/ Our Work
Get a free consultation
ESPN
Industry:
Sports / Entertainment
Services Provided:
SEO, Link Building
The Client
As the world’s leading sports media brand, ESPN dominates global sports coverage across virtually every major league. For their UK site, ESPN.co.uk, the Premier League represents one of the most important — and competitive — traffic verticals. To strengthen their search performance in the UK market, ESPN partnered with LSEO to execute a highly focused off-site SEO strategy.
The Problem
Even for a brand as massive as ESPN, Premier League search rankings are a battlefield. Despite producing best-in-class content and having strong technical SEO resources in-house, ESPN found themselves outranked by smaller competitors for some of the league's most valuable keywords — including core terms like: - Premier League results - Premier League fixtures - Premier League scores - Premier League standings - Premier League table These weren’t long-tail keywords. These were highly transactional, high-volume terms where first-page rankings can deliver massive audience growth. What ESPN needed wasn’t more content or technical tweaks — they needed firepower in off-site authority.The Strategy
ESPN engaged LSEO specifically to deploy a targeted link-building campaign aimed at driving page-level authority where it mattered most: Premier League category and subcategory pages. The plan was simple but highly tactical: Identify ESPN’s most valuable Premier League keyword targets. Build high-quality backlinks directly to the corresponding content pages. Track ranking movement monthly to continuously optimize link acquisition focus. Support ESPN’s in-house content and technical SEO teams by delivering authoritative off-site signals Google values. The entire campaign was designed to help ESPN leapfrog entrenched competitors in one of the UK’s fiercest search verticals.The Results
The results speak for themselves. Over the course of the campaign, ESPN saw steady, compounding ranking gains across every single keyword target.
| Keyword | Oct Start | Dec | Jan | Feb | Current |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premier league results | 14 | 10 | 8 | 10 | 5 |
| Premier league fixtures | 18 | 17 | 11 | 6 | 5 |
| Premier league | 31 | 27 | 10 | 19 | 14 |
| Premier league scores | 8 | 11 | 8 | 8 | 4 |
| Premier league standings | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Premier league table | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
Every tracked keyword improved significantly from its starting position.
- 4 of 6 keywords now rank top 5 in Google UK.
- The flagship term "Premier League results" improved from position 14 to position 5.
- The highly competitive "Premier League fixtures" climbed from 18 to position 5.
- Premier League scores broke into the top 4 — a massive traffic driver.
These improvements represent enormous click-share gains for ESPN in a market where even a 1-position bump can translate to thousands of additional visitors.