For a brand-new domain entering an established category, the sequence of work matters as much as the work itself. We structured the engagement into two distinct phases.
Authority first. With low budgets and an established competitor field, we couldn’t out-publish or out-spend incumbents — but we could build domain authority efficiently through targeted link development and Digital PR. Year one (April 2023 to March 2024) was dedicated entirely to this: earning placements on high-authority publications, building a referring domain profile that Google would recognise as trust signals, and laying the foundation for everything that followed.
Content second. From April 2024 onwards, with domain authority established, we shifted into content development — commercial category pages targeting head-term and mid-tail search demand, alongside content marketing pieces designed to capture informational intent. The earlier link development meant our content had a much shorter path to ranking than it would have done in year one.
Underpinning both phases: a deliberate refusal to chase short-term wins on long-tail keywords that wouldn’t compound. Every ranking we built was meant to last.
