Project Overview
Spartacus Law Firm is a criminal defense law firm located in Las Vegas. The SEO goal was to rank the website and increase its visibility for keywords related to criminal defense lawyers in Las Vegas, particularly the highly competitive term "criminal defense lawyer Las Vegas." After Spartacus Law Firm worked with multiple agencies and SEO consultants without success, we inherited a site that had been stuck in positions 12-13 for their primary keyword for months. Initial analysis suggested standard solutions: more backlinks, better content, and technical improvements.
Goal
Spartacus Law Firm aimed to achieve #1 rankings for highly competitive criminal defense-related keywords in Las Vegas, specifically targeting terms such as "criminal defense lawyer Las Vegas" and "Las Vegas defense attorney." The Las Vegas criminal defense market is exceptionally competitive, with agencies employing aggressive tactics and black-hat techniques, making organic ranking achievements particularly challenging.
Solutions
To achieve ranking breakthroughs, we implemented a comprehensive SEO strategy that evolved as we diagnosed the core issues:
Phase 1: Traditional Link Building & PR (Months 1-6)
- Legal Backlink Acquisition: We secured approximately 30 high-quality backlinks through guest contributions, expert commentary, and relationship building with peer legal websites.
- Premium Digital PR Campaign: We executed an aggressive digital PR strategy featuring data-driven campaigns, including "States with the Most Criminals Still at Large" and "Most Dangerous Tourist Destinations in the U.S." This resulted in backlinks from major outlets such as Business Insider, Yahoo.com, Quartz (QZ.com), MSN, and 54+ additional high-authority outlets.
Phase 2: Niche-Specific Link Building (Months 7-9)
- Exclusive Legal Backlinks: After initial PR efforts showed limited ranking impact, we executed a second round of ultra-targeted, premium legal backlinks from highly authoritative sources within the legal vertical specifically.
- Homepage Optimization: A complete revamp of the homepage to strengthen relevance signals and enhance conversion pathways.
Phase 3: Topical Authority Reconstruction (Month 10-12)
This is where the breakthrough happened:
- Content Audit & Diagnosis: A deep analysis revealed a topical authority conflict - the site was competing in two completely different legal verticals simultaneously, thereby diluting its core authority in criminal defense.
- Strategic Content Consolidation: After extensive consultation with the client about the traffic impact, we made the bold decision to consolidate all 40 dog bite pages into a single comprehensive page with proper 301 redirects.
Backlink Concentration: By eliminating dozens of unnecessary pages, we concentrated the value of the existing backlink profile toward the core criminal defense content, allowing link equity to flow more effectively to priority pages.
Results
Over the course of 12 months, from March 2024 to March 2025, the firm experienced the following impressive results:
At the start of the project in March 2024, Spartacus Law Firm's website was receiving 4,290 monthly organic visitors. After 12 months of implementing our strategy, by March 2025, this number grew to 6,500: a 34% increase in organic traffic. This increase shows how our SEO efforts have directly improved the firm's visibility for key criminal defense services in Las Vegas.
When we started, Spartacus Law Firm had zero keywords in the top 10 positions. By mid 2025, the firm successfully ranked 24 keywords in the top 10, including the coveted #1 position for their primary target keyword. This was a remarkable achievement in one of the most competitive legal markets in the country.
The firm's domain rating rose from 31 to 35, a 13% improvement, driven by high-quality backlinks and successful digital PR campaigns. This boost in domain authority increased the website’s trust with Google and strengthened the brand’s overall reputation.
Sometimes the solution isn't adding more, it's removing what doesn't belong.
