SEO Case Study: 3X Product-Led Signups in 5 Months for a B2B SaaS in San Diego
In April 2025, HarborOps, a B2B SaaS company based in San Diego, partnered with Goforaeo to grow organic, product-led signups and build a cleaner signup to activation path. In five months, organic signups grew from 120 per month to 375 per month, and the product started attracting better fit users who reached activation faster.
This SEO Case Study shares the exact timeframe, monthly work, proof metrics, and the tools used so the results feel real, not fluffy.
Project snapshot and timeframe:
This campaign ran for five months from April 2025 to August 2025. We used March 2025 as the baseline month before any work started.
Key facts:
- Location: San Diego, California
- Business type: B2B SaaS with a free trial and self-serve signup
- Timeframe: April 2025 to August 2025
- Primary KPI: Organic product signups
- Final result: 3.1X organic signups in five months
The client and what they sell:
HarborOps is a workflow and reporting platform used by operations teams in mid-market companies. Buyers were mostly ops managers and team leads, and the first touch was usually a Google search, not a sales call.
The product already had strong retention for the right users, but the website was not explaining the product in a way that matched how people search.
Ideal customer profile in simple words:
The best users had three traits:
- They managed repeatable operational tasks
- They needed visibility across projects, people, and timelines
- They were tired of spreadsheets and disconnected tools
Why product-led growth mattered here:
The sales team was small, and the company wanted steady growth without relying only on outbound. A stronger organic signup engine meant:
- Lower cost per signup over time
- More users entering the product every week
- Better signal for which industries and use cases were working
Baseline numbers and tracking setup:
Before we changed pages or created content, we made sure the numbers were clean. March 2025 was treated as the baseline month, and tracking was tightened in the first week of April 2025.
Baseline in March 2025:
- Organic sessions: 4,200
- Organic signups: 120
- Signup to activation rate: 46 percent
- Activated users from organic: 55
- Product-qualified leads from organic: 8
- Free trial to paid conversions influenced by organic signups: 3
We also checked which pages were driving signups and which pages were just getting views.
What we counted as a signup and an activation:
We kept definitions simple and consistent across months.
Signup:
- A completed self-serve signup from organic search traffic
Activation:
- A user completed the first key action inside the product within seven days
- For HarborOps, the key action was creating a workspace, adding at least one teammate, and building the first workflow
Product-qualified lead:
- An activated account that crossed a usage threshold, like multiple workflows created or multiple teammates added
What was holding organic signups back:
Even though the product was good, the organic funnel had gaps. People visited the site, but too many left without signing up.
The main blockers showed up quickly in audits and user behavior.
The website was not matching search intent:
A lot of content was broad and did not map to product-led intent.
Examples of mismatches we saw:
- Blogs targeting general productivity terms that brought low-fit traffic
- Missing pages for high intent searches like “operations workflow software” and “process tracking tool for teams”
- Weak use case pages, so visitors could not see themselves using the product
The signup path had friction:
We found small issues that added up.
Common friction points:
- Too many fields on signup
- No clear “what happens next” after signup
- Too little proof near key CTAs, especially on mobile
Internal linking was not helping conversions:
There were blog posts getting traffic, but they were not guiding people toward signup pages. Many posts ended with no next step.
That meant the site was generating awareness, but not turning it into product actions.
Strategy Goforaeo used:
We used a clear, product-led SEO plan built around intent pages, trust, and conversion paths. The work was steady each month, not one big change.
The strategy had five parts:
- Fix technical and measurement basics
- Build and improve high intent pages that push signups
- Create use case clusters that match how real buyers search
- Improve the signup and activation journey from SEO landings
- Build authority with relevant links and product mentions
Technical and analytics foundation:
We fixed the basics first so growth would not be capped later.
What we did in early April 2025:
- Cleaned indexing issues and removed thin pages from search
- Fixed duplicate titles and unclear meta descriptions on core pages
- Improved page speed on the signup and product pages
- Set up clean event tracking for signup, activation, and key CTA clicks
Intent-based page map:
We rebuilt the content plan around pages that naturally lead to a self-serve signup.
We planned and shipped pages in these buckets:
- Core product pages: what it is, who it is for, and how it works
- Use case pages: specific problems with clear outcomes
- Comparison pages: product vs common alternatives
- Integration pages: where users wanted confidence before signup
- Help and templates pages: fast value, fast time to first win
Content that supports product-led conversion:
We wrote content in simple words and avoided vague talk. Every high intent page had:
- A clear problem statement
- The exact workflow or solution inside HarborOps
- Screenshots and step examples
- A clean CTA to start a trial
- Short proof points close to the CTA
Conversion improvements tied to SEO landings:
We treated conversion work as part of SEO, not a separate project. We focused on what users do in the first minute on the site.
Changes we made across the main landing pages:
- Stronger above-the-fold message with a single CTA
- Reduced distractions in the header for high intent pages
- Added short “setup time” and “first result” hints
- Added trust blocks, like security notes and customer logos
Authority building that made sense:
We did not chase random links. We focused on places where ops people actually learn.
Link and mention work included:
- Partner mentions on integration directories
- Guest posts and podcast appearances in operations communities
- Listing pages on relevant software directories with clean copy
- Sharing template pages that others could reference and link to
Month-by-month work and results:
Below is the monthly breakdown from April 2025 to August 2025. Each month includes what we shipped and what changed in numbers.
April 2025: Fix tracking, clean core pages, reduce signup friction:
April was the foundation month. We made measurement reliable and improved the pages that were already close to converting.
What we did:
- Finished GA4, Search Console, and Tag Manager cleanup
- Set up product analytics events for activation and PQL thresholds
- Improved core pages: homepage, product page, pricing page, signup page
- Reduced signup form fields and clarified the next steps after signup
- Added internal links from top blogs to product and signup pages
April 2025 metrics:
- Organic sessions: 5,000
- Organic signups: 150
- Signup to activation rate: 47 percent
- Activated users from organic: 71
- Product-qualified leads from organic: 10
- Free trial to paid conversions influenced by organic signups: 4
May 2025: Launch use case pages and build a clear content path to signup:
May was about matching buyer searches with specific pages. This is where we started to see a quality lift in signups.
What we did:
- Launched four use case pages based on real onboarding calls
- Built a simple “templates” hub with downloadable workflows
- Added FAQ blocks based on support and sales questions
- Improved internal linking so every use case page pushed to trial
- Updated older blog posts to align with the new page map
May 2025 metrics:
- Organic sessions: 6,300
- Organic signups: 190
- Signup to activation rate: 48 percent
- Activated users from organic: 91
- Product-qualified leads from organic: 12
- Free trial to paid conversions influenced by organic signups: 5
June 2025: Build integration pages and comparison content:
June focused on high intent searches where people are choosing a tool and want confidence fast.
What we did:
- Launched three integration pages for the most requested tools
- Built two comparison pages targeting common alternatives
- Improved page titles and meta descriptions for the top 25 pages by impressions
- Added clearer proof near CTAs, including short customer outcomes
- Started link outreach to partners and ops communities
June 2025 metrics:
- Organic sessions: 8,200
- Organic signups: 245
- Signup to activation rate: 48 percent
- Activated users from organic: 118
- Product-qualified leads from organic: 16
- Free trial to paid conversions influenced by organic signups: 6
July 2025: Conversion tuning, templates expansion, and stronger onboarding alignment:
July was a big month because traffic was rising and small conversion improvements multiplied the results.
What we did:
- Expanded the templates library with eight new templates
- Added “start with this template” CTAs on use case pages
- Improved mobile signup flow and reduced page distractions
- Added short onboarding checklists on pages that drove the most signups
- Secured five relevant backlinks from partners and niche communities
July 2025 metrics:
- Organic sessions: 10,900
- Organic signups: 325
- Signup to activation rate: 48 percent
- Activated users from organic: 156
- Product-qualified leads from organic: 19
- Free trial to paid conversions influenced by organic signups: 8
August 2025: Scale winning pages and strengthen authority:
August focused on scaling what worked, refreshing near-win keywords, and tightening the path from search to first value.
What we did:
- Refreshed top pages based on Search Console query data
- Built two industry-flavored landing pages based on highest converting segments
- Added more proof to money pages, including short case snippets and outcomes
- Improved internal linking between templates, use cases, and signup
- Continued link building with partner listings and guest contributions
August 2025 metrics:
- Organic sessions: 12,800
- Organic signups: 375
- Signup to activation rate: 48 percent
- Activated users from organic: 180
- Product-qualified leads from organic: 22
- Free trial to paid conversions influenced by organic signups: 9
Before vs after proof:
Comparing March 2025 to August 2025 shows the clearest proof. We are sharing both top funnel and product-level outcomes because signups alone can be misleading.
Organic signups:
- Before in March 2025: 120 per month
- After in August 2025: 375 per month
- Change: 3.1X growth in five months
Organic traffic:
- Before in March 2025: 4,200 organic sessions
- After in August 2025: 12,800 organic sessions
- What mattered: traffic increased while signup conversion stayed strong
Activation:
- Before in March 2025: 55 activated users from organic
- After in August 2025: 180 activated users from organic
- Why it matters: more signups also turned into real product usage
Product-qualified leads:
- Before in March 2025: 8 PQLs from organic
- After in August 2025: 22 PQLs from organic
- Why it matters: the sales and success teams got better-fit accounts
What made this feel genuine and repeatable:
This result did not come from one trick. It came from doing the basics well and keeping the work aligned to product-led intent every month.
The biggest drivers were:
- Building pages people actually search for when they are ready to try a tool
- Removing friction in signup so motivated visitors do not drop
- Using templates to shorten time to first win, which supports activation
- Adding proof and clarity close to the CTA, especially on mobile
- Keeping internal links clean so blog traffic flows to signup pages
Tools used during the campaign:
We kept the stack simple and focused on measurement, research, and execution.
Analytics and product tracking tools:
- Google Analytics 4: organic traffic and conversion events
- Google Search Console: keywords, indexing, and page performance
- Google Tag Manager: clean event tracking
- Mixpanel: activation tracking and product-qualified lead signals
SEO and site tools:
- Screaming Frog: technical crawls and site audits
- Ahrefs: competitor research, link tracking, and keyword discovery
- A rank tracking tool: weekly tracking for priority signup keywords
- Looker Studio: monthly reporting dashboards
Conversion and UX tools:
- Hotjar: heatmaps and recordings for signup and product pages
- A/B testing tool: tested signup page messaging and CTA placement
- Content brief system: kept templates and use case pages consistent