Services Used:
Meet CIMB
CIMB Singapore provides personal and business banking solutions for customers in Singapore, including products across deposits, personal financing, credit cards, insurance and business banking. Its personal banking site describes its offering as an extensive suite of banking solutions, while its business banking page focuses on financial solutions for business needs.
As search behaviour evolves across Google, AI Overviews, ChatGPT and other AI-powered discovery platforms, CIMB needed a stronger organic foundation that could support visibility across both traditional search and emerging AI search experiences.
The initial challenge
CIMB partnered with First Page to strengthen its visibility across core banking products while building a future-proof SEO foundation for AI-powered discovery.
Although strong rankings already existed, topical authority remained fragmented across key service areas. This meant CIMB had opportunities to consolidate keyword targeting, reduce dilution and create clearer content pathways across important banking categories.
The competitive landscape was also challenging. Search results for banking products are dominated by established financial brands, comparison platforms and publishers competing heavily for high-value finance keywords.
At the same time, search behaviour was shifting. Users were increasingly relying on AI-generated answers, Google AI Overviews and conversational discovery platforms to compare banking products, understand eligibility and shortlist providers.
First Page developed a service-pillar SEO strategy to strengthen CIMB’s search visibility across key banking categories.
The first step was keyword cluster consolidation. Keywords were restructured into strategic topic clusters, helping CIMB build stronger topical authority while reducing keyword dilution across overlapping pages and service areas.
Next, First Page prioritised high-value banking categories, including deposits, personal loans, credit cards and business banking. This helped align SEO efforts with CIMB’s most commercially valuable service areas and ensured that optimisation work was focused on pages with stronger business impact.
To support trust and authority, First Page identified topical authority gaps and implemented a backlink strategy focused on strengthening CIMB’s association with financial services. This helped reinforce relevance for competitive finance-related search terms.
The strategy also included AI search readiness through NEXSEO. Prompt-led content frameworks were developed to improve CIMB’s visibility across emerging discovery platforms such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity.
