AI & Automation
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
For the first few years of my freelance career, I was the architect of what I now call "digital ghost towns." I poured my energy into crafting pixel-perfect websites—brand-aligned, modern, conversion-optimized. Every client left our initial meetings thrilled about their upcoming digital transformation.
I treated each website like a premium sales representative for the company. The messaging was sharp. The user journey was seamless. The design made competitors look outdated.
But here's what I discovered after tracking results across dozens of projects: I was essentially training world-class sales reps to do door-to-door sales in an empty neighborhood.
These websites had become expensive digital brochures—impressive when someone stumbled upon them, but nobody was stumbling upon them. The harsh reality: without traffic, even the world's best-converting website converts zero.
After working with clients ranging from SaaS startups to established ecommerce brands, I learned that web design can absolutely boost your SEO rankings—but only if you approach it fundamentally differently than most designers do.
Here's what you'll discover in this playbook:
Why the design-first approach actually hurts your SEO potential
The mindset shift that transforms websites from brochures to traffic magnets
My tested framework for building sites that rank AND convert
Specific examples of design decisions that doubled organic traffic
How to avoid the beautiful ghost town trap from day one
Industry Reality
What the design world teaches about SEO
Walk into any web design agency or browse design portfolios, and you'll hear the same narrative: "We create beautiful, user-friendly websites that also happen to be SEO-optimized." The industry treats SEO as an afterthought—a checklist item to tick off after the real creative work is done.
Most designers approach SEO like this:
Design the perfect user experience based on brand guidelines and conversion psychology
Create stunning visual hierarchies that showcase products and services beautifully
Optimize page speed and mobile responsiveness for better user experience
Add meta descriptions and alt tags for "SEO compliance"
Structure content around company offerings rather than search intent
This conventional approach exists because most web designers come from visual design backgrounds, not marketing backgrounds. They're trained to think like brand strategists and user experience experts—which are valuable skills. The problem? They're designing for people who will never find the website in the first place.
The traditional approach treats SEO like a technical add-on rather than a foundational strategy. It assumes that if you build something beautiful and functional, search engines will naturally reward it. But that's like opening a stunning boutique in the middle of a desert and wondering why nobody's shopping.
This mindset creates what I call the "portfolio trap"—websites that look incredible in design showcases but generate zero organic traffic for the businesses that need customers, not design awards.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The turning point came when a SaaS client hired me to redesign their website. They had a solid product, decent funding, and a website that won design awards. But their organic traffic was virtually non-existent, and their conversion rates were abysmal because so few people were actually finding them.
I started this project the way I always did: analyzing their brand, understanding their user personas, and creating wireframes based on the optimal user journey. I mapped out a beautiful site architecture with clear navigation, compelling hero sections, and conversion-focused landing pages.
But then I made a critical decision that changed everything. Instead of diving straight into design, I spent two weeks doing keyword research and competitor analysis. What I discovered was shocking.
Their target customers were searching for solutions using completely different language than what the company used internally. The features they were highlighting weren't the ones people cared about. Most importantly, there were hundreds of high-intent search queries related to their space that nobody was targeting.
I realized I'd been thinking about websites completely backwards. I was designing for the 5% of people who somehow found the site rather than the 95% who never would. The company's internal language, organizational structure, and product features were driving the site architecture—not what people were actually searching for.
That's when it clicked: I wasn't building websites; I was building marketing assets that needed to earn their traffic rather than assume it would appear.
This project became my testing ground for a completely different approach to web design—one where SEO wasn't an afterthought but the foundation that informed every design decision from day one.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's the exact framework I developed after that revelation, which I now use for every web project:
Step 1: Start with Search Intent, Not Company Structure
Instead of beginning with wireframes based on the company's internal organization, I start with comprehensive keyword research. I identify every question, problem, and search query related to their space. Then I map these to different stages of the buyer journey.
For that SaaS client, this meant discovering that their target customers were searching for "project management for remote teams" and "team collaboration tools" rather than their internal product categories. The homepage needed to speak this language immediately.
Step 2: Design Content-First Site Architecture
Traditional web design creates beautiful containers and then fills them with content. My approach inverts this: I plan the content strategy first, then design the architecture to support it.
Every page becomes a potential entry point. Instead of assuming users start at the homepage, I design each page to stand alone and guide visitors through the conversion funnel regardless of where they land.
Step 3: Implement Semantic SEO in Visual Design
This is where design finally enters the process—but it's design informed by search behavior. I structure visual hierarchies around semantic keyword clusters, ensuring that related concepts are visually connected and that search engines can understand the content relationships.
For the SaaS client, this meant creating visual content hubs around major keyword themes, with related pages linked both through navigation and contextual in-content links.
Step 4: Optimize for Multiple Entry Points
Instead of one conversion path from the homepage, I design multiple pathways based on different search intents. Someone searching for "team collaboration features" needs a different journey than someone searching for "project management pricing."
Each page includes strategic internal linking, contextual calls-to-action, and conversion opportunities that make sense for that specific search intent.
Step 5: Test and Iterate Based on Organic Performance
Unlike traditional web design projects that "launch and forget," I treat every site as a marketing laboratory. I track which pages drive organic traffic, which keywords are converting, and which content gaps need to be filled.
This continuous optimization approach means the website gets stronger over time rather than becoming outdated the moment it launches.
Search-First Architecture
Map site structure around keyword clusters and search intent rather than company departments
Content-Led Design
Create visual hierarchies that support SEO content strategy rather than fighting against it
Multiple Entry Points
Design conversion paths for different search intents instead of assuming everyone starts at the homepage
Performance Laboratory
Treat the website as an ongoing experiment rather than a one-time design project
The results were dramatic and measurable. Within six months of implementing this approach:
The SaaS client's organic traffic increased by over 300%, with most new visitors coming through long-tail keyword searches that their previous site completely missed. More importantly, these visitors converted at higher rates because they were finding exactly what they were searching for.
The site now had dozens of pages ranking on page one for relevant keywords, compared to zero before the redesign. Each page was generating qualified leads rather than just looking pretty.
But the most significant result was psychological: the client stopped seeing their website as an expense and started treating it as their most important marketing asset. They began requesting additional content pages, A/B testing different approaches, and thinking like marketers rather than just product developers.
This success led me to apply the same framework to other clients across different industries. The pattern held: when you design websites around search intent rather than internal company logic, both traffic and conversions improve dramatically.
The approach also created a competitive advantage that was difficult for competitors to copy, because it required both design skills and deep SEO knowledge—a combination most agencies don't possess.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the most important lessons I learned from this fundamental shift in approach:
SEO isn't a feature you add to design; it's the foundation you build design on. Starting with search intent shapes every subsequent decision in ways that feel natural rather than forced.
Beautiful websites with zero traffic are worse than ugly websites with high traffic. Never optimize for design awards when you should be optimizing for customer acquisition.
Your company's internal language is usually different from your customers' search language. Design around how people search, not how you describe your products internally.
Every page should be designed as a potential homepage. Most visitors won't start their journey where you expect them to.
Content strategy comes before visual design, not after. You can't retrofit good SEO onto a site architecture built without search intent in mind.
The best websites are marketing laboratories, not digital brochures. Plan for continuous optimization rather than one-time launches.
Web design and SEO aren't competing priorities—they're complementary when done correctly. Good SEO makes design more effective, and good design makes SEO more convertible.
The biggest mistake I see companies make is treating web design and SEO as separate projects rather than integrated strategies. When you combine them from the beginning, the results compound in ways that neither approach can achieve alone.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups specifically:
Design your homepage around primary use case searches, not product feature lists
Create dedicated landing pages for each integration you offer
Structure pricing pages around comparison keywords like "alternative to [competitor]"
Build case study pages that target industry-specific problem searches
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores specifically:
Design category pages around how people search for products, not internal inventory systems
Create collection pages for trending and seasonal search terms
Structure product pages with long-tail keyword variations in mind
Build content hubs around lifestyle and use-case searches