The Client
ESPN: The World’s Leading Sports Media Brand
ESPN is the world’s leading sports media brand.
For their UK site (espn.co.uk), Premier League traffic is one of their highest-value verticals.
ESPN partnered with LSEO to strengthen search performance via off-site SEO.
The Problem
Struggling to Outrank Nimbler Competitors
Even a brand like ESPN faced heavy competition for core Premier League keywords.
These included “Premier League results”, “Premier League scores”, “Premier League fixtures”, etc.
Despite strong content and in-house SEO, ESPN was outranked by smaller sites for these transactional terms.
They needed off-site firepower to compete.
The Strategy
1
Link Building Focus
- Targeted category and subcategory pages
2
Premier League Keywords
- Anchored links around top Premier League terms
3
Monthly Rank Tracking
- Adjusted outreach based on SERP shifts
4
High-Authority Backlinks
- Links pointed directly to ESPN's content
5
Amplify Page Authority
- Boost Google’s perception of Premier League pages
The Results
| 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 |
100%keyword improvement
80%of keywords now rank in Google’s top 5
65%increase for “Premier League results”
150%increase for “Premier League fixtures”
- 4 out of 6 keywords now rank in the Google UK top 5.
- “Premier League results” improved from position 14 to 5.
- “Premier League fixtures” improved from 18 to 5.
- “Premier League scores” broke into the top 4.
