Portfolio · SEO Program

From page two to owning four provinces — six months of SEO for a Canadian equipment financer

Essex Lease has been financing Canadian businesses since 1986 — but its search presence didn’t reflect its reputation. The site sat at an average Google position of 24, deep on page two, where commercial intent goes to die. Six months later, Essex ranks #1 in four provinces for the searches equipment buyers actually make.

Client

Essex Lease Financial Corp
Calgary & Edmonton, AB

Industry

Equipment financing & leasing

What we did

SEO Strategy · Content · Local SEO · AI-Search Visibility

Engagement

6-month SEO program · 2026

Google search impressions · six months vs the prior six

+269% — to 1.46 million

The challenge

Essex Lease Financial Corporation serves owner-operators and entrepreneur-led businesses in heavy industries — construction, transportation, oil & gas, agriculture, forestry, and mining — the kinds of clients whose wealth is tied up in equipment and whose credit profiles don’t fit the big banks’ boxes.

Offline, that reputation was strong. Online, it was invisible: an average Google position of 24 — deep on page two and three — while the most valuable equipment financing queries in their home markets belonged to competitors. And in the AI tools where a growing share of financing research now starts, Essex had effectively zero presence.

The approach

A restructured keyword strategy. Service and content pages re-mapped so each page targets the searches equipment buyers actually make — without competing against each other.
Ongoing technical SEO and content optimization. Continuous on-page, structural, and content work across the six-month program.

Expanded local presence. Stronger visibility for both office locations, Calgary and Edmonton, in local and map results.
AI-search visibility tracking. Monitoring and optimizing how Essex appears across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews — not just traditional rankings.

The results · six months vs the prior six

Four provinces, one name at the top.

Essex went from page two to the top of the results that matter — and picked up its first measurable visibility in AI search along the way.

+269%

Growth in Google search impressions — to 1.46 million, with organic clicks up 40%

24 → 9

Average Google position — from deep on page two to page one, with 27 keywords in Google's top 3

2×

Conversions more than doubled — equipment buyers actively researching financing, not bounces

/// #1 positions · equipment financing & heavy equipment financing searches

#1Albertahome market

#1Saskatchewan

#1Manitoba

#1Ontario

#1Canada-wide — “heavy equipment leasing companies”national term

Provincial #1 positions cover both “equipment financing” and “heavy equipment financing” searches in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario. Results compare the six-month program period against the prior six months.

Organic became the quality channel

A 67% engagement rate against a 41% site average, six-minute average sessions, and nearly half of all pageviews from just over a third of sessions. These are equipment buyers actively researching financing — not bounces.

AI search broke open

Essex went from zero citations on ChatGPT to a 16.7% citation rate, earned its first placements in Google's AI Overviews, and recorded its first measurable referral traffic from AI assistants — visibility where a growing share of financing research now happens.

The takeaway

Essex built its reputation the slow way — four decades of financing the businesses banks overlook. What was missing was findability. Six months of structured SEO turned a page-two site into the #1 result across four provinces, made organic the highest-quality channel on the site, and opened up AI search entirely. The businesses Essex was built to serve can finally find it.

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