The words we go after, and the first twelve pages
I looked at what the firms winning this work actually target, what people genuinely type, and where the gaps are. Here's where you stand today, what's realistically winnable, and the twelve pages I'd write first.
Where you stand today
One of the tools put it bluntly: "we've never seen this domain rank on any keywords in the last 20 years." That's not an insult to the site — it simply has nothing on it for Google to match anyone's search to.
The good news is local
The national specialists are genuinely strong. The firms near you are not.
| Firm | Pages about bad credit |
|---|---|
| The Mortgage Hut (national) | ~53 |
| Online Mortgage Advisor (national) | ~52 |
| Haysto (national) | ~44 |
| Just Mortgage Brokers (national) | 26 |
| Complete Mortgages (Guildford) | 2 |
| MortgageQuest (Uxbridge) | 1 |
| RS Financial (Uxbridge) | 0 |
| Oakmount (local) | 0 — their whole website is four pages |
So the plan isn't to fight the national firms head-on. It's to own the ground nobody near you has bothered with, and to pick off the specific questions the big sites answer badly.
What's easy, what's hard
Winnable now
- Mortgage broker in Uxbridge and Hillingdon
- "Can you get a mortgage with a CCJ" — and the other ways people phrase a specific credit problem
- "Declined after my agreement in principle" — the easiest thing on this page to win
- Which lenders accept CCJs and debt plans
Small unbranded brokers already rank for these. There's no brand to outrank — just better answers to write.
Takes a few months
- Adverse credit mortgage broker
- Mortgage after an IVA or bankruptcy
- Remortgaging with bad credit
- Guildford and Surrey searches
Real competition, but no household names. Surrey is harder than Uxbridge because two decent firms are already there.
Not worth chasing
- "Bad credit mortgage"
- "Mortgage broker" on its own
- "Bad credit mortgage calculator"
- "Can I get a mortgage with bad credit"
Held by Experian, GoCompare, StepChange, MoneyHelper and the banks. Even Haysto, with 44 pages, sits on page two for the main one.
What the numbers say
I got as far as free tools allow. Ahrefs gives volume in bands rather than exact figures, and a difficulty score out of 100 with the number of linking websites you'd typically need. Google Trends gives relative demand and direction of travel. Both are below, labelled for what they are.
| Search | Volume band | Difficulty | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| mortgage declined after agreement in principle | Over 100/mo | 0 | The best opportunity in the whole list. Roughly no links needed to compete. |
| limited company buy to let mortgage | Over 1,000/mo | 13 | The only high-volume term in your world, and far easier than expected. |
| hmo mortgage broker | Over 100/mo | 4 | About five linking sites needed. Very winnable. |
| bad credit mortgage broker | Over 100/mo | 53 | Needs ~95 linking sites. This is the one to be patient about. |
| can you get a mortgage with a ccj | Over 100/mo | — | How people actually phrase it. |
| mortgage with a satisfied ccj | Under 100/mo | — | The phrasing I'd assumed. Barely searched. |
| mortgage broker uxbridge | Under 100/mo | — | Small, but the people searching it are ready to call. |
Which way each one is heading, over five years
- CCJs are the only credit problem people are searching for more: up 137%. That settles which page comes first.
- Defaults down 78%, IVAs down 64%, debt management plans down 35% — so those get one shared page rather than three.
- Landlord searches are growing while general buy-to-let shrinks 16%.
- "Portfolio landlord" has been flat at zero for five straight years — which confirms what I told you about the wording.
- "Rates" is the rising word everywhere — people increasingly search for the rate, not just the possibility. Worth a page of its own.
One thing the numbers settled that I'd wondered about: there's no local advantage in the data. Interest is spread evenly across the UK (Wales 100, Northern Ireland 97, England 95, Scotland 88), so the Uxbridge page earns its place by converting the few people who search it, not by traffic.
The first twelve pages
In this order. Local first, because it's the only part that can produce enquiries within weeks.
| # | Page | Why it's in this position |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mortgage broker in Uxbridge & Hillingdon, including bad credit | The cheapest win available. Nobody local specialises, and it pairs with your Google listing. |
| 2 | Adverse credit mortgages: what's actually possible | The hub every other page links to. Today the words "bad credit" and "CCJ" appear nowhere on your site. |
| 3 | Can you get a mortgage with a CCJ? | CCJs are the only credit problem being searched more each year, up 137%. Phrased the way people actually type it. |
| 4 | Getting a mortgage with defaults | Same shape — covers one, two, satisfied and unsatisfied in one page. |
| 5 | Which lenders accept CCJs, defaults and debt plans in 2026 | The highest intent of the lot, and the one page an AI summary can't really replace, because it needs current lender criteria. Needs a "criteria change" line for compliance. |
| 6 | Mortgages on a debt plan, or after an IVA | One page, not two — searches for both are falling, so they don't justify a page each. |
| 7 | Limited company buy-to-let mortgages | Promoted. The only term with real volume (1,000+ a month) and it's far easier to compete for than anything on the credit side. |
| 8 | Declined after your agreement in principle? | The most urgent moment there is. Live applications, and no lender brand to outrank. |
| 9 | Declined by Halifax? What to do next | Proves the per-lender template. Repeat for Nationwide, NatWest, Santander and the rest once it works. |
| 10 | Mortgages with missed or late payments | The most common credit problem of all, and how people find you before they'd ever call themselves "bad credit". |
| 11 | Remortgaging with bad credit, arrears or a CCJ | Catches the two-year cycle that makes these clients repeat business. |
| 12 | Adverse credit advice in Guildford, Woking & Surrey | Your home patch, deliberately last: Surrey has real competition where Uxbridge has none, so it needs the other eleven behind it. |
After those: a joint mortgage where only one of you has credit problems, self-employed with bad credit, and "declined by Pepper Money" — a phrase people genuinely search that no competitor has written a page for.
Two things worth being straight about
The volumes above are bands, not exact figures. The free tools give a range and a difficulty score; exact monthly numbers sit behind paid accounts. I've labelled everything for what it is, and where a tool gave me a result I didn't believe, I've left it out rather than pass it on. A month of a paid tool is about £99 if you ever want the precise figures, but I don't think you need them to start.
The single most valuable next step costs nothing. Registering your site with Google's own free tool shows the real phrases people use to find you, straight from Google. It doesn't backfill, so it only starts counting the day it's set up — which is why it's the first thing I'll do.