SEO
Digital PR
GEO / AI Search
Social
Building backlink authority in the UK and US beauty market
How reactive PR and trend-led campaigns delivered 269 placements and growing market share in two key markets
269
media placements
15.5%
increase in market share in the US market
14.5%
increase in clicks
The Brief
Fresha came to us with a clear competitive gap: their backlink profile wasn’t keeping pace with rivals, and key category pages were being left behind in organic search as a result. The goal was to drive a high volume of quality links, particularly to category pages, closing the distance between Fresha and its competitors in the UK and US.
The Plan
Before any outreach began, we did a thorough competitor and market gap analysis to understand where Fresha was most exposed and where links would have the greatest commercial impact. That analysis pointed clearly to the UK and US as the priority markets, and identified the specific category pages that would benefit most from being targeted.
From there we built a dual-track PR strategy: longer-term campaign ideas built around themes relevant to the beauty and salon industry, combined with a reactive programme that let Fresha’s in-house expert, Belle, respond quickly to whatever was trending in beauty that week. Internal Fresha data added authority to both, giving journalists angles rooted in real booking and search behaviour, not just opinion.
Spotlight Campaigns
The reactive approach proved particularly powerful. When the Hannah Montana 20th anniversary special dropped and Miley Cyrus stepped out with her iconic blonde bangs, we were ready. Fresha’s data showing an 89% increase in searches for ‘Hannah Montana hair’ , alongside expert commentary on how to achieve the look, landed in Hello! Magazine within the news cycle, with a direct link to a Fresha category page.
The Marie Claire placement told a similar story. A feature on the most common nail mistakes people make in winter included expert commentary from Fresha’s beauty specialist, landing the brand in one of the UK’s highest-authority beauty titles.
Other coverage included The Telegraph, The Sun, Elle UK and Wales Online, a consistent presence across both mass-market and premium beauty titles throughout the year.
the results
Over the past year the campaigns generated 269 media placements. Of the links secured, 53 pointed directly to category pages, the specific objective the brief was built around, with 43 of those being follow or no-follow links passing authority to the pages that matter most commercially. The average Domain Rating across linking publications came in at 73, reflecting the quality of titles we were landing consistently.
In terms of market impact, UK market share grew by 5.3% and US market share grew by 15.5%. Clicks to the site are up 14.5% comparing the last three months year on year.
Why It Worked
Reactive PR is often talked about, but rarely executed well. The window between a story breaking and a journalist filing is short, and most brands move too slowly to capitalise on it. By building a process around Fresha’s internal data and Belle’s expert voice, we could respond to trending moments, a celebrity hair look, a seasonal nail trend, a viral beauty moment, with a genuinely useful angle rather than a forced brand mention.
The category page targeting also mattered. A backlink to a homepage is useful, but a backlink to the page where someone actually books a hair appointment is commercially meaningful. The gap between those two things was the brief, and the results reflect that the strategy was pointed in the right direction from the start.
