NIBC: Improved online performance after successful website migration

About NIBC

NIBC is a bank with a focus on savings, mortgages and real estate, known for its personal approach and advisory role. Until 2023, NIBC managed its services through three separate domains: vastgoedhypotheek.nl for real estate, nibcdirect.nl for savings and mortgages, and nibc.nl as a corporate website. With a wish for stronger brand positioning, NIBC decided to merge these domains under one powerful digital location: nibc.nl.

The challenge

The migration to a single domain required not only a seamless technical implementation, but also a powerful SEO strategy to make the new domain immediately visible and competitive. Aspen Digital was asked to manage this complex process.

For a financial institution like NIBC, where trust and accessibility are key, it was crucial that customers could find their way to the right information without interruption. In addition, the challenge lay in maintaining the accumulated authority of the existing domains and to realise the full visibility potential of the new domain as quickly as possible.

The strategy

Before the migration:

Our specialists started with a thorough analysis and creation of a strategic roadmap. Redirect lists and technical to-do’s were meticulously drawn up so that search engines could switch smoothly to the new domain. Every existing link was mapped to ensure that accumulated value would not be lost. This careful preparation focused not only on SEO preservation, but also on strengthening NIBC’s online position directly after the migration.

During the migration:

During going live, we worked intensively with the NIBC teams and external developers to immediately identify and address potential SEO issues. Our SEO specialists performed a detailed staging check, analysing and directly optimising critical issues such as URL structure, internal links and duplicate content. This provided assurance that the website could launch without technical hiccups.

After the migration:

As soon as nibc.nl went live, we closely monitored the performance and growth potential of the new domain. We recommended some essential SEO adjustments, including addressing duplicate content. For pages that overlapped, we suggested deploying canonicals and implementing redirect solutions. These direct actions helped optimise search engine indexation and kept the site clean and effective for both visitors and search engines.

Chart 1: The chart above shows the organic traffic towards NIBC’s various domains since January 2023. This is only non-branded traffic: search terms with “NIBC” are not included. In it, you can see that total traffic has increased tremendously after the migration, and has also remained consistently higher than before the migration.

The results

Thanks to the seamless migration and subsequent optimisations, nibc.nl grew significantly from the summer of 2023. In particular, search terms related to savings, such as “savings rates”, “savings account”, and “open savings account,” saw a sharp increase in organic positions. This ensured a steady increase in relevant traffic, with strong positions on competitive keywords in the Dutch financial market.

Graph 2: The graph above shows the daily organic positions of NIBC’s domain on some key search terms. It can be seen that there has been a big increase since the migration.

NIBC’s new unified website was thus able to take full advantage of the accumulated authority of the former domains, and traffic grew with each month. These results show that with the right data-driven strategy, the full visibility potential can be exploited even in complex migration projects.

This successful migration underlines how detailed SEO expertise and intensive cooperation with client teams and external partners (such as developers and marketers) can make the difference. With our in-depth knowledge and proactive approach, Aspen Digital helps clients leverage the maximum potential of their online presence.

Wondering how we can boost your visibility potential? Get in touch and find out what we can do for your online success.