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." Every client left our initial meetings thrilled about their upcoming digital transformation. I poured my energy into crafting pixel-perfect websites—brand-aligned, modern, conversion-optimized. Each project felt like creating a premium sales representative for the company.
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.
This painful realization forced me to completely restructure my approach and discover the truth about the SEO vs design debate. Here's what you'll learn from my 7-year journey:
Why most businesses are building beautiful websites that nobody finds
The fundamental difference between design-first and SEO-first website architecture
My framework for balancing aesthetics with discoverability
Real examples of how website strategy impacts business results
When to prioritize design over SEO (and vice versa)
Industry Reality
What every agency and designer believes about websites
The design industry has built its entire philosophy around one core belief: "If you build something beautiful and functional, people will find it." This thinking dominates every web design course, agency pitch, and freelancer portfolio.
Here's what the conventional wisdom tells you to prioritize:
Visual hierarchy and brand consistency - Every pixel perfectly aligned with your brand guidelines
User experience optimization - Intuitive navigation and conversion-focused design
Mobile responsiveness and speed - Technical performance that delivers seamless experiences
Conversion rate optimization - Strategic placement of CTAs and social proof
Professional credibility - Polished design that builds trust instantly
This approach exists because it's much easier to see and measure design improvements. You can instantly tell if a website looks professional, loads fast, or converts visitors effectively. Design changes provide immediate visual feedback and client satisfaction.
The problem? This entire philosophy assumes people can find your website in the first place.
Most designers and agencies treat SEO as an afterthought—something you "optimize for" after the beautiful website is complete. They'll add some meta descriptions, throw in a few keywords, and call it "SEO-ready." But this backwards approach misses the fundamental truth about how websites actually generate business results.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When I started as a freelance web designer, I was completely bought into the "beautiful website" philosophy. My portfolio showcased pixel-perfect designs, smooth animations, and conversion-optimized layouts. I genuinely believed that if I could create the most stunning website in a client's industry, their business would explode.
My typical client was usually a SaaS startup or e-commerce business that had heard they needed a "professional website" to scale. They'd come to me with examples of their favorite designs, mood boards, and clear visions of what they wanted their digital presence to look like.
I delivered exactly what they asked for. Every project followed the same pattern:
Discovery phase: Understanding their brand, target audience, and business goals
Design phase: Creating beautiful mockups that perfectly captured their vision
Development phase: Building responsive, fast-loading, conversion-optimized sites
Launch phase: Celebrating the gorgeous new website that would surely drive business growth
The results were consistently disappointing. Three months post-launch, I'd check in with clients expecting to hear success stories. Instead, I heard the same frustrating feedback: "The website looks amazing, but we're not getting the traffic we expected."
I started tracking this pattern across my client base. Beautiful websites with less than 500 monthly visitors. Conversion-optimized pages that never got the chance to convert anyone. I was essentially creating digital art galleries that nobody visited.
The most painful realization came when I analyzed where my successful clients were actually getting their customers. It wasn't from their beautiful websites—it was from word-of-mouth, networking, paid ads, or existing customer bases. The website was just a digital business card, not the growth engine we'd promised it would be.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
This pattern forced me to completely rethink my approach to website development. I realized that I needed to flip my entire methodology from design-first to SEO-first.
Here's the framework I developed after years of trial and error:
The SEO-First Website Architecture
Instead of starting with homepage design, I now begin every project with keyword research and content strategy. The fundamental shift: every page becomes a potential front door, not just the homepage.
Content Audit First: Before touching any design tools, I map out 50-100 potential pages based on what people actually search for in the client's industry
Information Architecture for Discovery: The site structure gets built around search intent, not company org charts
Design Within SEO Constraints: Visual decisions support content strategy rather than fighting against it
Conversion Optimization for Organic Traffic: CRO tactics get adapted for search visitors, not just paid traffic
The Implementation Process
I developed a systematic approach that balances discovery with conversion:
Phase 1: Keyword-Driven Content Strategy
Instead of asking "What pages does our company need?" I start with "What questions are our potential customers asking Google?" This research phase identifies 20-30 high-value content opportunities that will actually drive organic traffic.
Phase 2: SEO-Optimized Site Architecture
The site structure gets designed around topic clusters and internal linking opportunities. Every page serves dual purposes: providing value to visitors and supporting the overall SEO strategy.
Phase 3: Design That Supports Discovery
Visual design decisions get made with content requirements in mind. This means planning for blog sections, resource pages, case studies, and comparison pages from day one—not adding them as afterthoughts.
Phase 4: Conversion Optimization for Search Traffic
CRO tactics get adapted for organic visitors who have different intent and awareness levels than paid traffic. This includes creating multiple conversion paths and addressing various stages of the customer journey.
The key insight: When you structure a website for SEO from the beginning, it naturally becomes more user-friendly and comprehensive. You're forced to create content that actually serves your audience instead of just talking about how great your company is.
Content Strategy
Map out 50-100 pages based on actual search behavior before touching design tools
Site Architecture
Build information architecture around search intent and topic clusters, not company structure
Design Integration
Make visual decisions that support content strategy rather than fighting against SEO requirements
Conversion Adaptation
Optimize for organic traffic behavior patterns, not just paid traffic assumptions
The results of this approach were dramatically different from my previous projects. Instead of beautiful ghost towns, I was building websites that actually generated business.
Here's what changed:
Traffic Growth: Sites built with this SEO-first approach consistently reached 2,000-5,000 monthly organic visitors within 6 months, compared to the sub-500 visitor counts from my design-first era.
Lead Quality: Organic traffic converted better than expected because visitors found exactly what they were searching for. The content-driven approach naturally qualified leads better than generic "about us" pages.
Client Satisfaction: Business owners finally saw their websites contributing to actual revenue growth instead of just looking professional. The ROI became measurable and significant.
Sustainable Growth: Unlike paid advertising that stops when you stop paying, these SEO-optimized sites continued growing traffic month over month. The compound effect of quality content created lasting business value.
The most surprising outcome was that these websites often looked better than my old design-first approach. When you're forced to create comprehensive, valuable content, the overall user experience naturally improves. Visitors spend more time on-site, explore multiple pages, and develop stronger trust in the brand.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After implementing this approach across dozens of projects, here are the key lessons that transformed my understanding of web development:
Distribution beats perfection every time. A "good enough" website that people can find will always outperform a perfect website that nobody discovers.
Content strategy IS site architecture. The best websites are built around what people actually want to know, not what companies want to say.
SEO makes you a better designer. When you're forced to create comprehensive, valuable content, your overall UX naturally improves.
Every page is a landing page. Stop thinking about homepage conversion rates and start thinking about how each page serves different search intents.
Beautiful websites are table stakes, not differentiators. In 2025, professional design is expected—what sets you apart is being discoverable.
The "build it and they will come" mentality is dead. Your website needs an acquisition strategy, not just a conversion strategy.
ROI is measurable when you start with SEO. Traffic growth, keyword rankings, and organic lead generation provide clear business metrics.
If I could go back and tell my younger designer self one thing, it would be this: Your job isn't to create digital art—it's to create digital assets that drive business growth. That means starting with discovery, not aesthetics.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups specifically:
Start with feature-specific landing pages based on what prospects actually search for
Create comparison pages against competitors early in the design process
Build use-case pages around different customer segments and their search behavior
Plan for integration pages and API documentation as core site architecture
For your Ecommerce store
For E-commerce stores specifically:
Design category pages and product pages with long-tail keyword strategies in mind
Create buying guides and comparison content as fundamental site sections
Structure navigation around how people search for products, not internal inventory logic
Plan for seasonal content and product-specific landing pages from day one