Personal injury firm competes with directories on authority
A regional injury firm was buried under legal directories and national lead-gen sites. Digital PR and content authority moved them into the top 3.
Illustrative sample data — not a real client engagement.
Referring Domains
Where they started
For every valuable query, the first page was directories and aggregators. The firm's own pages were stuck between positions 8 and 15.
- Domain authority far below page-1 competitors
- Practice-area pages thin and near-duplicate
- No original content or data
- Slow site, render-blocking scripts
- Anchor text over-optimized on existing links
The plan
Run a 12-month authority program: annual injury-claims data study, expert commentary for reporters, practice-area content rebuilt for depth, and technical cleanup — with careful anchor-text distribution.
- PR
- Off-Page
- Content
- Technical
What we actually did.
State-level injury-claims data study; expert quotes on legislative changes; 19 placements.
Legal association links, scholarship and local sponsorships, unlinked-mention reclamation.
Each practice area rebuilt with process explainers, FAQs and case-result context.
Removed render-blocking scripts, LCP -1.7s, fixed canonical and pagination.
What changed.
How it unfolded.
“We finally rank alongside the directories instead of below them. The data study alone put us on the map with reporters.”