We're Not a Bank, We're Not a Real Estate Agency - So Who Will Link to Us?

Hi guys

I'm hoping there are some SEO and marketing professionals here who can give me some feedback.

We run an independent home-buying advisory company "Bankr". We don't sell mortgages, real estate, or financial products. Instead, we help home buyers make informed decisions throughout the buying process.

1. One of our biggest SEO challenges is that we're in a somewhat unique position within the industry. Banks and real estate agents are often the businesses that naturally attract links and attention, but since we're independent advisors, they're unlikely to link to us. In many cases, our interests don't fully align with theirs, which makes traditional partnership-based link building difficult.

2. Our brand name, "Bankr", isn't something people actively search for. Most people search for topics such as home-buying advice, first-time home buyer guidance, mortgage questions, bidding strategies, or how to avoid costly mistakes when purchasing a property. We've been trying to build content and improve our SEO, but we're finding it difficult to earn relevant backlinks and increase our authority within the space.

3. Our website is built with Divi, and the developer who originally built it is very difficult to get in contact with. The rest of the team isn't particularly experienced with Divi, so making improvements and implementing SEO recommendations can be slow. We've started discussing whether it makes sense to rebuild the site on a platform that's easier for us to manage ourselves, or even rethink parts of our website structure and content strategy altogether.

What's your thoughts:
How would you approach link building for an independent home-buying advisory business?
Are there industries, websites, or partnerships we're overlooking? Would you continue investing in the existing website or consider starting fresh?
Based on your experience, what would you focus on first if you were in our position?
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. At the moment, it feels like we're stuck between a difficult niche, limited backlink opportunities, and a website that isn't easy for us to manage.

I've used AI to help me translate and structure this post in English, but the challenges and questions are genuinely ours. - I'm much better at reading it than writing it.

 

The core issue is that your natural link partners (banks, brokers, agents) see you as competition. That is normal for independent advisory businesses. The way around it is to become the source other people cite rather than trying to get competitors to link to you.

What works for this kind of niche: original research that journalists and bloggers want to reference. A yearly report on average home-buying costs by region, a first-time buyer mistakes survey, or a regional market snapshot with your own data. Local newspapers and personal finance bloggers link to original numbers because they need sources that are not banks trying to sell mortgages. One solid annual report can generate more backlinks than a year of guest posting.

On the Divi question, I would not rebuild yet. The real bottleneck is not the CMS, it is content velocity. A site with 10 genuinely useful guides that rank will outperform a beautiful redesign with thin pages every time. Get someone internal comfortable enough with Divi to publish new content and fix page speed issues. Save the platform migration for after you have traction.

 

How is your business different from the realtor buyers' reps? Here in the U.S., many realtors will work for the buyer for a fee, instead of for the seller on commission. I think that most of their buyer rep business comes from other businesses looking to buy commercial properties, but I am not sure. It is possible that the realtor buyer's rep's fees are too high for the average home buyer, so they may not be interested in that market. It is possible that you could work out a referral arrangement with some of them. Note that I know very little about this market, so am only suggesting something to lightly explore.