Case File — Ref. dominion
B2B Authority Link Building
Dominion
Slow, deliberate authority building for an industry where reputation is the product.
- Domain Rating
- 31 → 45
- Vetted Placements
- 19
- Organic Traffic
- +68%
Part 01
Project Overview
Dominion operates in a professional services niche where every external mention reflects directly on client trust. The brief was explicit: fewer, better placements over any kind of volume target.
Part 02
The Client Challenge
Dominion's leadership was understandably risk-averse about link building after a prior vendor had proposed a paid-placement network. The campaign needed to rebuild confidence in ethical outreach while still producing measurable authority gains.
Part 03
Campaign Objectives
- Earn placements exclusively on sites with clear editorial standards
- Build a backlink profile that would withstand scrutiny from clients or partners
- Improve organic visibility for core service-line keywords
- Establish Dominion's leadership as cited experts in their field
Part 04
Research
Prospecting focused heavily on manual vetting rather than automated list-building — every candidate site was reviewed by hand for editorial ownership, publishing history and topical fit before being added to the outreach list.
Part 05
The Solution
The campaign combined a small number of high-effort guest contributions with targeted HARO-style journalist outreach, positioning Dominion's leadership as subject-matter sources for relevant industry coverage.
Execution
How the Campaign Was Run
Manual site vetting
Every prospective site was reviewed for real editorial ownership and publishing consistency before outreach began — no automated bulk-listing.
Leadership positioning
Interviewed Dominion's leadership to build a bank of credible, quotable expertise to draw on for journalist and guest-post outreach.
Selective outreach
Outreach volume was intentionally kept low, prioritizing quality of relationship over quantity of pitches sent.
Client-reviewed transparency reporting
Every prospective placement was shared with Dominion's leadership for sign-off before publication, given the sensitivity of the industry.
Campaign Highlights
100% of placements manually vetted and client-approved before going live
19 high-authority placements across 7 months
3 journalist citations in industry trade publications
Zero placements flagged in subsequent compliance review
Results
Performance, Before & After
Illustrative directional results from the engagement — a visual summary rather than raw analytics screenshots.
01Domain Rating
00
02Referring Domains
00
03Organic Traffic (monthly)
0K0K
04Branded Search Volume
0/mo0/mo
Key Learnings
- Client sign-off workflows build trust without meaningfully slowing placement velocity
- In risk-averse industries, a smaller volume of vetted links earns more internal buy-in
- Leadership-as-source positioning opens a durable, low-cost pipeline of citations over time
Client Outcome
Dominion rebuilt confidence in ethical link building internally and now treats outreach as a standing part of its marketing program rather than a one-off experiment.
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