01
Client and project overview
The client sells help desk software to small and mid-size support teams in the US and UK. The product was strong, customers were loyal and the blog went out every week. But almost nothing outside their own site described what they did.
They came to us with two goals: get the two main category pages onto page one, and stop losing shortlists to three competitors who kept getting named when buyers asked AI tools for a recommendation.
- Sector
- Customer support software
- Market
- US & UK
- Duration
- 7 months
- Services
- Link building, brand mentions, expert quotes
- Plan
- Growth
- Pages targeted
- 2 category pages + homepage
At a glance
02
The challenge
Their link profile looked fine in a tool and did very little in practice. Most referring domains were directories, their own press releases, and a batch of guest posts a previous vendor had placed on sites with no real traffic.
- Category pages stuck between positions 11 and 18 for their main terms.
- About half of the 140 referring domains were low-quality directories.
- Named in 0 of 42 tracked AI answers, while three competitors were named in most of them.
- No independent article described the product in a way an AI tool could repeat.
Starting point
- Domain Rating
- 35
- Referring domains
- 140
- Organic clicks / month
- 1,200
- Keywords in the top 10
- 38
- AI answers naming the brand
- 0 of 42
03
Objectives, and how they turned out
| Objective | Target | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Get the category pages onto page one | Top 10 for 6 main terms | 5 of 6 in the top 5 | Met |
| Grow organic traffic | +100% in 6 months | +212% by month 7 | Met |
| Get named in AI answers | 10 of 42 tracked answers | 26 of 42 | Met |
| Remove the risky links | Disavow the old vendor’s links | 37 domains disavowed | Met |
04
Strategy and approach
Two pages, three kinds of placement, and one way of measuring all of it.
Focus the authority
Instead of spreading links across eight pages, we pointed most of them at the two category pages closest to page one.
Earn links that read naturally
Guest posts and niche edits on support, CX and SaaS publications, each link inside a sentence that makes sense without it.
Get described where AI looks
Brand mentions in the comparison and “best tools” articles that ChatGPT and AI Overviews were already citing for this category.
05
Work performed
Month 1
Audit and plan
- Backlink audit and a disavow file for 37 risky domains
- Competitor gap: 212 domains linking to competitors, 64 winnable
- Target pages, anchor plan and a 42-question AI baseline
Months 2–4
Authority build
- 8 guest posts on SaaS and customer-experience publications
- 6 niche edits on aged articles that already ranked
- 3 expert quotes from the founder in business press
Months 4–6
Mention layer
- 9 inclusions in comparison and “best tools” articles
- 5 mentions in trade press and review roundups
- One consistent product description across the profiles that matter
Month 7
Compound and report
- Internal links from new blog posts to the category pages
- Final report and a plan for the next quarter
06
Link-building activity
31
placements
156
sites reviewed
31
rejected at vetting
14 / 14 links
indexed
Placements by type
31 total
- Guest posts8
- Niche edits6
- Comparison mentions9
- Trade & review mentions5
- Expert quotes3
Authority of the sites
Ahrefs Domain Rating
Anchor text mix
Links only, mentions excluded
- Branded43%
- Partial match29%
- Naked URL14%
- Exact match7%
- Generic7%
Placements
| Site | DR | Type | Points to | Indexed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| saas•••weekly.com | 61 | Guest post | /help-desk-software | 6 days |
| cx•••today.com | 66 | Niche edit | /shared-inbox | 3 days |
| the•••journal.com | 71 | Expert quote | Homepage | 9 days |
| b2b•••digest.com | 64 | Guest post | /help-desk-software | 12 days |
| support•••review.com | 58 | Comparison mention | Brand mention | — |
Domains are masked on the public version. Clients see every URL in their report.
Sites we turned down (31 of 156). Three examples:
Organic traffic had dropped 94% after a core update, and what was left came from one unrelated keyword.
40% of recent outbound links pointed to offshore gambling sites.
A real editor and real traffic, but a public price list for sponsored posts.
07
Results and supporting data
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organic clicks / month | 1,200 | 3,744 | +212% |
| Domain Rating | 35 | 65 | +30 |
| Referring domains | 140 | 212 | +51% |
| Keywords in the top 10 | 38 | 117 | 3× |
| AI answers naming the brand | 0 of 42 | 26 of 42 | +26 |
| Demo requests from organic / month | 41 | 96 | +134% |
AI answers naming the brand (of 42)
Monthly
Ranking keywords by position
Tracked set
- Top 3
- Positions 4–10
- Positions 11–20
Target keywords
| Keyword | Monthly searches | Before | After | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| help desk software for small teams | 1.9K | #14 | #3 | 11 |
| shared inbox for customer support | 1.3K | #18 | #4 | 14 |
| best help desk software | 8.1K | #22 | #9 | 13 |
| customer support ticketing system | 2.4K | #16 | #5 | 11 |
| help desk with live chat | 880 | #31 | #2 | 29 |
08
Key outcomes and takeaways
+212%
organic clicks in 7 months
+134%
demo requests from organic
26 / 42
AI answers now name them
What we learned
- 01Focus beats spreadTwo pages getting most of the links moved faster than eight pages getting a few each.
- 02Comparison articles carry AI answersNine comparison placements did more for AI visibility than everything else combined.
- 03Clean up before you buildDisavowing the old vendor’s links in month one removed the risk before new authority arrived.
“We’d never seen what ChatGPT said about us. The first report was uncomfortable. The sixth one was fun to forward.”
What’s next: Quarter three moves to two new feature pages and a second round of comparison placements in UK publications.