How One Less Thing secured 38 published articles, 35 backlinks and grew its Domain Authority from 0 to 19
One Less Thing is a franchise cleaning business that came to us with a newly launched website and very little established online authority.
The business wanted to use digital PR to earn credible editorial coverage and backlinks, helping strengthen the website’s authority, visibility and long-term search presence.
We built the campaign around something One Less Thing already had in abundance: practical cleaning expertise journalists could use.
During the first 12 months of a 13-month project, the campaign generated 38 published articles, including 35 backlinks, across publications including the Daily Express, Bustle, Forbes, Homes & Gardens, Ideal Home, Woman & Home, Best Life and Yahoo.
Over the same period, the website’s Moz Domain Authority increased from 0 to 19.
The challenge
One Less Thing had a fresh website and wanted to establish greater authority online.
Rather than pursuing links through paid placements or low-quality link-building tactics, the objective was to use earned media coverage to build a stronger editorial backlink profile.
The campaign therefore focused on:
— Securing relevant media coverage
— Earning editorial backlinks from established publications
— Building authority around One Less Thing’s cleaning expertise
— Increasing the strength of the website’s backlink profile
— Supporting greater search visibility over time
— Establishing the brand as a useful source for consumer journalists
The business had a particularly useful PR advantage: its day-to-day work provided a large amount of practical knowledge about cleaning, organisation and household maintenance.
That gave us plenty of material to turn into journalist-friendly stories and expert commentary.
Our approach
Rather than trying to repeatedly promote the cleaning business itself, we positioned One Less Thing as a source of practical cleaning and household expertise.
The campaign was built around useful, consumer-facing topics journalists were already interested in covering.
These included subjects such as:
— Cleaning with white vinegar
— Vacuuming mistakes
— Removing kitchen odours
— Washing clothes correctly
— Cleaning sofas and upholstery
— Organising kitchens and storage
— Removing algae from garden fences
— Cleaning fruit and vegetables
— Storage mistakes around the home
— When household appliances should be replaced
— Cleaning terracotta pots
— Carpet cleaning
— Entryway organisation
— Household decluttering
This gave journalists information their readers could actually use while naturally demonstrating One Less Thing’s knowledge of the subject.
Building authority through expert commentary
One of the strengths of expert-led PR is that a business does not need to have a major corporate announcement every month.
Its expertise can itself become the media opportunity.
One Less Thing could contribute practical advice to stories about cleaning, home organisation and household maintenance throughout the year.
That allowed us to build an ongoing pipeline of proactive and reactive opportunities rather than relying on individual press releases.
The result was repeated coverage across major consumer and home publications.
38 published articles
During the first 12 months, the campaign generated 38 published articles.
Coverage appeared across titles including:
Daily Express, Bustle, Forbes, Homes & Gardens, Ideal Home, Woman & Home, Best Life, Daily Record, Saga Exceptional, US News & World Report and Yahoo.
The range of publications demonstrated that One Less Thing’s expertise could work across national news, consumer lifestyle, interiors and home media.
Topics ranged from practical cleaning advice to home organisation and seasonal household guidance.
35 editorial backlinks
Of the 38 articles secured during that period, 35 included backlinks to One Less Thing.
That was particularly valuable because the campaign had been designed partly around building the authority of a newly established website.
Rather than purchasing links or relying on artificial link-building tactics, the backlinks were earned as part of genuine editorial coverage.
Not every journalist or publication provides a backlink, and backlinks can never be guaranteed as part of earned-media PR.
In this campaign, however, a particularly high proportion of the coverage included one.
Domain Authority increased from 0 to 19
At the beginning of the campaign, the newly launched One Less Thing website had a Moz Domain Authority of 0.
Within 12 months, that had increased to:
19
Moz Domain Authority is a third-party SEO metric rather than a Google ranking factor, so it should not be treated as a direct measure of Google performance.
However, the increase provided a useful indication that the website’s overall backlink profile and external authority had strengthened substantially during the campaign.
The PR coverage and editorial backlinks formed an important part of that growth.
A campaign built around useful expertise
The volume of coverage was possible because the strategy did not depend on constantly inventing news about the company.
Instead, we asked:
What does One Less Thing know that journalists and their readers would genuinely find useful?
That created a much larger media territory.
A cleaning business can contribute to stories about:
— Kitchens
— Bathrooms
— Laundry
— Appliances
— Organisation
— Decluttering
— Furniture
— Gardening
— Storage
— Seasonal cleaning
— Household mistakes
— Consumer advice
That breadth allowed the campaign to remain active across different publications and different times of year.
The results
During the first 12 months of the 13-month project, the campaign generated substantial earned-media coverage and editorial links for One Less Thing.
| Result | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Project length | 13 months |
| Results period | First 12 months |
| Published articles | 38 |
| Articles containing backlinks | 35 |
| Moz Domain Authority | Increased from 0 to 19 |
| Core strategy | Expert-led digital PR |
| Primary expertise | Cleaning, home organisation and household advice |
| Media examples | Daily Express, Bustle, Forbes, Homes & Gardens, Ideal Home, Woman & Home, Best Life, Yahoo |
| Primary objective | Build website authority and earn editorial backlinks |
| Campaign status | Completed |
What Daniel had to say
“Very happy with the process and results… we have seen immediate results. The account management has been well thought through, which saves time and energy in reviewing and managing things as a client, but also means the focus is on delivering results as cost-effectively as possible rather than lots of overhead for long calls or meetings. Would recommend.”
Why the campaign worked
One Less Thing had genuine expertise journalists could repeatedly use. Our role was to identify the parts of that knowledge with media potential, turn them into relevant angles and get them in front of the right journalists.
That created a useful cycle: Cleaning expertise → journalist opportunities → earned media coverage → editorial backlinks → stronger online authority
The campaign demonstrates how expert-led PR can work particularly well for service businesses whose knowledge may initially seem ordinary but is actually highly useful to consumer journalists.
You can view One Less Thing’s published articles in our Media Coverage database, alongside hundreds of other articles secured for our clients across a wide range of industries, sectors and areas of expertise.
Could expert-led PR help build your business’s authority?
Fair Public Relations helps small businesses, founders and credible experts turn their knowledge and experience into useful media opportunities. Campaigns can include expert commentary, proactive story development, reactive journalist opportunities, founder positioning, service PR and wider earned-media outreach. Earned coverage, backlinks and changes in third-party SEO metrics cannot be guaranteed, but every campaign is built around relevant opportunities and genuine editorial value.
