Rebuilding Axess Law's search presence around quality, not bloat
Axess Law came in with an inflated, largely low-value keyword footprint. Over the last two years the strategy shifted from chasing raw keyword count to building real authority, higher-value rankings, and a brand-new AI search presence — verified directly in Ahrefs.
Lots of keywords, not enough of them mattered.
Legal services SEO is competitive and trust-driven — people search for specific practice areas and specific cities, not generic terms. Axess Law's site had accumulated a large, scattered keyword footprint over the years, much of it low-intent or irrelevant, while genuinely competitive, high-value terms weren't consistently reaching the top of the results.
We're not going to hide the numbers that fell.
A two-year Ahrefs pull doesn't only show wins, and we're not cherry-picking. Here's the honest split between what grew and what was deliberately cut back.
↑ Grew
- Referring domains25 → 473 (+174)
- Backlinks1.3K (+293)
- Keywords ranking Top 370 → 81 (+11)
- Ahrefs Rankimproved ~955K positions
- AI platform visibility0 → live on 5 platforms
↓ Cut back / declined
- Total organic keywords7.6K → 195 (-7.4K)
- Domain Rating30 → 26 (-4)
- URL Rating27 → 9 (-18)
- Organic traffic1,647 → 861 (-786)
- Traffic value~$1.7K → $1.1K (-$615)
Here's exactly what we did.
No paid ads — 100% organic. We audited and pruned dead weight, rebuilt authority with real outreach, and made sure the site is visible in AI-driven answers as well as classic Google results.
Content Audit & Pruning
Identified and deindexed thousands of low-value, cannibalizing, or outdated pages dragging down relevance signals.
Backlink Growth
Grew referring domains from 25 to 473 and backlinks by 293 through consistent outreach and link acquisition.
Practice-Area SEO
Rebuilt content around real, high-intent practice-area and location searches — lifting Top 3 rankings from 70 to 81.
AI Search Visibility (GEO)
Structured content so the site now surfaces in AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Grok — channels with zero presence before.
A leaner footprint, a stronger foundation.
Real numbers pulled straight from Ahrefs — everything below is 100% organic, $0 paid spend.
What the last 10 months actually looked like.
- Jan – Apr: Organic traffic held in a steady ~3K–3.5K range while the content audit and pruning work began.
- May – Jun: A brief dip as low-value pages were deindexed and internal linking was restructured.
- Aug onward: Traffic broke out sharply, climbing toward ~4.5K–5K as the leaner, higher-relevance content took hold.
- Throughout: Domain Rating stayed essentially flat across the whole window — this traffic gain came from relevance and content quality, not from a spike in raw authority.
Already showing up in AI answers.
Axess Law now appears across Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Grok — visibility that didn't exist for this domain two years ago.
What this case study actually proves.
Raw keyword count is a vanity metric. Cutting 7.4K low-value keywords while growing Top 3 rankings is a sign of a healthier, more focused site — not a failure.
Backlink authority (referring domains, backlinks, Ahrefs Rank) grew steadily throughout, even while other metrics were being deliberately reset.
AI search visibility was built entirely from scratch — a channel that simply didn't exist for this domain before, now live across six platforms.
Want results like this for your business?
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