused on rebuilding authority.
The strategy was not to chase random backlink volume. In a finance and trading niche, low-quality links can create noise instead of trust. We focused on relevant placements, cleaner signals, and a stronger authority profile that could support competitive rankings.
Before SEO work, PropFunding had almost no measurable authority. The site started with a Domain Rating of 0.2, URL Rating of 0, 45 backlinks, and 44 referring domains.
After implementation, the backlink profile improved significantly.
| Metric | Before | After |
| Domain Rating | 0.2 | 36 (+35) |
| URL Rating | 0 | 4.7 |
| Backlinks | 45 | 352 (+300) |
| Referring Domains | 44 | 284 (+234) |
What changed:
PropFunding moved from a weak backlink profile to a much stronger authority base. Domain Rating increased to 36, backlinks grew to 352, and referring domains grew to 284. This gave the site stronger credibility, better ranking potential, and a more stable foundation for long-term organic growth.
Backlink profile improvement
Before SEO work
- Domain Rating: 0.2
- URL Rating: 0
- Backlinks: 45
- Referring domains: 44
After implementation
- Domain Rating: 36 (+35)
- URL Rating: 9 (4.7)
- Backlinks: 352(+300)
- Referring domains: 284 (+234)
What changed:
The backlink strategy focused on relevance and trust rather than volume alone. In a finance-related niche, authority signals need to be clean, consistent, and contextually aligned to have a meaningful impact.
By improving the overall quality of referring domains and reducing noise in the link profile, the site gained stronger credibility, which supported more stable rankings and better performance across competitive search terms
SEO Growth & Technical Performance
Through a focused SEO and technical optimization strategy, PropFunding achieved strong technical performance while scaling authority and visibility.
The updated technical and authority snapshot showed:
- Health Score: 99
- Crawled URLs: 160
- Redirects: 9
- Broken pages: 0
- Blocked pages: 0
- Domain Rating: 36
- Referring domains: 284
This is important because the campaign did not create authority at the expense of site quality. The website remained technically clean, with zero broken pages and zero blocked pages interfering with crawlability.
The site maintained a clean foundation while gaining stronger authority. This gave search engines a clearer path to crawl, understand, and evaluate PropFunding’s content.
6. Tracking What Actually Matters
We expanded tracking to focus on outcomes rather than assumptions.
The campaign monitored rankings, crawl health, query growth, user paths, organic visibility, authority movement, and AI citation signals. The purpose was not just to report activity. It was to understand whether SEO work was creating visibility that could support real business outcomes.
PropFunding did not need empty traffic. It needed qualified traders discovering the offer, understanding the model, and moving closer to starting a challenge.
What changed:
Measurement became tied to visibility quality, authority growth, and commercial impact instead of only surface-level traffic numbers.
Results Snapshot
Organic Visibility — Last 3 Months
Over the last 3 months, PropFunding generated:
14.7 average position
1.17K clicks
29.3K impressions
4% CTR
The increase shows that the site moved from limited discovery into a more active organic acquisition channel. PropFunding was no longer only appearing occasionally. It was gaining broader search visibility and turning more of that visibility into real clicks.
Organic Visibility — Last 28 Days
In the most recent 28-day period, PropFunding generated:
15.4 average position
568 clicks
9.2K impressions
6.2% CTR
This shows the growth was not just historical. The site continued gaining traction in the most recent reporting window, with stronger click volume and a healthier click-through rate.
High-intent performance
A focused reporting window showed:
13.7 average position
139 clicks
1.72K impressions
8.1% CTR
When PropFunding ranks near the top, traders click and start challenges. This type of performance highlights the importance of targeting decision-stage queries where users are ready to take action. Ranking for high-intent keywords creates a stronger commercial impact compared to broader informational traffic.
By focusing on these queries, the campaign attracted more qualified users, improved conversion potential, and supported consistent growth in leads from organic search.
Expanding Visibility Into AI and LLM Search
Novalab also helped PropFunding extend its presence beyond traditional search rankings.
As AI-driven discovery becomes more important, brands need to be understood clearly by search engines, answer engines, and large language models. That requires strong technical SEO, clear entity positioning, clean content structure, and pages that directly answer user intent.
PropFunding’s updated AI performance showed:
5 average cited pages
1.4K total AI citations
This means PropFunding was not only gaining traditional search visibility. The brand was also being recognized inside AI-assisted discovery surfaces.
This is a major improvement from the earlier AI reporting, where citation activity was much smaller. The new data shows that PropFunding’s content became more discoverable and usable inside AI-powered search experiences.
Client Feedback
“Novalab didn’t just fix our SEO. They changed how we bring in traders. The technical cleanup alone shifted our direction, and watching visibility and signups grow week after week showed the impact clearly. They are now a core part of our growth.”
– PropFunding
Why This Worked
Technical issues were addressed first, creating a clean foundation before any content or authority work began. Content focused on real trader questions, not keyword volume. Internal links connected trust and conversion pages, eliminating the isolation that was limiting page authority distribution. Authority growth stayed relevant and controlled, prioritizing quality over quantity. Measurement kept progress steady and made it possible to catch issues before they compounded.
Authority growth then amplified the foundation. PropFunding grew from 45 backlinks to 352 backlinks, from 44 referring domains to 284 referring domains, and from a Domain Rating of 0.2 to 36.
The site also maintained a strong technical profile with a 99 health score, zero broken pages, and zero blocked pages. That combination of technical clarity, content structure, authority growth, and measurement gave the campaign room to compound.
AI visibility added another layer of growth. With 1.4K AI citations and 5 average cited pages, PropFunding began showing up beyond traditional search results and inside AI-assisted discovery environments.
Final Takeaway
PropFunding grew by fixing the foundation, bringing structure to content, consolidating authority, expanding backlinks, improving organic visibility, and guiding traders from search to action.
The campaign helped turn SEO into a real acquisition channel. PropFunding increased visibility, built stronger trust signals, improved technical health, expanded authority, and created more opportunities to attract qualified traders.
For fintech platforms, SaaS products, and prop firms competing in trust-heavy markets, this case study shows what happens when SEO supports real business outcomes.
Growth here does not only mean more impressions or higher rankings. It means increasing revenue and income potential by bringing in better-qualified users, improving trust, and creating a clearer path from search to conversion.
Ready to transform your SEO performance? Contact Novalab SEO Agency today to discuss how we can deliver similar results for your business.
