The Client
The Utah Fireplace Store Taking On National Retailers
Croft Fireplace sells, installs, and repairs gas, electric, and luxury fireplaces across Salt Lake and Davis County, Utah. The showroom carries premium lines like Acucraft, Urbana, Enviro, Marquis, and Valor, and the service team handles everything from new installs to valve repairs.
Co-founder Marc Croft brought Stan Ventures on board in late December 2025. The goal was blunt: stop losing every commercial fireplace search to manufacturer sites and national e-commerce chains, and own the local map from Bountiful to Layton while doing it.
The Challenge
A DR 9 Site In A SERP Owned By National Brands
At kickoff the domain sat at DR 9 with 106 referring domains. Of the target keyword list we tracked, only 26 terms were on page one as late as February, and 192 were not ranking at all. Head terms like “gas fireplace” belonged to manufacturers and big-box retailers with authority profiles ten times the size.
There was a second complication: fireplace demand is brutally seasonal, peaking in winter and bottoming out in July. So the program was judged on what compounds into the Q4 buying season, meaning referring domains, domain authority, and rankings. For the first four months those numbers barely moved while the technical and content groundwork went in. Then the link pipeline matured, and the curve bent.
The Strategy
Fix The Site, Feed It Content, Then Pour On Links
A four-part monthly cadence, run the same way every month since January 2026.
01
Technical Foundation
Monthly technical health checks, Google Search Console error analysis, and hands-on implementation so crawl issues never stall the link work.
02
Content Engine
A quarterly content calendar feeding four new blog outlines, one pillar piece, and two refreshed existing posts every month, each mapped to AI-focused keyword opportunities.
03
Layered Link Building
Ten guest posts a month across DA 30+, 40+, and 50+ tiers, plus a new brand mention and six organic links and community mentions on top.
04
Pre-Approval And Audits
Every candidate site gets confirmed before outreach starts. Monthly lost link and broken link analysis protects what has already been built.
The Results
395 Referring Domains And A Domain Rating Nearly Doubled
Seven months in, here is what the Ahrefs data shows.
273%
MORE REFERRING DOMAINS
From 106 linking domains at kickoff to 395 by July, every one verified in Ahrefs.
DR 17
UP FROM DR 9 AT KICKOFF
Nearly doubled in seven months, peaking at DR 18 in early July.
121
PAGE ONE KEYWORDS
Tracked page one rankings grew from 26 in February to 121 by June.
Referring Domains
Dec 2025 to Jul 2026 (Ahrefs)
106 at kickoff
395 by July
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Domain Rating
Dec 2025 to Jul 2026 (Ahrefs)
DR 9 at kickoff
DR 17 in mid July
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Keyword Wins
From Invisible To Page One On Money Keywords
The comparison below is Ahrefs data, December 30, 2025 against July 2026. The headline win is “gas fireplace” at 2,300 searches a month, which went from nowhere to position 5. Seven of the nine terms below did not rank at all when the engagement started.
Keyword
Monthly Searches
Was
Now
gas fireplace
2,300
Not ranking
#5
ventless gas logs
700
Not ranking
#3
natural gas fireplace insert
600
#24
#7
vent free gas fireplace
500
Not ranking
#1
apartment fireplace
450
Not ranking
#3
ventless gas fireplaces
300
Not ranking
#1
gas fireplace sale
200
#61
#6
replace gas fireplace
200
Not ranking
#1
how does an electric fireplace work
200
#7
#1
Why It Worked
Authority First, Rankings Followed
The referring domain count sat between 106 and 119 through April while the technical fixes, content map, and outreach pipeline went in. Then it jumped to 271 in May, 345 in June, and 395 in July as the guest post placements landed. Rankings followed the authority, with tracked page one keywords climbing from 26 in February to 121 by June.
- Tiered link velocity. DA 30+, 40+, and 50+ placements every month kept the profile natural while authority climbed.
- Pre-approved relevance. Every candidate site was confirmed for niche fit before a single outreach email went out.
- Content pulled its weight. Pillar pages and refreshed posts gave the new authority somewhere to land, which is why informational terms hit #1.
- Local plus national. City pages locked down Davis County terms while the blog and category pages chased the big national keywords.
- Protected gains. Monthly lost link and broken link analysis caught drops before they cost rankings.
Stan Ventures
Want Numbers Like These For Your Client?
We build white-label link building programs for SEO agencies and brands. Pre-approved domains, real relevance, and a cadence that compounds. You keep the client relationship. We handle the links.
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Dileep Thekkethil is the Director of Marketing at Stan Ventures and an SEMRush certified SEO expert. With over a decade of experience in digital marketing, Dileep has played a pivotal role in helping global brands and agencies enhance their online visibility. His work has been featured in leading industry platforms such as MarketingProfs, Search Engine Roundtable, and CMSWire, and his expert insights have been cited in Google Videos. Known for turning complex SEO strategies into actionable solutions, Dileep continues to be a trusted authority in the SEO community, sharing knowledge that drives meaningful results.
