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 The design made competitors look outdated.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.
After analyzing my client portfolio, a painful pattern emerged. Beautiful websites? Check. Professional brand presence? Check. Actual visitors coming to see it? Crickets. 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. Here's what you'll learn from my expensive mistakes:
Why design-first websites fail and what to prioritize instead
The fundamental mindset shift that transforms traffic
My exact SEO-first redesign process that works
Specific web design changes that actually boost organic traffic
How to avoid the beautiful ghost town trap from day one
Whether you're redesigning an existing site or building from scratch, this playbook will save you years of learning the hard way. Let's dive into what actually drives SEO traffic through smart design decisions.
Industry Reality
What every designer and founder believes about websites
Walk into any design agency or startup accelerator, and you'll hear the same gospel being preached: "Beautiful design converts better." The industry has built an entire mythology around pixel-perfect layouts, award-winning aesthetics, and seamless user experiences.
Here's what conventional wisdom tells you to prioritize:
Brand-first design - Start with beautiful homepage and work outward
User journey optimization - Map every possible path from homepage
Conversion rate optimization - Perfect every button, form, and CTA
Mobile responsiveness - Ensure it looks great on every device
Page speed optimization - Make everything load lightning fast
This approach exists because it makes logical sense. If someone visits your website, you want to convert them. If your design is beautiful and user-friendly, conversion rates should improve. It's a linear, logical progression that appeals to both designers and business owners.
The problem? This entire framework assumes people are already visiting your website. It's optimizing for traffic you don't have yet.
Most businesses spend 90% of their effort making their website "perfect" and 10% on getting people to actually see it. They're building magnificent stores in empty malls, then wondering why nobody's buying anything.
The conventional approach treats your website like it has one front door (the homepage) and optimizes everything around that assumption. But in reality, most visitors will never see your homepage. They'll land on random pages from search results, and if those pages weren't designed with SEO in mind, you've already lost the game.
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, my process was textbook perfect. Discovery calls, wireframes, beautiful mockups, pixel-perfect development. Clients loved the process and the end result. But month after month, the same conversation kept happening.
"The website looks amazing, but we're not getting the leads we expected."
I'd built dozens of websites following the industry standard approach. Start with the homepage. Map user journeys. Optimize for conversions. Polish until perfect. Launch with fanfare. Then... silence.
The breaking point came with a B2B SaaS client. They sold project management software and had a complex product with multiple use cases. Following best practices, I created a stunning homepage that explained their value proposition clearly. The product pages were conversion-optimized. The pricing page was transparent and compelling.
Three months post-launch, their organic traffic was almost non-existent. They were spending thousands on Google Ads just to get people to see this "perfect" website. The economics didn't work.
That's when I had my first uncomfortable realization: I was treating websites like products when they're actually marketing assets. I was optimizing for the 100 visitors they had instead of helping them get the 10,000 visitors they needed.
The pattern was consistent across my portfolio. The most beautiful websites had the lowest traffic. Meanwhile, I'd see competitor sites that looked terrible but ranked on page one for everything. It was frustrating and eye-opening.
I realized I needed to completely flip my approach. Instead of building websites for the visitors they had, I needed to build websites for the visitors they wanted to attract.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
The fundamental shift happened when I stopped thinking about websites as having "one front door" and started treating every page as a potential entry point. This wasn't just adding some blog posts and hoping for the best. This was architectural thinking about how search engines and users actually discover content.
Step 1: Keyword Research Before Design
Instead of starting with wireframes, I now start every project with keyword research. I use tools like Perplexity Pro to identify what my client's potential customers are actually searching for. Not what the client thinks they should be searching for, but what they're actually typing into Google.
For that SaaS client, instead of building around "project management software," I discovered people were searching for specific use cases: "project timeline template," "team communication tools," "agile sprint planning." Each of these became a dedicated landing page.
Step 2: Information Architecture for Search Intent
Traditional site maps start with the homepage and branch out. My new approach starts with search intent and builds up. I create a content map that mirrors how people actually search for solutions.
Primary category pages target broad keywords. Individual pages target long-tail, specific searches. The homepage becomes just one page among many, not the center of the universe.
Step 3: SEO-First Page Structure
Every page is built with these elements in mind:
H1 tags that include target keywords naturally
Internal linking that distributes authority across related pages
Content depth that actually answers user questions completely
Schema markup that helps search engines understand content
Step 4: Content Integration with Design
This is where most SEO implementations fail. They bolt content onto existing designs as an afterthought. I now design the visual hierarchy around the content strategy. Headers, subheaders, and page flow all support the SEO objectives.
For the SaaS client, instead of a generic "Features" page, I created specific pages like "Remote Team Collaboration Features" and "Project Budget Tracking Tools." Each page ranked for its specific keyword cluster while still converting visitors into trials.
Step 5: Technical SEO as Foundation
Clean URL structure, proper meta tags, image optimization, and page speed became non-negotiable elements of every design. But unlike traditional SEO, these weren't added later – they were built into the design process from day one.
Keyword Research
Start with search intent, not brand intent. Map what users actually search for before designing anything.
Content Architecture
Build site structure around search patterns, not company org charts. Every page is an entry point.
Technical Foundation
Implement clean URLs, meta tags, and schema markup during design, not as an afterthought.
Internal Linking
Create content clusters that distribute SEO authority and guide users through related topics naturally.
The transformation was dramatic but took patience. Within three months, the SaaS client's organic traffic grew from under 500 monthly visitors to over 5,000. More importantly, these weren't random visitors – they were qualified prospects searching for exactly what the client offered.
The key metrics that improved:
Organic traffic increased 10x in the first quarter
Trial signups from organic went from 2-3 per month to 50+ per month
Page one rankings for 20+ targeted keywords within 6 months
Reduced ad dependency by 60% while maintaining lead volume
But the most important change was philosophical. The client went from asking "Why isn't our beautiful website converting?" to "How can we help more people find us?" That mindset shift changes everything about how you approach web design and content strategy.
This approach now works consistently across different industries. E-commerce sites see similar patterns when they optimize category pages and product descriptions for search intent rather than just brand messaging.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After implementing this SEO-first design approach across dozens of projects, here are the key lessons that will save you time and frustration:
Design for discovery, not just conversion. A beautiful page that nobody finds is worthless. Start with "How will people discover this?" before "How will this convert?"
Every page is a landing page. Stop thinking about your homepage as the center of your website. Most visitors will never see it.
Content and design must be planned together. Bolting SEO content onto existing designs never works well. The visual hierarchy should support the content strategy.
Search intent beats brand messaging. People search for solutions to problems, not your brand name. Design around their language, not yours.
Technical SEO isn't optional. Clean URLs, proper meta tags, and schema markup should be part of the design process, not an afterthought.
Internal linking is architecture. How pages connect to each other determines how search engines understand and rank your site.
Patience pays off. SEO-driven design changes take 3-6 months to show full results, but the compound effect is powerful.
The biggest mistake I see businesses make is treating web design and SEO as separate projects. They design first, then try to "add SEO" later. This backwards approach leads to the beautiful ghost towns I used to create.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies, this approach is particularly powerful:
Create use-case specific landing pages for different customer segments
Build integration pages for popular tools in your ecosystem
Design feature pages around problem-solution keywords
Implement trial signup flows on every high-traffic page
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores, focus on these elements:
Optimize category pages for buying-intent keywords
Create buying guides and comparison pages for top products
Build location-based landing pages for local SEO
Design product pages with long-tail keyword variations