The same rules apply. You create specific content relative to the niche. You make it look pretty load fast and insert correct keywords no stuffing of course. Then you advertise the crap out of it. That's it. The algo's are tweaked that often it becomes a pain in the butt to keep up. Just create content, backlinks non of the gsa crap on your main site, social shares and see where it goes.
If you compete for no1 for payday loans you would need a high budget but if your going for low comp ones on site seo and the odd social shares will put you on page 1. Heck even some custom web 2.0's through wordpress and blogger wouldn't go a miss. There is 100s more to choose from though. Be creative. Just make sure your main focus in the eyes of google is for your visitors sake. Also don't use thin content that looks like it was spat up out of an article generator.