Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 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.
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.
The harsh reality hit when I started measuring what actually mattered. Beautiful websites had become expensive digital brochures—impressive when someone stumbled upon them, but nobody was stumbling upon them. Without traffic, even the world's best-converting website converts zero.
This painful realization forced me to completely restructure how I measure website success. Here's what you'll learn from my 7-year journey:
Why 80% of post-redesign metrics are vanity metrics that kill businesses
The 4 revenue-focused metrics that actually predict business growth
How to set up measurement systems before launch (not after)
Real client examples of metric shifts that saved struggling projects
My framework for tracking website performance that drives actual revenue
Ready to stop measuring the wrong things? Let's dive into what really matters when your new website goes live.
Industry Reality
What every agency measures (and why it's backwards)
Walk into any web agency presentation, and you'll hear the same success metrics being thrown around. The industry has created a collective delusion about what constitutes website success, and frankly, it's killing businesses.
Here's what every agency measures:
Page load speed improvements - "Your site now loads 2 seconds faster!"
Design aesthetics scores - "The new design increased user engagement by 40%"
Bounce rate reductions - "Visitors are staying longer on your pages"
Mobile responsiveness scores - "Perfect scores across all devices"
SEO technical improvements - "Your technical SEO score went from 60 to 95"
The problem? These metrics exist in a vacuum. They measure potential rather than performance. It's like measuring how sharp your knife is instead of how well you can cook.
This backwards approach exists because it's easier to measure what you control (design, speed, technical implementation) than what actually drives business results (traffic, conversions, revenue). Agencies love these metrics because they can guarantee improvement—who can't make a website faster or prettier?
But here's the uncomfortable truth: I've seen technically perfect websites with zero traffic generate less revenue than "broken" websites with high traffic. The industry focuses on optimizing the wrong end of the funnel.
Most businesses discover this too late—after spending months and thousands of dollars on a redesign that looks amazing but moves no business needles. The gap between "website success" and "business success" has never been wider.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The moment that changed everything happened during a client review meeting three months post-launch. I was presenting beautiful analytics screenshots—improved load times, better mobile scores, cleaner code. The client listened politely, then asked the question that shattered my entire approach:
"This all looks great, but we're actually making less money than before the redesign. What went wrong?"
That question hit like a truck. Here I was, celebrating technical victories while my client's business was declining. The new website was objectively better in every way agencies typically measure—faster, prettier, more responsive. But it was generating fewer leads and less revenue than their "outdated" previous site.
The pattern I discovered was devastating:
My focus on design-first optimization meant I was building websites for other designers, not for customers. Every decision prioritized visual appeal over distribution. I was creating digital art galleries instead of revenue engines.
This realization forced me to audit my entire portfolio. The results were brutal but eye-opening. Across dozens of projects, I found zero correlation between technical website improvements and business growth. In fact, some of my most "successful" redesigns (from a design perspective) had hurt their businesses.
The fundamental issue was clear: I was measuring inputs instead of outputs. Page speed is an input. Revenue is an output. Mobile responsiveness is an input. Lead generation is an output. I had become obsessed with perfecting inputs while ignoring whether they actually drove outputs.
This wake-up call led me to completely restructure my approach. Instead of starting with design and measuring technical improvements, I started with business goals and measured business results. The difference in client success was immediately obvious.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
After that brutal client meeting, I spent six months completely rebuilding how I approach website measurement. The result was a framework that focuses exclusively on business-driving metrics—what I now call "Revenue-First Analytics."
Here's the system I developed:
Phase 1: Pre-Launch Baseline (Week -2)
Before any redesign goes live, I establish baseline measurements for four core areas:
Traffic Sources: Where current visitors come from and their conversion rates
Conversion Funnels: Current paths from visitor to customer
Revenue Attribution: Which pages and content drive actual sales
Lead Quality Metrics: Not just quantity, but the quality of leads generated
Phase 2: SEO-First Architecture (Weeks 1-2)
Instead of building for visual appeal, I structure websites around search intent. Every page becomes a potential entry point, not just the homepage. This meant treating the website as a marketing laboratory rather than a digital brochure.
Phase 3: Distribution Integration (Weeks 3-4)
The biggest breakthrough was integrating distribution strategy into the website architecture itself. Rather than building a beautiful site and hoping people find it, I build sites designed to be found. This includes:
Programmatic SEO page generation
Content systems that scale with minimal input
Multiple traffic channel optimization
Conversion tracking that actually works
Phase 4: Performance Monitoring (Ongoing)
Rather than measuring vanity metrics, I track four revenue-focused indicators:
Organic Discovery Rate: How many new visitors find the site through search
Revenue Per Visitor: Total revenue divided by total visitors
Lead Quality Score: Percentage of leads that become customers
Time to First Value: How quickly visitors understand the offering
The transformation was immediate. Clients started seeing business growth within weeks of launch instead of wondering why their beautiful new website wasn't generating results.
Baseline Setup
Establish revenue attribution and conversion tracking before launch—not after
SEO Architecture
Structure every page as a potential entry point, not just the homepage
Distribution Focus
Build websites designed to be found, not just admired
Revenue Tracking
Monitor business outcomes, not technical achievements
The shift from design-first to revenue-first measurement fundamentally changed my client relationships. Instead of defending design choices, I was presenting business growth.
Here's what actually happened:
The most dramatic example came from an e-commerce client with over 1,000 products. Their previous "beautiful" website was generating minimal organic traffic. By restructuring around search intent and implementing programmatic SEO, we transformed their homepage from a traditional e-commerce layout into a product discovery engine.
The results were clear: homepage engagement doubled, and more importantly, conversion rates increased because visitors could actually find what they were looking for. The website stopped being a digital catalog and became a revenue machine.
But the real breakthrough wasn't in any single metric—it was in the fundamental shift from measuring website performance to measuring business performance. When you track what actually drives revenue, you make completely different optimization decisions.
The unexpected outcome was that this approach actually made websites more beautiful and functional, not less. When you design for real user behavior instead of design awards, you create experiences that both look great and perform incredibly well.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After implementing revenue-first measurement across dozens of projects, here are the seven insights that changed everything:
Distribution beats perfection every time. A "good enough" website with great SEO will outperform a perfect website with no traffic.
Every page is a landing page. Stop thinking about homepages as the primary entry point—most visitors enter through search.
Conversion rates without traffic are meaningless. 10% conversion rate on 100 visitors is worse than 2% on 10,000 visitors.
Technical metrics don't predict business success. I've seen slow, "broken" websites outperform fast, perfect ones.
Lead quality matters more than lead quantity. 10 high-intent leads beat 100 tire-kickers every time.
Revenue attribution is usually wrong. Most analytics miss the full customer journey—track business results, not click paths.
Websites are marketing assets, not art projects. Treat them like any other investment—measure ROI, not aesthetics.
The biggest learning? Stop measuring what you can control and start measuring what actually matters. You can control design, speed, and technical performance. But what matters is traffic, conversions, and revenue growth.
This mindset shift transformed my entire practice. Instead of competing on design portfolios, I compete on business results. The difference in client success—and retention—has been remarkable.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups implementing this approach:
Track trial-to-paid conversion rates by traffic source
Measure time from visitor to product signup
Monitor lead quality through product usage data
Focus on organic discovery for sustainable growth
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores applying these principles:
Track revenue per visitor by product category
Monitor organic traffic growth over time
Measure product discovery through search
Focus on conversion quality, not just quantity