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Overview:

A Bengaluru-headquartered, RBI-registered NBFC operating in the education financing space is looking to scale its organic authority and brand trust. The company offers fully digital, collateral-free education loans for students pursuing domestic and international higher education, coaching, and upskilling programs.

Key details:

• Category: Fintech / NBFC (YMYL)
• Primary Market: India (B2C students + B2B educational institutions)
• Scale:
  • ₹4,000+ crore disbursed
  • 6.5 lakh+ students served
  • 5,000+ partner institutions
  • Sub-1% NPA rate
• Backed by leading institutional investors

Campaign Context:
Education loans fall under YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) as per Google’s guidelines. This requires a significantly higher trust threshold for all SEO activities. The focus is not on link volume, but on high-authority, credible, and topically relevant endorsements.

Brief Requirements:

The brand is looking for an end-to-end off-page SEO partner to execute a structured 12-month authority-building campaign.

Campaign Objectives:

1. Domain Authority Growth
   • Increase DR from 44 to 62+ through high-quality, YMYL-compliant backlinks
2. AI Citation Visibility
   • Ensure brand visibility in AI-generated responses across platforms like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity
3. Brand Authority & Trust
   • Build strong brand mentions across media, communities, and institutional platforms

Scope of Work (6 Strategic Pillars):

P1: Wikipedia & Wikidata Entity

• Wikidata item creation
• Wikipedia article drafting and AfC submission
• Google Knowledge Panel optimisation
• Cross-platform entity consistency audit across Crunchbase, LinkedIn, Tracxn, and comparison portals
• Target Output: Wikidata live (Month 1);Wikipedia article approved (Month 6); Knowledge Panel stable

P2: YMYL Financial Media Links

• Data-led editorial pitches to India's Tier-1 financial press
• Expert quote placements
• Founder op-ed submissions
• Media relationship management with target journalists at ET, Mint, BusinessLine, Forbes India, Inc42, NDTV Profit, YourStory
• Target Output: +10–12  Tier-1 links; +25 Tier-2 links over 12 months

P3: Comparison Sites & Listicles

• Profile optimisation and editorial inclusion across Collegedunia, WeMakeScholars, BankBazaar, PaisaBazaar, Shiksha, Leverage Edu, Yocket, Buddy4Study, Creditmantri, GradRight
• Independent personal finance blog outreach
• Target Output: 20+ comparison site editorial links; the brand featured in top 5 NBFC listicles

P4: Reddit & Community Platforms

• Authentic brand participation strategy for r/IndiaFinance, r/PersonalFinanceIndia, r/studyabroad
• Quora expert answer campaign (top 30 education loan queries)
• LinkedIn thought leadership content for founders
• Target Output: 40+  positive Reddit brand mentions/month; 300+ Quora answer views/month

P5: Founder & Leadership E-E-A-T

• Founder byline article outreach (ET, Mint, YourStory)
• Podcast appearance campaign (Paisa Vaisa, Fintech Diaries, IVM)
• Conference speaking applications (NASSCOM, FICCI)
• Author bio pages with Person schema on website
• Target Output: 6 founder byline articles; 6 podcast appearances; 2+ conference speaking slots

P6: Institutional Partnerships (High-trust backlinks)

• Systematic student aid page co-creation across 50+ partner institutions
• Priority outreach to Chandigarh University (confirmed partner), VIT, Manipal, SRM, XLRI, and coding bootcamps (Coding Ninjas, Edureka, upGrad)
• Vidya Lakshmi NBFC listing
• Target Output: 50+ institutional links live including .ac.in domains

Non-Negotiable Exclusions:

The following tactics are strictly not allowed in the YMYL financial category. Certain tactics that are common in general SEO campaigns are actively harmful for the brand and will not be considered regardless of pricing or volume promises.

• Mass guest posting on generic blogs
• Private Blog Networks (PBNs)
• AI-generated content at scale for backlinks
• Paid links without editorial value
• Low-quality directory submissions (DA < 30)
• Fake or manufactured community accounts

Link Quality Benchmark

The expected standard includes:

• Tier-1 financial media
• High-authority startup and education platforms
• Trusted comparison portals
• Institutional (.ac.in) domains
• Knowledge platforms (Wikipedia, Wikidata)
• Community platforms with authentic engagement

Important:
Any link that does not meet this calibre should not be pursued.

Deliverables & Reporting Expectations:

 1. Monthly Reporting‍

• Links built in the month: URL, domain, DR, link type (editorial / profile /institutional), anchor text, do/no follow status
• AI visibility tracking: manual citation checks across Google AIO, ChatGPT, Perplexity for 20 priority queries — results logged monthly
• Brand mention volume: total mentions, sentiment split, source breakdown
• Domain Rating movement: Ahrefs snapshot with referring domain delta
• Pipeline report: outreach initiated, responses received, placements in progress

2. Campaign Milestones‍

• Month 1: Wikidata item live; all comparison site profiles complete; brand monitoring active
• Month 3: Annual Education Loan Report published; first Tier-1 media link earned; Wikipedia draft submitted
• Month 6: Mid-campaign review — DR 50+; Wikipedia article live; cited in 5+ AI Overview queries
• Month 12: DR 62+; 100+ new YMYL-safe referring domains; 50+ institutional links live; brand cited in AI Overviews across 15+ target queries

3. Access Required

• Google Search Console (read access)
• Ahrefs or Semrush project access (or agency to provide monthly Ahrefs reports)
• Google Analytics 4 (read access — for LLM referral traffic tracking)

Agency Requirements:

Agencies applying should clearly address:

1. Ownership across all 6 pillars (in-house vs subcontracted)
2. Approach to YMYL compliance and link evaluation
3. Relevant experience in fintech/NBFC/financial services
4. Strategy for earning placements in Tier-1 financial media
5. Approach to Reddit/community engagement without risk
6. Methodology for tracking AI visibility and citations
7. Link velocity plan (volume, quality, sources)
8. Retainer structure and pricing breakdown