A company’s website can say all the right things and still leave a buyer with one question unanswered: what do other people say about it? For a software firm focused on legacy modernization, the answer needed to sit right next to its own site in Google — inside a Reddit discussion where the brand comes up naturally.
Client
The client is a US software development company built around a problem most mature businesses eventually run into: systems that still keep operations going but were never designed for today’s integrations, cloud or AI. Its core services are legacy modernization, cloud migration and AI solutions for clients in the US and Europe.
Goal
The client’s website was already showing up in Google for “legacy software development uk”. The goal was to reinforce it with a Reddit thread in the top results — a discussion where the brand is naturally recommended, sitting alongside the company’s own page.
Task
Get a thread with a brand mention into Google’s top results for “legacy software development uk” within one month and a $400 budget.
Strategy
Two posts. We published two posts on closely related topics around legacy development and choosing a contractor. Each one mentioned the client’s brand organically, as part of the topic rather than as a pitch.
A comment with a brand mention. Under each post we added one comment that mentioned the brand again, this time as a specific option to consider. This is where the recommendation actually lives: a reader scanning the thread sees the company named as a concrete choice, not just referenced in passing.
Boosts. Each brand comment was backed by 10 boosts, 20 in total. These are comments without a brand mention. They keep the conversation going around the brand comment, so the mention reads as part of a real discussion rather than a recommendation standing on its own.
Results
Within a month, the thread reached position 5 in Google for “legacy software development uk”, sharing the first page with legacy modernization companies and a ranking of contractors. Since the client’s website was already in the same results, the brand now appears there twice: through its own site and through a discussion where it is recommended.
Result: Top 5 in Google on a $400 budget.
Why It Worked
This search shows how Google builds the first page for a commercial query: it mixes vendor websites, a ranking article and a Reddit thread. For a buyer choosing a contractor, these formats play different roles. Vendor sites describe themselves, and they tend to do it equally well. A discussion offers what a website can’t — other people’s experience and recommendations. That’s why a thread in the same results reinforces a brand’s site instead of competing with it.
The structure of the thread mattered as much as its ranking. A brand mention in a post alone can read like promotion. A separate comment that names the company as an option, surrounded by boosts that keep the discussion alive, turns that mention into a recommendation that is part of the conversation.
Conclusion
A website on page one answers the question of who offers a service. It rarely answers why a buyer should pick that company over the others listed next to it. In this case, one month and $400 placed a Reddit thread beside the client’s site — a place where the brand appears as a recommendation inside a discussion rather than in its own words. For any business that already ranks with its own pages, that kind of thread is the missing piece: a recommendation every searcher sees before deciding who to contact.
Hi! I'm Viktoriia 👋
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