Illustrative case study

A fictional business. The figures are a modelled scenario, not a client result.

Specimen · SEO case study10 months · Authority · Bulgaria

Kirilitsa Type Co. — Cyrillic type foundry · Sofia

How a two-designer Sofia foundry became the web's reference on Bulgarian Cyrillic

+104referring domains

Аа ThinАа LightАа MediumАа BoldАа Black
bg · locl
Form

125 referring domains · 17/17 names at #1

Sheet 01 — The challengeThin 100

Somebody else’s shop window, for their own letters.

72pt

Global font marketplaces outranked the foundry for its own typeface names, and design blogs linked to resellers rather than the source.

24pt

Kirilitsa is two designers drawing typefaces built for Bulgarian — where Д, Л and Ж take shapes Russian-form Cyrillic fonts get wrong.

14pt

Their nine families sold through global marketplaces as well as directly. Those marketplaces carried more domain authority, copied the foundry's own descriptions, and so took the #1 position for searches like “Sredets Sans font”. Reviews in design blogs followed the search results: they linked whichever page ranked, so every new article strengthened the reseller rather than the source. Direct sales — the ones that fund new typefaces — were flat.

Character set · Bulgarian

АБВГДЕЖЗИЙКЛМНОПРСТУФХЦЧШЩЪЬЮЯ

Marked: the letters whose Bulgarian forms the foundry is known for.

Sheet 02 — Audit & diagnosisLight 300

Six corrections marked on the proof.

  1. Ranking

    Marketplaces own the foundry's own names

    For 14 of 17 typeface names, the #1 result was a global font marketplace listing with copied description text. The foundry's specimen page sat between #4 and #19.

    3/17names ranked #1

  2. Links

    Credit flowing to resellers

    Design blogs reviewing Sredets Sans and Vitosha Serif linked the reseller checkout, not the source. 38 such links were from articles that already named the foundry.

    38misdirected links

  3. Content

    Specimens locked in PDFs

    Each family's character set, weights and language support lived only in downloadable PDF specimens — nothing a journalist or a search engine could quote or cite.

    11PDF-only specimens

  4. Technical

    No canonical home per typeface

    Families shared one catalogue URL with tab switching. No per-family title, no Product structured data, and the Bulgarian-language pages carried no hreflang.

    1URL for 9 families

  5. Mentions

    Unlinked press already existed

    112 mentions of the foundry or its designers across design press, university reading lists and type forums — 71% of them without a link.

    112unlinked mentions

  6. Authority

    No reason to link to the source

    Nobody had published the definitive explanation of Bulgarian Cyrillic letterforms, so writers linked whichever page sold the font fastest.

    21referring domains

Sheet 03 — StrategyMedium 500

Four tactics, set in increasing weight.

Built on our Authority plan (Digital PR & links). One principle: make the foundry the page worth citing, then ask for the credit it had already earned.

01 · Digital PR · wt 300

Digital PR

A data story the design press could not ignore

  • Audited 400 Bulgarian street signs, menus and packaging photographed in Sofia and Plovdiv to measure how often Russian-form Cyrillic is used for Bulgarian text.
  • Published the findings as “Ж is not Ж” — an illustrated report with free-to-embed glyph comparisons, each embed credited with a link.
  • Pitched it to Bulgarian national media around 24 May, the Day of Bulgarian Script and Culture.

02 · Design-press outreach · wt 500

Design-press outreach

Trade titles, typography newsletters and design schools

  • A list of 160 typography writers, editors and course leads, tiered by topical relevance rather than raw domain metrics.
  • Offered exclusive process material: the drawing of the Bulgarian Д and Л, early sketches, rejected forms.
  • Every pitch included a single canonical link to the typeface's own specimen page.

03 · Resource link-building · wt 700

Resource link-building

The Bulgarian Cyrillic Field Guide

  • An open, HTML-first reference: all 30 letters of the Bulgarian alphabet with Russian vs Bulgarian forms, handwriting models and the locl feature explained for developers.
  • Submitted to university typography syllabi, localisation guides and open-source font projects as a citable source.
  • Each of the 9 families got its own indexable specimen page with Product schema, replacing the PDFs.

04 · Link reclamation · wt 900

Link reclamation

Asking for the credit the foundry had already earned

  • Matched 112 unlinked mentions and 38 reseller-pointing reviews to a named editor each.
  • A short, courteous correction request: the source page, the designer's name, a better image for their article.
  • Followed up once; never asked for a link to be removed from a reseller, only for the source to be added.
Sheet 04 — 10-month timelineBold 700

Each month, a little heavier.

  1. 0124 RD

    Backlink & mention audit

    112 unlinked mentions and 38 reseller links mapped to editors.

  2. 0229 RD

    Specimens out of PDF

    9 families get their own HTML specimen pages, schema and hreflang.

  3. 0337 RD

    Reclamation round one

    First 15 reseller links re-pointed to the foundry's pages.

  4. 0448 RD

    Street-sign fieldwork

    400 samples photographed and coded for the “Ж is not Ж” study.

  5. 0561 RD

    Day of Bulgarian Script

    Report launches on 24 May; national press and design titles pick it up.

  6. 0674 RD

    Field Guide published

    The open Bulgarian Cyrillic reference goes live with embeddable glyphs.

  7. 0788 RD

    Syllabus outreach

    Field Guide added to typography and localisation reading lists.

  8. 08101 RD

    Process exclusives

    Drawing-of-Д story placed with two international type publications.

  9. 09114 RD

    Second reclamation sweep

    Remaining mentions chased; reclaimed links reach 36.

  10. 10125 RD

    Reference status

    125 referring domains; 17 of 17 typeface names rank #1.

Sheet 05 — ResultsBlack 900

From reseller footnote to the reference.

Modelled scenario for a fictional business — not a client result. Rankings and traffic are never guaranteed; see our Terms.

Key metrics

Referring domains
21 → 125
Direct licence sales
+163%
Own-font-name #1 rankings
3 → 17
Reclaimed reseller links
38
Referring domains by month — stems thicken as authority grows
255075100125M012345678910

Ranking table · positions, month 0 → 10

QueryVol.BeforeAfter
sredets sans font1.9k61
vitosha serif1.3k41
preslav display download880111
pirin slab licence390191
bulgarian cyrillic font2.4k342
bulgarian vs russian cyrillic1.6k—1
bulgarian ж letter form720—1
cyrillic typeface for bulgarian590273
rila mono font48081

“—” not ranking in the top 100. Monthly volumes are modelled.

Before · month 0

sredets sans font

  1. 1

    a global font marketplace

    Sredets Sans Font — Download & Licence

  2. 2

    a second font reseller

    Sredets Sans Family | 8 styles

  3. 3

    a free-fonts directory

    Sredets Sans Free Alternative

  4. 4

    a design blog

    10 Cyrillic fonts for 2026

  5. 5

    a free-fonts aggregator

    Cyrillic font downloads

  6. 6

    kirilitsa type

    Catalogue — Kirilitsasource

After · month 10

sredets sans font

  1. 1

    kirilitsa type › sredets-sans

    Sredets Sans — a grotesque drawn for Bulgariansource

  2. 2

    kirilitsa type › field-guide

    Bulgarian Cyrillic Field Guide: Ж, Д, Л explainedsource

  3. 3

    a global font marketplace

    Sredets Sans Font — Download & Licence

  4. 4

    a design magazine

    The foundry redrawing Bulgarian letters

Colophon

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Earned links, reclaimed credit and a reference page your niche cites — set out month by month in the Authority plan.

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