Case Study · Solo Campaign
UK CBD Brand: Two-Site Ranking Defense
A two-site CBD engagement where the brief was not growth from zero. The established flagship already held top-3 on the category's most competitive commercial keywords, so the job was to defend and extend that position through off-page work, while a brand-new Italian-market sister site built its first visibility. I owned off-page and briefed the content side.
The challenge
The client ran two sister sites in the CBD space, and they sat at opposite ends. The UK flagship was established and already ranking top-3 on the category's most competitive commercial terms, and a small set of those head terms carried roughly three-quarters of its organic traffic. That made the terms both the asset and the risk: losing them would cost far more than any new keyword could add. Its authority already sat at around DR 38, where every further point is logarithmically harder to earn, and its weaker commercial lanes, vape and CBD oil, were stranded mid-results on blog URLs rather than commercial pages. The Italian-market sister was the opposite: a brand-new .it domain at roughly DR 14, with almost no referring domains and next to no visibility, everything still to build. So one site needed defending and the other needed starting, at the same time.
A solo engagement, assigned and monitored by a UK-based SEO consultant who held the client relationship.
The plan
Two tracks, run in parallel. On the flagship, protect the top-3 commercial positions first, then push the near-misses, using relevant editorial and niche links vetted to the client's required DR 20+ floor, and brief the content side so authority landed on the commercial pages rather than the blog. On the Italian sister, build a foundational profile from zero to the same DR 20+ standard, accepting that a new domain's numbers would be small and leading its story with rankings and referring domains rather than volatile early traffic.
What I did
I earned referring domains across both sites through relevant editorial and niche placements, curated directory and citation listings, and HARO-style expert-insight and roundup contributions, relevance-first and vetted to the DR 20+ floor in Ahrefs, with priority to cannabis, CBD, and vape community sites and genuine lifestyle editorial over generic volume. For each page that needed to hold or gain a position, I also briefed the content, target topic, meta title and description, keyword focus, and internal linking, so authority landed on the commercial pages rather than stray blog URLs.
On the honesty side, I filtered backlink data to my engagement window by first-seen date, stripped every link the two sister sites made to each other in both directions, deduplicated referring domains across them, and set aside search-engine and auto-generated links rather than counting them as outreach. Every reported link met that floor.
Site 1: Established flagship (UK)
The older, higher-authority domain, already holding the category's money terms when the engagement began.
Traffic +20% (6,946 to 8,315/mo, October peak 10,442) · DR ~38 to ~41 · new referring domains vetted against the client-required DR 20+ floor · core commercial terms held top-3 throughout. A small set of head terms carried roughly three-quarters of the site's organic traffic, which is what made holding those positions the priority rather than chasing keyword count. Authority gains showed up modestly, since gains above a Domain Rating of 30 are logarithmically harder to earn.
The unwon lane, stated plainly: vape-pen and CBD-oil terms did not reach the front page. They still sit mid-results on blog URLs rather than commercial pages, and closing that gap is the next off-page and content priority, not a solved problem.
Site 2: New Italian-market sister
A young .it domain with almost no visibility at the start, where the work was first traction and a foundational profile.
Traffic 9 to 38/mo (August peak 144) · DR ~14 · tracked keywords 73 to 133 · keywords in the top 10 rose 3 to 12 · first top-3 rankings (0 to 3). Traffic is shown in full rather than cut at the peak: it climbed to 144 in August, then settled back to 38 by November. The presentable links here are few and real, an Italian fashion and lifestyle blog with a relevant local anchor, a placement on an expert-insight platform, and cannabis-light lifestyle mentions. On a domain this new, quality over volume was the only defensible route, and authority stayed low, so this site is told as an early-traction story, not an authority story.
What I learned
Three lessons. Defending rankings is its own discipline: protecting the few head terms that drive most of the traffic is worth more than adding keyword count, and it needs a cleaner, more relevant profile to hold. A new small-market site gives volatile traffic estimates, so I led its story with rankings and referring domains, not a tool line that swung from 9 to 144 and back. And pairing links with content briefs kept authority landing on the commercial pages built to convert it, not scattered across blog URLs.
Client anonymized under NDA. Referring domains are deduplicated and exclude cross-links between the two sister sites; search-engine and auto-generated links are set aside, and every link met the client's DR 20+ floor. Traffic is tool-estimated organic (the Italian site's August peak shown in full, not headlined); Domain Rating is approximate Ahrefs DR, a supporting signal.