Digital Strategy · SEO · Demand Generation
The Six-Month
Turnaround
A site built to attract job seekers, restructured for buyer intent. Search position, content conversion, and a new AI-referred channel, tracked from baseline to result.
- Role
- Digital Strategy & SEO Recovery
- Scope
- Search, content, demand gen, AI visibility
- Period
- January to June 2026
- Output
- Strategy, execution & reporting
June 2026 (from 20.9)
growth, Jan to Jun
rate (up from 1.1%)
a brand-new channel
01
The situation.
A site built to attract job seekers, not buyers. Commercial search terms sat on page two and three of results.
Organic traffic had fallen 28% over the prior four months. There was no mechanism connecting content to pipeline, and no visibility into how AI search engines represented the brand.
| Metric | January 2026 |
|---|---|
| Average search position | 20.9 |
| Estimated organic traffic (low point) | 23,858 |
| Search click-through rate | 9.6% |
| Organic traffic decline, prior four months | −28% |
02
The strategy.
Three moves, run in sequence: rebuild ranking, restructure content around buyer intent, and instrument the funnel end to end.
- 01
Rebuild: SEO recovery. Fix technical and content signals to rebuild ranking for high-intent commercial terms, not just brand queries. Branded search was never the gap.
- 02
Restructure: buyer-intent content. Ungate and rebuild conversion-focused pages, prioritizing content that speaks to a purchasing decision over one built to recruit.
- 03
Instrument: demand-gen visibility. Track the full funnel from search to MQL to pipeline, and monitor emerging AI search engines as a new discovery channel.
03
The results.
Average search position moved from 20.9 to 11.2 over six months. Branded search was never the problem, the gap was non-brand, commercial-intent terms.
Closing that gap is what moved the number, and what carried estimated organic traffic up an estimated 89% over the same window.
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average position | 20.9 | 14.9 | 12.8 | 13.5 | 12.1 | 11.2 |
| Content | Sessions | Conv. rate | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| New buyer-intent playbook (nearshore) | 223 | 14.3% | New in Q2 |
| New buyer-intent playbook (onshore) | 152 | 10.5% | New in Q2 |
| Legacy high-traffic scheduling page | 19,738 | 0.01% | Top Q3 priority |
| Site-wide average, pre-restructure | N/A | 1.1% | Baseline |
04
AI visibility
and demand gen.
The AI visibility score held steady even as raw mentions fell.
That is not a contradiction. AI engines cite ungated, self-contained, question-answering pages, and the site still has too few of them. The ungating program already underway in content is the direct fix.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| AI visibility score | 26/100, held steady |
| Raw AI mentions, quarter over quarter | −43% |
| GA4 sessions from AI engines, Q2 2026 | 169, first time this channel appeared |
Less than 2% of Q1 traffic came from any paid channel, and the funnel converted at a 34% MQL-to-qualified rate: 58 web MQLs, 20 qualified, 4 closed deals in the mid six figures combined, and 9 active deals in the low seven figures combined.
05
The outcome.
Six months, side by side.
| Metric | Q1 2026 | Q2 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search position (exit) | 12.8 | 11.2 | Improved |
| Form submissions (exit month) | 30 | 34 | +13% |
| Marketing engagement rate | 52.1% | 53.8% | +1.7 pts |
| Estimated organic traffic | 28,123 | 45,090 | +60% |
| Top content conversion rate | 1.1% | 14.3% | New engine |
| AI-referred sessions | 0 | 169 | New channel |
“I inherited a site generating job-seeker traffic. I built the strategy that restructured it for buyer intent, turning it into an organic lead engine that produced measurable pipeline, without paid fuel.”
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