Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
I used to be the architect of what I now call "digital ghost towns." For the first few years of my freelance career, I was building pixel-perfect websites that made competitors look outdated. 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.
These websites had become expensive digital brochures—impressive when someone stumbled upon them, but nobody was stumbling upon them. The harsh reality hit me: without traffic, even the world's best-converting website converts zero.
Sound familiar? You've invested in a beautiful website, optimized every conversion element, and yet your organic traffic sits at practically zero. You're not alone—I've seen this pattern across hundreds of projects.
In this playbook, you'll discover:
Why most websites fail to get organic traffic (hint: it's not what you think)
The fundamental mindset shift that transformed my approach to website development
My exact framework for diagnosing and fixing traffic issues
Real case studies showing how I took sites from <500 to 5,000+ monthly visitors
The SEO-first approach that actually drives sustainable growth
Industry Reality
What everyone gets wrong about website traffic
Here's what every business owner has been told about getting website traffic:
"Build it and they will come." Focus on user experience, optimize your conversion rates, create compelling copy, and traffic will naturally follow. The industry pushes this narrative because it's easier to sell design and development services than to tackle the complex world of SEO.
Most web agencies follow this predictable playbook:
Start with a beautiful homepage design
Build user journeys from the homepage outward
Optimize for conversions once visitors arrive
Add SEO as an afterthought or separate project
Wonder why organic traffic never materializes
This approach exists because it's what clients can see and understand. A beautiful design is tangible. Conversion optimization has clear before/after metrics. SEO feels abstract and technical.
But here's the problem: you're optimizing the wrong part of the funnel. You're perfecting the checkout experience in a store that nobody can find. You're training a sales team to work in a mall with no foot traffic.
The conventional wisdom treats your website like it has one front door—the homepage. But in today's search-driven world, every page should be a potential entry point. This fundamental misunderstanding is why beautiful websites get zero organic traffic.
Ready to fix this? Let me show you what actually works.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
For the first few years of my freelance career, I was essentially a digital ghost town architect. I'd pour my energy into crafting pixel-perfect websites—brand-aligned, modern, conversion-optimized. Every element was strategically placed to guide visitors toward action.
My clients were thrilled during our design reviews. The websites looked professional, functioned flawlessly, and converted well... when people actually visited them. But that's where the story ended.
One particular project still haunts me. A B2B SaaS startup hired me to build their marketing website. We spent weeks perfecting every detail—the hero section, the pricing page, the feature comparisons. The conversion rate was impressive: 3.2% of visitors signed up for trials.
The problem? They were getting 47 visitors per month.
Do the math: 3.2% of 47 visitors is 1.5 signups monthly. All that conversion optimization work was essentially worthless because we'd built a sales machine with no distribution.
This pattern repeated across client after client. Beautiful websites with impressive conversion rates but traffic that barely registered. I was essentially training world-class sales representatives to work door-to-door in abandoned neighborhoods.
The wake-up call came when a client asked me directly: "Why is our website not showing up in Google?" I realized I'd been so focused on the user experience for people who were already on the site that I'd completely ignored how people would find the site in the first place.
That's when I discovered the fundamental flaw in my approach: I was thinking like a designer when I needed to think like a marketer. Every website decision was based on the user journey, but I was ignoring the most important part—how users would start that journey.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
After that humbling realization, I completely restructured my approach. Instead of starting with design, I started with distribution. Instead of thinking about user journeys, I thought about search journeys.
The mindset shift was radical: Stop thinking of your website as having one front door (the homepage). Start thinking of every page as a potential entry point from search engines.
Here's the exact framework I developed:
Phase 1: Keyword-Driven Architecture
Before touching any design, I now map out what people are actually searching for in the client's industry. I use tools like Perplexity Pro for research (much more efficient than traditional SEO tools for this purpose) and identify 50-100 relevant keywords.
Instead of building from the homepage outward, I build from search intent inward. Each keyword gets its own landing page or content piece. The site architecture follows search behavior, not company org charts.
Phase 2: Content-First Development
Every page must answer a specific search query. I learned this lesson from a project where I helped scale an e-commerce site from under 500 monthly visitors to over 5,000 in three months using AI-powered content creation.
The key was creating content that served search intent first, brand experience second. Each page had to earn its place by attracting organic traffic, not just by fitting the company's vision of their site structure.
Phase 3: Multiple Entry Point Optimization
Traditional websites assume people enter through the homepage. SEO-first websites assume people enter through any page that matches their search query. This changes everything about navigation, internal linking, and content structure.
Each page needs to orient visitors regardless of how they arrived. Clear value propositions, easy navigation to key actions, and logical next steps become critical when someone might land on page 47 of your site as their first impression.
Phase 4: Technical Foundation
The beautiful irony? When you start with SEO requirements, you often end up with better user experience overall. Faster loading times, cleaner site architecture, and more intuitive navigation benefit both search engines and humans.
I implement schema markup, optimize Core Web Vitals, and ensure mobile-first design not as afterthoughts, but as core requirements from day one.
Keyword Research
Research what people actually search for in your industry before building anything. Use this to drive site architecture decisions.
Content Strategy
Create pages that answer specific search queries rather than just showcasing your company. Every page should earn its traffic.
Technical SEO
Implement proper schema markup and site structure from the beginning. Don't treat SEO as an afterthought to design.
Multiple Entry
Design every page to work as a potential first impression. People might land anywhere on your site from search results.
The results from implementing this SEO-first approach have been dramatic across multiple client projects:
E-commerce Case Study: One Shopify client went from 287 monthly organic visitors to 5,147 visitors in just three months. The key was building 200+ collection pages and product pages optimized for specific search terms, rather than relying on the traditional homepage-focused approach.
B2B SaaS Results: A startup client saw their organic traffic increase from essentially zero to over 1,200 monthly visitors within four months. Instead of building a corporate website, we created use-case specific landing pages that answered prospects' actual search queries.
But the most important metric wasn't just traffic—it was qualified traffic. Because each page was designed around search intent, the visitors were actively looking for solutions the clients provided. Conversion rates actually improved alongside traffic increases.
The compounding effect: Unlike paid advertising that stops working when you stop paying, this organic traffic continues growing month over month. The B2B SaaS client now gets more qualified leads from organic search than they ever did from their previous paid advertising campaigns.
These aren't vanity metrics—they represent real business impact. More qualified visitors, lower acquisition costs, and sustainable growth that doesn't depend on continuous ad spend.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons I learned from transforming my approach from design-first to SEO-first:
1. Distribution beats perfection every time. A decent website that people can find will always outperform a perfect website that nobody sees. Stop optimizing the wrong part of the funnel.
2. Your homepage is not your most important page. In an SEO-driven world, every page is a potential first impression. Design your site architecture around search behavior, not company hierarchy.
3. Conventional web design wisdom is backwards. Starting with user experience for people who are already on your site ignores the biggest challenge: getting people to your site in the first place.
4. Content is not a separate initiative. Your website IS your content strategy. Every page should be earning its place by attracting organic traffic, not just looking pretty.
5. SEO-first often means better UX overall. The requirements for search engine optimization—fast loading, clear navigation, mobile-first design—improve user experience too.
6. Start with search intent, not company goals. Build pages that answer what people are actually searching for, not what your company wants to say about itself.
7. Organic traffic compounds. Unlike paid advertising, SEO-driven traffic grows over time without additional spend. The investment pays dividends long-term.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups:
Create use-case specific landing pages targeting "[your solution] for [specific industry]" searches
Build integration pages for popular tools your prospects already use
Focus on problem-focused content before solution-focused content
Optimize for long-tail keywords that indicate purchase intent
For your Ecommerce store
For Ecommerce stores:
Optimize category and collection pages for search terms like "best [product type] for [use case]"
Create buying guides and comparison content targeting research-phase searches
Build location-specific pages if you serve different regions
Focus on product-specific long-tail keywords rather than broad category terms