William Hill – Scaling a High-Authority
Link Building Program
A 4-year, in-house link building engagement – paid and earned link acquisition, backlink health, and competitor gap analysis – for one of the world’s best-known sports betting and gaming brands.
Growing authority in a category built on aggressive link tactics
Online gambling is one of the most heavily link-spammed verticals in search. William Hill needed a link building program that could compete at scale while staying clean, well-balanced, and defensible against algorithm updates.
Limited high-authority link acquisition
The backlink profile needed a scalable way to add high-quality, genuinely valuable links fast enough to compete with entrenched rivals in the gambling category.
Skewed dofollow-to-nofollow ratio
A large share of acquired links passed no authority at all, limiting how much of the link building effort actually moved rankings.
Toxic and spammy links in the profile
Years of aggressive link building across the industry meant the domain’s link profile carried risk that needed regular auditing and cleanup.
No systematic competitor link intelligence
Link opportunities and gaps against rival sportsbooks and casinos weren’t being consistently identified or acted on.
Few linkable content assets
Content wasn’t consistently built with linkability in mind, limiting how many natural backlinks it could earn from authoritative publishers.
Ad hoc outreach relationships
Relationships with webmasters, bloggers and influencers existed, but not as a structured, repeatable outreach program.
A 4-year link building program built on quality, balance and audits
As Sr. SEO Associate, the engagement combined paid and earned link acquisition with a disciplined audit and analysis practice, executed across a full range of outreach channels and backed by mentorship for junior SEO team members.
Paid & earned link acquisition
Developed and executed a paid link building strategy aligned with SEO goals and search engine guidelines – identifying reputable sources, negotiating terms and pricing, and ensuring every link met quality standards – alongside content-led natural link earning from authoritative sources.
Dofollow/nofollow ratio management
Monitored and managed the dofollow-to-nofollow ratio of acquired backlinks, keeping the dofollow share higher while maintaining a balanced, natural-looking profile.
Backlink audits & cleanup
Ran regular comprehensive backlink audits to identify and address toxic or spammy links, protecting the domain from penalty risk while adhering to ethical, white-hat SEO practices throughout.
Competitor backlink gap analysis
Analyzed competitors’ backlink profiles to identify link opportunities and gaps, then strategized ways to acquire similar or better links to enhance the site’s authority.
Relationship-driven outreach
Built and maintained relationships with webmasters, bloggers and influencers, collaborated with content creators on linkable assets, and executed outreach campaigns to promote content and secure backlinks.
Full-channel execution & team support
Executed link acquisition across directories, article and resource-page placements, press releases, local listings with consistent NAP data, and Web 2.0 properties – while monitoring link performance, guiding junior team members, and refining the strategy against the data.
Organic traffic grew 3.1x, to 3.67M estimated monthly visits
Estimated monthly organic search traffic to williamhill.com, tracked across the four-year engagement – as the link profile grew larger, cleaner, and more balanced. Source: Semrush Domain Overview (Historical Data).
Estimated Organic Traffic – Nov 2012–Nov 2016
Keyword Position Distribution – Nov 2012 vs. Nov 2016
| Position bucket | Nov 2012 | Nov 2016 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top 3 | 4,399 | 12,477 | 2.8x |
| Positions 4–10 | 5,452 | 18,421 | 3.4x |
| Positions 11–20 | 9,057 | 22,120 | 2.4x |
| Positions 21–50 | 38 | 64,926 | 1,709x |
| Positions 51–100 | 0 | 108,438 | New |
| Total tracked keywords | 18,946 | 226,382 | 12x |
What the client had to say
Add your William Hill client testimonial here – a short quote on the traffic growth, the health of the backlink profile, or the link building program lands best.
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