AI & Automation
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
For years, I was essentially building digital ghost towns—pixel-perfect landing pages that looked amazing but had zero visitors. Every client loved the designs during our presentations, but six months later, they'd call frustrated about their "premium sales representative" sitting in an empty mall.
The harsh reality hit me when I tracked results across my portfolio: beautiful websites with conversion rates that meant nothing because the traffic was virtually non-existent. I was treating landing pages like premium storefronts when I should have been treating them as marketing laboratories designed for discovery.
After rebuilding my entire approach from design-first to SEO-first, I've helped transform sites from under 500 monthly visitors to over 5,000 in just three months—not through paid ads, but through strategic SEO-optimized landing pages that actually get found.
Here's what you'll learn from my complete pivot:
Why the "homepage-first" approach kills your organic traffic potential
The framework I use to structure landing pages for maximum search visibility
Real examples of landing page transformations and their traffic results
How to balance conversion optimization with SEO without sacrificing either
The testing infrastructure that lets you iterate rapidly on what works
Stop building beautiful websites that nobody finds. Start building distribution-focused landing pages that turn your site into a lead generation machine.
Industry Reality
What every marketer has been taught about landing pages
The conventional wisdom around landing pages focuses almost exclusively on conversion optimization. Every course, guide, and "expert" will tell you the same things:
The Standard Landing Page Playbook:
Start with a compelling headline and hero section
Focus on a single call-to-action above the fold
Remove navigation to eliminate distractions
Use social proof and testimonials strategically
A/B test everything for maximum conversion rates
This advice isn't wrong—it's just incomplete. The entire framework assumes you already have traffic coming to your landing page, usually through paid advertising. Most businesses follow this playbook religiously, creating conversion-optimized pages that perform beautifully... for the handful of visitors who actually find them.
The problem with this approach is that it treats landing pages as the destination rather than the discovery mechanism. You end up with pages optimized for the final step of the funnel while completely ignoring how people will actually discover your solution in the first place.
When your only distribution strategy is "build it and they will come" or expensive paid advertising, you're essentially training world-class sales representatives to work in empty neighborhoods. The result? Beautiful landing pages with impressive conversion rates on paper, but minimal actual revenue impact.
This conventional wisdom works if you have unlimited ad budgets or an established audience. For everyone else, it's a recipe for digital ghost towns.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
I discovered this problem firsthand when a client called me six months after launching their "perfect" landing page. They were frustrated—the page converted visitors at 3.2%, which was excellent, but they were only getting 200 visitors per month. Even with a great conversion rate, that's only 6-7 leads monthly.
This client was a B2B SaaS startup offering project management software. We'd followed every best practice: clear value proposition, compelling hero section, social proof, optimized forms. The page looked professional and converted well, but it was essentially invisible to their target market.
Here's what I realized: we'd built a premium storefront in an empty mall. The page was optimized for the final moment of decision, but we'd done nothing to help people discover it during their research phase.
Most B2B buyers don't start their journey by typing your company name into Google. They start with problem-based searches: "how to manage remote team projects," "best project tracking software for startups," "project management workflow for small teams." Our beautiful landing page wasn't optimized for any of these discovery moments.
After analyzing several client projects, I noticed a pattern: the most successful businesses weren't just building individual landing pages—they were building networks of interconnected pages that captured traffic at different stages of the buyer journey. Each page served as a potential entry point, not just a conversion destination.
This insight forced me to completely rethink my approach. Instead of starting with "What's the perfect headline for conversions?" I started with "What problems are our ideal customers actively searching for solutions to?" That shift changed everything.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
My new framework treats every landing page as both a discovery tool and a conversion tool. Here's the exact process I now use for every client:
Step 1: Research-Driven Page Planning
Instead of starting with page design, I start with search intent research. For that project management SaaS client, I discovered their ideal customers were searching for terms like "remote team collaboration tools," "project timeline software for small business," and "how to track team productivity." We identified 20+ high-intent search terms that could each support their own landing page.
Step 2: SEO-First Page Architecture
Each landing page gets structured around a specific search intent, but maintains conversion optimization principles. The key is creating pages that satisfy search algorithms while guiding visitors toward conversion. I use a framework where:
H1 tags directly match primary search intent
Page content thoroughly addresses the searcher's question
Internal linking connects related topics and guides users deeper
Conversion elements are integrated naturally, not forced
Step 3: Content-Conversion Integration
The biggest breakthrough was learning to blend educational content with conversion elements seamlessly. Instead of separate "blog posts" and "landing pages," I create pages that educate first, then naturally introduce the solution. For example, a page about "project timeline software" first explains how to evaluate timeline tools, then positions the client's solution as the ideal choice.
Step 4: Technical SEO Foundation
Every page gets optimized for technical SEO from day one: proper meta tags, schema markup, mobile optimization, fast loading speeds. But I also ensure the page maintains conversion-friendly elements like clear CTAs and trust signals.
Step 5: Network Effect Creation
Instead of isolated landing pages, I build interconnected page networks. Each page links to related topics, creating paths for visitors to discover multiple relevant solutions while building topical authority with search engines.
The result? Landing pages that don't just convert well—they actually get found by the right people at the right moment in their buying journey.
Keyword Research
Map search intent to landing page opportunities using tools like Perplexity for understanding user problems
Page Structure
Balance SEO elements (H1, meta tags, content depth) with conversion elements (CTAs, social proof, forms)
Content Strategy
Create educational content that naturally leads to your solution rather than purely promotional copy
Link Architecture
Build internal linking between related landing pages to create topic clusters and guide user journeys
The transformation was immediate and measurable. Within three months of implementing this SEO-first landing page strategy, that project management SaaS client saw their organic traffic increase from 200 to over 2,000 monthly visitors.
More importantly, the quality of leads improved dramatically. Because visitors were finding them through problem-specific searches, they arrived already understanding their need for a solution. Conversion rates actually increased from 3.2% to 4.1% while traffic grew 10x.
The network effect became visible around month four, when we started ranking for competitive terms we hadn't directly targeted. By building authority around project management topics through multiple interconnected landing pages, the entire site began ranking higher for related searches.
One unexpected result: the client started getting partnership inquiries from other software companies who found them through their educational content. Their landing pages weren't just generating leads—they were establishing them as thought leaders in their space.
Today, 80% of their new customer acquisition comes from organic search rather than paid advertising, dramatically reducing their customer acquisition costs while increasing lead volume.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
The most important lesson: Stop treating landing pages as isolated conversion tools. Start treating them as interconnected discovery mechanisms that happen to convert well.
Key lessons from this transformation:
Search intent beats clever copy: Pages that directly answer searcher questions outperform creatively written pages that miss search intent
Education leads to conversion: Visitors who learn something valuable are more likely to trust you with their business
Network effects compound: Multiple related landing pages boost each other's rankings through internal linking and topical authority
Technical SEO enables everything: Beautiful design means nothing if search engines can't properly crawl and index your pages
Long-term thinking wins: SEO-optimized landing pages take 3-6 months to show results, but the traffic is sustainable and cost-effective
Quality over quantity: Better to have 10 thoroughly optimized landing pages than 50 generic ones
Mobile-first is non-negotiable: Most B2B searches now happen on mobile devices, so mobile optimization directly impacts rankings
The biggest mindset shift: your landing page should solve a problem first, sell a solution second. When you nail that balance, both SEO and conversions improve simultaneously.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups, focus on problem-based landing pages rather than feature-based ones. Create pages around "how to" searches your prospects are making, then naturally introduce your solution as the answer.
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores, optimize product category pages and collection pages as landing pages. Use them to rank for shopping-intent keywords while maintaining clear paths to purchase.