Many new websites and companies struggle with overwhelm when they first realize that a low Domain Rating means it will be an uphill battle against larger and more established competitors. It can feel particularly frustrating when some Google ranking factors— including the age of the domain in question— are out of your hands.

The good news, though, is that with the right strategy and effort, you can control some ranking factors that you maybe thought you couldn’t— including generating external backlinks from other websites. 

uSERP offers both earned quality backlinks and SEO consulting for our clients, helping even new-to-SEO brands rise to the SERP ranks quickly with a strong strategy in place.

In this case study, we’ll show you how we helped new telehealth company Henry Meds (also known as the corporation “Adonis Health”) increase their DR dramatically— and enjoy the ranking benefits that come alongside those efforts. 

The client 

Henry Meds is a monthly healthcare subscription service with experienced and licensed providers. They focus on providing holistic care for endocrine conditions like weight loss management, insomnia, and testosterone treatment through telehealth care. All programs include free medication shipping directly to the customer’s doorstep.

The challenge

Henry Meds is a relatively newer company, having been founded in 2022 after telehealth practices became more widespread. They had an outstanding idea for a product— access to holistic, convenient healthcare for ongoing conditions in a time when specialist waitlists can take weeks or months to book— but were struggling to compete for high-value keywords.

They knew they needed to grow organic visibility by increasing brand awareness around critical topics and search queries. These included queries for specific medications or treatment options, with some content centered around currently trending medications like Ozempic and Semaglutide. 

They also needed help securing top rankings for competitive and high-value keywords, especially keywords related to their products that could help connect them with potential patients. 

The solution

Knowing that SEO and brand awareness were crucial to the brand’s client acquisition strategy, Henry Meds came to work with both uSERP and Codeless in August 2023 to create a strong SEO and content-centered strategy. (You can check out Codeless’s work with Adonis Health to learn more about that side of the equation). 

Here at uSERP, we focused on increasing overall domain authority, targeting key pages for SEO impact, and providing SEO recommendations. Let’s take a closer look at the steps involved.

1. Increased DR with natural links to their homepage

A website’s Domain Rating (DR) is a score used by Ahrefs to provide a basic understanding of how competitive your site will be in the SERPs. Google doesn’t use DR scores to rank content, but the DR score accounts for known ranking signals that Google does account for to help you track your progress. 

When we first started working with Henry Meds, their DR was 8 out of 100. This is a true “starting from scratch” level DR, and it meant that even well-written and fully-optimized site pages and content would struggle to rank well against more established websites.

So, we focused on backlinks. Backlinks are a significant signal to Google that your content is relevant, authoritative, and trustworthy. And while some people think external backlinks are outside of their control barring prohibited spam-focused tactics, that’s not the case; you can invest in generating and earning natural backlinks, which is a big part of what we do at uSERP.

This involves finding relevant high-authority publications that may be open to guest posts, for example. A single guest post on a respected website can generate one or two backlinks to the client’s site, and anchor text (which is the text users can click to access a link) using relevant keywords can strengthen those backlinks.

We started by targeting natural links to Henry Meds’ homepage with the goal of strengthening their DR and URL Rating (UR). 

2. Targeted commercial pages for conversions 

Once we started getting backlinks to Henry Meds’ homepage, we also started looking at other high-value pages we wanted to drive extra power to through external links. 

The next step was to start targeting commercial pages with the goal of driving conversions. If customers are making high-intent searches like “semaglutide online pharmacy,” we wanted customers to end up on the relevant product page (in this case, the semaglutide landing page). 

We identified the highest value landing pages that could successfully drive conversions, and began outreach and publication campaigns to generate external backlinks accordingly. 

3. Targeted blog pages for topical authority 

While increasing the site’s overall DR and driving traffic to conversion-focused pages, we also knew that we wanted to create a strong content funnel that would increase brand awareness, generate customer trust, and nurture lukewarm users through conversion.

That meant investing in tactics to create stronger topical authority around key subjects for HenryMeds that appeared on the blog. While Codeless handled the content creation, we worked on driving traffic and external backlinks to high-value pages. 

As the content would attract more backlinks, individual posts could see serious gains in ranking potential. This, in turn, strengthened the overall topical authority of the site, which actually impacted even non-targeted blog posts by creating a stronger overall foundation. 

4. Provided SEO recommendations for optimization 

Henry Meds was a newer company, but they did have an existing site when we first began working with them. We conducted a thorough site audit to look for any additional optimization opportunities that could help their ranking potential.

We made specific recommendations for optimization that included the following:

• Creating an internal linking strategy. 
• Making copy and keyword suggestions for key landing pages.
• Suggesting alterations to H1s, H2s, meta titles, and meta descriptions. 

The results 

We’ve accomplished outstanding results together in under a year since we began working with Henry Meds in August of 2023.  

When the partnership started, Henry Meds’ DR was only 8. As soon as the first links went live, that changed and DR increased rapidly. Now, after 8 months of engagement, their DR sits at 53. 

In those eight months, the site has also gained:

• Earned backlinks from 219 referring domains.
• 6.6K+ new keywords ranking in the SERPs.
• 226 keywords that now rank in the top three positions of the SERPs. 

Henry Meds has also seen major page-level growth on key product pages. 

The semaglutide landing page, for example, saw the following results:

• Increased UR by 3+ points.
• Ranks for an additional 225 new keywords.
• Ranks in the top three positions for 62 keywords. 

Many of the new keywords that now rank in the top 3 positions include high-intent and highly competitive keywords like “semaglutide online” and “semaglutide prescription online.” 

Let’s look at another example. The “Semaglutide Diet Plan” page was published in January 2024, at which point we began prioritizing it with link-building campaigns. Three months later, it has:

• 160 backlinks from 38 referring domains.
• 155 new keywords, with 524 monthly site visitors.
• 3 high-value keywords in ranking in the top three positions. 

In addition to the three keywords appearing in the top three positions, many keywords are now also ranking on the first page of the SERP results. 

Finally, let’s look at the GLP-1 Weight Management page. During our engagement, it gained:

• 111+ new keywords.
• 6 new keywords in the top three results.
• Multiple queries rose to top positions on the first page of the search results. 

Final thoughts

Whether you’ve been in business and chugging away at SEO for ten years or you just launched your site today, the good news is that there’s always more you can do if you’re not getting the results you want to see.

Improved on-site optimization that accounts for updated ranking factors and modern best practices combined with genuinely earned backlinks from diverse referring domains can have significant and fast-acting impacts on your site. 

The results we accomplished for Henry Meds took eight months, and that was starting from scratch using an approach tailored to their specific needs. We can help you accomplish the same kind of growth, with improved ranking and site traffic that can result in more leads and sales.

Ready to discover how uSERP can help improve your SEO potential? Book a free consultation today.

B2C eCommerce brands have a relatively unique challenge with content marketing in terms of true urgency. The B2C sales funnel is often much shorter than B2B customer journeys, so it’s important to capture customer intent quickly when they’re researching buying decisions.

A business may take several weeks (or longer) to decide on a communications platform shift, for example, but a customer researching something like attire may act much faster.

As a result, it’s critical for eCommerce brands to rank for the relevant high-intent keywords in their industry. It can mean the difference between capturing a customer or having that customer select a competitor instead.

Today, we’re going to discuss how uSERP helped eCommerce brand StudioSuits rise to the top three positions for 186+ new keywords to capture some of that intent and drive more sales.

The client 

StudioSuits is an eCommerce company that sells custom suits to customers. 

Customers select high-quality suits from across the website, and can customize aspects of the suit like the type of buttons, jacket lining, and elbow patches. They can either select a standard size or provide their own measurements for a true made-to-order suit.  

The challenge 

StudioSuits is an incredibly competitive space. The suits and men’s suit attire industry was valued at 17.061 billion USD in 2021, and it’s only projected to continue growing through 2027. 

Not only is the industry competitive, but the SERP is competitive, too. There are plenty of competitors targeting keywords like “quality men’s suits,” “custom men’s suits” or “italian wool men’s suits”— and StudioSuits wasn’t ranking well as a result. 

On a domain level, StudioSuits was up against SERP competitors with much higher Domain Rating (DRs), and much stronger domain-level link metrics.

They were struggling to rank well on a domain level and a page level. That meant they were struggling to attract traffic for product page keywords, and consistently losing potential customers to higher-ranking competition. 

The reality is that around 70% of clicks happen in the top five positions in the SERPs. 

The solution 

SERP success for this client meant that we needed to increase traffic for product page keywords. 

In order to do that, we realized that we needed to get to work on the client’s linking strategy, both in terms of backlinks from external sites and internal linking. During an in-depth audit of the client’s site, we also realized that we could improve rankings for buyer intent keywords with improved optimization, and create an anchor strategy to grow rankings for multiple keywords.

Let’s break down the solution we implemented for StudioSuits. 

1. Acquire branded links to the home page 

Gaining more branded links to StudioSuit’s URL was crucial, and we knew that getting links specifically to the site’s home page would be essential.

By getting more branded backlinks from high-authority websites, it would significantly strengthen the website’s Domain Rating (DR) and URL Rating (UR). 

The reality is that even a well-written site full of strategic keywords will struggle to compete against established sites that have more high-quality backlinks. Google has long held backlinks to be an important ranking factor, and they consider it a signal of quality, relevance, and authority. 

Now that quality and trustworthiness has become even more of a concern over the past few years (and especially now that AI has entered the scene), backlinks are an essential differentiator that can help you stand out.

It’s important to note, too, that all of the backlinks we generated for StudioSuits were earned backlinks. We didn’t spam other sites or pay fees to get promoted on cheap affiliate sites. 

We conduct extensive research to look for optimal link placements in high-authority and trusted publications, and we reach out to discuss potential opportunities. In some cases, this may mean generating content that the site publishes, and in others it may mean just getting on their radar. 

When doing backlink outreach, we only choose trusted, respected websites in the client’s industry. Ideally, these will also be publications that our clients’ audience will read, potentially increasing traffic both from an SEO perspective and increasing traffic directly to the site from those branded backlinks. 

2. Identify product pages to implement buyer intent keywords 

As a quick recap: Not all keywords are going to have strong buyer intent. 

Someone searching for “where to buy a custom suit” or even “men’s custom Italian suit” is much further ahead in a sales journey than someone searching for “why do people buy custom suits.” 

The latter is looking for information, and while in theory they could begin a journey into researching custom suits and realize they are, in fact, superior, that search phrase doesn’t indicate immediate intent to make a purchase.

“Where to buy a custom suit” or “men’s custom Italian suit,” on the other hand, are two very high intent keywords. People search for these terms when they’re undergoing research for a purchase decision.

We realized that StudioSuits’ website could benefit if we implemented more high-intent keywords onto different product pages. We conducted extensive keyword research to determine what phrases people were searching for while researching, and we made specific recommendations for the client to implement valuable buyer intent keywords on key product pages as a result. 

3. Develop an anchor strategy to grow rankings for multiple keywords  

Anchor text is the text that users can click to access a link. You can see an example of anchor text in the image below with the “related keywords” text. The unique-colored font on this website indicates a clickable link. 

Anchor text is important, because Google uses it for context to assess the backlink. As a result, it matters both for external backlinks and internal links. 

Some good examples of anchor text might include:

• Branded anchor text that links to the home page (“StudioSuits”).
• Anchor text that details products for individual product pages (“custom wool suits for men”).
• Positive descriptions of the product (“high quality custom suits”).

By having an anchor text strategy in place, site developers knew how to create internal backlinks and we knew how to drive external backlinks that would be more successful at driving a stronger SERP impact. 

4. Define an internal link strategy

While external backlinks are always going to drive the most significant results (and fastest), internal linking also matters.

Internal linking can improve how users move through your site, which can directly impact the experience (and conversions!) of users already visiting you.

It also can impact your SERP results, too. A strong internal linking strategy can make it easier for Google and other search engines to actually crawl your website, and the easier it is, the better. The anchor text you use can also help establish some context for Google, which is always a good thing.

When looking at the StudioSites domain, we realized we needed to create an internal linking strategy that would help bolster high-value pages on the site. By prioritizing important pages with our internal links, we were able to provide an extra boost on the page authority level, increasing SERP rankings and traffic to those high-value, high-intent pages. 

The Results 

After 13 months of working together with StudioSuits since December 2022, our engagement helped the client with significant gains in keywords, keyword ranking, and page and domain rankings. 

The home page alone saw impressive results, which included the following:

• Domain Rating increased by +14 points.
• The site overall is now optimized for 53.9k new keywords, for a total of 71.2k ranking keywords.
• 4.1k keywords have increased in ranking and are now in the top three positions in the SERPs. 
• The backlink profile has grown by 52.9k backlinks, and all backlinks that came from uSERP were earned on high-quality and trustworthy sites. 

There was also significant page-level growth. We obtained the top three positions in the SERPs across multiple product pages for competitive buyer keywords. 

A fantastic example of this is StudioSuit’s Linen Suits product page. 

In the duration of our engagement, we managed to increase this product page’s URL Rating by an entire point, and the page itself gained 594 new keywords for a total of 863 diverse keywords. 186 of those keywords are now ranking for the top three positions in Google, which almost certainly contributed to the 6.3k+ increase in page traffic. 

We also gained the top positions for multiple high-intent, short-tail product keywords, including what you can see in the image below: 

Final thoughts 

The reality is that many eCommerce industries can be exceptionally competitive, as StudioSuits knew all too well. The ability to tap into high-intent keywords, have a solid SEO strategy in place (which should consider both anchor text and internal linking), and acquiring high-quality, high-authority backlinks the right way can be a game-changer.

uSERP knows how to help companies of all shapes and sizes scale with true organic growth. We’re ready to help you revamp your link building and SEO strategy, and get you ranking in the SERPs. 

Ready to gain more earned backlinks and rank higher for high-intent keywords? Learn more about how we can help here. 

AI writing software exploded in popularity in early 2023. Knowing this, uSERP began working with Simplified, an AI app, to guarantee they were getting a large share of the traffic. 

Our link building strategy for Simplified worked like a charm, garnering more than 1,000 backlinks and helping to facilitate fast growth for its AI writer landing page. In just three months, this page went from ranking for 82 keywords in the top 10 rankings to 127. 

In this Simplified case study, we’ll walk through the strategy we used to get there:

An Overview of Simplified 

Simplified is a platform that combines AI writing, graphic design, video editing, social media management, and AI tools in one centralized app. 

The challenge 

uSERP started working with Simplified six months before AI content creation became a big topic worldwide. Because the company had already been speaking on the subject, there was some topical authority on the site to work with. 

But SEO is a three-pronged process. You have technical, on-page content optimization, and link building. Simplified had done a great job on those first two, but they still needed to build high domain authority backlinks and a backlink profile. 

Simplify wanted to drive traffic to its AI Writer page, which serves as a parent page for many different offshoot or “child” pages. 

If Simplified could get this page ranking big, the child pages would also get a rub from the added exposure. This trickle-down effect impacts the visibility of the child pages underneath it. That means there was a lot of potential success in what’s going to be a very crowded and competitive market.  

The content strategy

To help bring added search engine attention to Simplified’s AI Writer page, we first identified relevant websites with a high domain ranking, or DR.

After identifying these high-DR topically relevant sites, we set about contacting them and pitching articles that would benefit their audiences. Our team of writers then got to work creating content that would fit in on those sites. 

Within the body of these articles, we wove links to Simplified’s page. We also made sure to use relevant anchor text that coincided with key terms the company wanted to rank for. uSERP can produce a large volume of content quickly, meaning these links were going out to a score of high-DR sites, many of which featured both the article and strategic links.

The results 

The following results were recorded after three months, starting in January 2023 and ending in April 2023. 

Domain Rating

The first major increase we saw was Simplified’s Domain Rating. The rating went up a full seven points. It now sits at 67, which is well above average.

Number of backlinks

Over that three-month period, Simplified gained more than 1,000 backlinks. 

The number of referring domains also increased by more than 1,000. That’s a huge number of links to generate in such a short time. That figure undoubtedly played a hand in the SERP growth they experienced. 

Organic keywords

The number of organic keywords for Simplified increased by 43,200. Simplified also ranked 997 new keywords in the top three positions on Google’s SERP.

Now, let’s examine how each of these target URLs performs individually. 

URL – /ai-writer

This URL has been the campaign’s main focus and its most significant success. For the primary term “AI Writer,” the page ranks number two on the SERP. That’s a whole four places higher than it was before. 

This search term sees an estimated 47,000 monthly searches, making it a hot ticket item. 

As of January, the term ranked for 82 keywords that appeared in the top 10 ranking positions. By April, it ranked 127 keywords in the top 10. 

URL – /ai-writer/ai-blog-writer

This offshoot of the AI-writer page has experienced great growth in its target keywords. It moved up 12 ranks for the term “AI written blogs,” which started 2023 at 16 (the second page) and ended at rank four (the first page).

Final thoughts

We’re thrilled with the growth we’ve seen from Simplified since coming on as a uSERP client. The links we generated for this site are plentiful and authoritative. They created that final piece of the SEO puzzle needed for success. 

The upward momentum we’re seeing from Simplified through the first quarter of 2023 proves positive of the power generated by a robust backlink catalog.

If you want to experience this kind of growth through a strategic high-DR link building campaign, contact uSERP to schedule your free call today!  

Everyone loves a David and Goliath story. The plucky underdog rising to do battle against a titan. That was the case when we took up the fight for our client Kudos. This client had a lower domain rating (DR) and needed to go up against heavy hitters like Apple, credit.com, NerdWallet, and WalletHub.

This case study will examine the results uSERP generated for Kudos and explain the power of high DR backlinks.  

An Overview of Kudos

Kudos is a smart wallet platform that helps you pick the best payment options for every purchase. It does this by calculating different rewards and benefits while making recommendations to help you get the most bang for your buck every time. 

The challenge 

As a smart wallet, Kudos needed to compete on a high level with significant competition to succeed. The terms that Kudos needed to rank for were a lot of general credit card terms typically dominated by sites like NerdWallet, credit.com, and WalletHub. 

Why was competition in this arena so tricky? It all boils down to domain authority. 

When we started working with Kudos, their domain rating was very low. We’re talking around 20. Typically, to be in the conversation, you have to be over 50 at least. 

And those competitors we mentioned before? They had DRs in the 80s and 90s, a truly monumental hurdle to overcome. 

So, how did we bring Kudos to the table and get onto the SERP with the big boys? It all came down to backlink generation. 

The content strategy

For Kudos, we chose two target pages for link building. One was the main page of the site, joinkudos.com. 

For the main page, we were trying to rank for the following terms: 

• Digital wallet
• Rewards solution
• Credit card rewards

The other focus page was joinkudos.com/revvi-credit-card. We tried to rank this page for a single term:

• Revvi credit card

While some of these terms are popular, we tried to be realistic about our targets. We typically try to choose terms with a keyword difficulty (KD) no higher than 10 below DR. 

So, with a DR of 20, we wouldn’t go after a KD of more than 10. As the site’s DR rises, we can go after more robust keywords with a higher KD. 

How did we do? Read on to find out.   

The results 

Domain overview

The first order of business was to use these authoritative backlinks to increase Kudos’ DR. We were happy to see that our efforts had raised that number by 15 points. Thanks to authoritative backlinks, Kudos grew its DR to 35. 

While it was not quite 50, it was a big positive step in the right direction. 

Backlinks to the site increased by an impressive 218, with referring domains increasing by 92.

URL Results for joinkudos.com

The “kudos” search term saw 54,000 monthly views on average. We brought this client from position 18 up to position 10. That means it has moved from page two’s obscurity into page one’s coveted realm. 

The term “kudos website” had already hit page one in the ninth spot, but thanks to this campaign, it climbed up to number four. 

Finally, the term “kudos rewards” also went from page two to one, going from the 12th position up to the 10th. 

uSERP’s impact

A lot of this upward momentum had to do with the backlinks the site was getting from high DR sources. For this client, we kept our link-building efforts to sites with a DR of 60 or higher. 

That begged the question, how many of these high-quality backlinks were coming directly from uSERP, and how many were organically popping up? After all, we didn’t want to take credit for any momentum in which we didn’t have a hand. 

When we examined the high DR backlinks pointing to the /revvi-credit-card URL, uSERP’s link-building efforts generated all of them.

Our dedicated writers were crafting content that we shopped around to these high-DR sites. Each article contained a natural link to Kudos, using anchor text that applied to a relevant key term the client wanted to rank for. 

That means the positive growth generated by the link-building campaign came entirely from uSERP.

Big wins for Kudos

Kudos had several big wins to celebrate throughout this campaign. While it hadn’t achieved the coveted number one spot, it was slowly but surely climbing the mountain and standing tall amid these powerful competitors. 

Brand mentions came rolling in from several authoritative sources, including 

• Avada, with a DR of 80
• Europeanbusinessreview, with a DR of 79
• Mailmunch, with a DR of 78

The attention and acceptance of these powerful, authoritative websites made Google sit up and take note of Kudos. Its forward momentum and steady climb proved the power these links generated. 

Final thoughts

The battle Kudos fought on the SERP wasn’t easy. When going up against such massive odds, throwing up your hands or getting impatient is easy. But with SEO, you must never forget that it takes time and consistent effort. 

You can’t go from a 20 DR ranking far down the SERP to an 87 DR and the number-one spot overnight. It’s not possible. SEO is a war of attrition — it’s a crawl, not a sprint. You can achieve your goals over time by focusing on incremental growth and gathering resources like high DR backlinks. 

If you want to challenge your major search competitors and growth through a strategic high-DR link-building campaign, contact uSERP to schedule your free call today!