Caitlin’s Portfolio: Content Strategist and On-Page SEO Specialist

I’m a content marketing leader with 8 years of experience developing high-performing content and 5 years as an on-page SEO specialist. My work spans full-funnel strategy, editorial operations, on-page optimization, and conversion-focused copywriting. I’ve helped brands grow their organic visibility, streamline production workflows, and create content that drives real business outcomes.

Here are are selected examples of my writing, strategy, and SEO work that show how I think, what I’ve done, and the impact I’ve made.

Table of Contents

Selected SEO copywriting samples

How to Master Content Marketing and SEO in 10 Simple Steps (archived)

I wrote this long-form guide as a pillar page to help marketers and business owners start and scale an SEO-informed content strategy. Although the page was only visible for a month, it ranked for 106 keywords and got 14,700 impressions.

Note that the ZenUp site is no longer active so this links to the Internet Archive.

Tools used:

Semrush
SurferSEO
Custom SEO GPTs
Canva
WordPress
Google Search Console

How to Add a Promotion to LinkedIn

Here is an example of a top-of-funnel how-to guide with clear, accessible steps, detailed descriptions, and helpful visual aids. It was originally published in 2022 and continues to bring in hundreds of organic users per month, proving its evergreen appeal. This article ranks for 200+ keywords, including 20 top-3 positions and 65 SERP features (AI Overviews and People Also Ask, primarily).

20+ Teacher Resume Examples (archived)

I created this mid-funnel pillar page to showcase the brand’s education resume examples, along with advice for specific job titles such as “Montessori teacher” and “online teacher.”

This was part of a larger content strategy project I led as ZipJob’s Content Manager to publish over 200 unique resume examples and writing guides from resume experts, aimed at growing the site’s inbound marketing and lead generation efforts.

[Caitlin is] sharp, proactive, and approaches every challenge with a thoughtful, solution-oriented mindset. Whether it was helping with marketing strategy or handling unexpected roadblocks, she always brought a calm and focused energy.
Michael Krikheli

Website and conversion optimization work

1. Homepage redesign with SEO focus

Before and after: Homepage edit

This redesigned homepage launched in Spring 2021. As the team’s content strategist, I updated the copy–maintaining some of the original brand messaging ZipJob was known for–and collaborated with engineering, product, customer support, sales, operations, and design teams to complete the project.

In addition to cleaning up mechanics, I simplified the message to be more user-focused; “What’s in it for me?” was the question I endeavored to answer in every line of text. I incorporated high-volume keywords related to resume writing services and quotes from user experience interviews to embody the voice of the customer.

Early data suggested the update increased unique sessions by 25% and improved goal conversions by more than 200%. Please note that the new, polished page design, custom-built widget for lead generation, and significant improvements to page speed were also instrumental in these results.

2. Before and after: lead generation page conversion rate optimization

For this conversion rate optimization and redesign, I wrote the engaging H1 by tapping into an emotional appeal: “Is your resume working?” Based on the data analytics, I knew fear-based messaging resonated with our target audience.

The team and I improved the user experience by reducing friction, making it as easy as possible to drag and drop a resume to upload. We also added trust signals in the form of ZipJob’s TrustPilot rating and blurbs from press mentions.

Over the next year, organic traffic to this page doubled from an estimated 300 visitors per month to about 600. The new version of the page ranked for an additional 200 keywords in the same timeframe.

“Caitlin is an absolute firebrand of our team! She’s driven, knowledgeable, creative, and a ruthless prioritizer.”
Toby Johnson

SEO content optimization and content strategy examples

10 Best Skills to Put on Your Resume (archived)

This was a collaborative effort, and an example of how SEO editing can improve existing content. I roughly tripled the word count from the original post by adding in E-E-A-T signals, semantically related topics, FAQs, expert advice, and on-page SEO features, including a table of contents, callout boxes for key points, resume examples, visual aids, and internal links. Organic traffic increased 7,000% between January 2020 (~250 visits) and April 2021 (~20,000 visits) following this content optimization, turning this into one of the top-performing pages on the site.

“[Our company’s] online content is drastically better than before. Most of our new customers place their orders based on that content.“
Jennifer Johnson

Digital PR and off-page SEO wins

Through establishing myself as a subject matter expert and strategic outreach, I was quoted in several business and career industry publications to gain backlinks.

Links for screenshots above:

The Muse: How to Find (and Land!) a Remote Job That’s Right for You by Deanna deBara
Business Insider: Résumé Templates for Jobs in Finance, Tech, Healthcare, and More by May Teng (gated content)
Fairygodboss: 4 Ways to Tell a Job Is Actually a Fit *Before* You Apply by Heather Taylor
Fortune: 10 ways to make your LinkedIn stand out to recruiters by Sarah Fielding

Email marketing

Newsletters are a great way to re-engage and retarget potential leads and customers. When I wrote the TopResume newsletters, I used a mix of the brand’s trending posts, top-converting posts, and user-generated content (UGC).

I’ve also designed multiple email drip campaigns for engaging warm and cold leads, as well as multiple branded lead generation emails and follow ups. Here is a mockup of a cold email campaign I wrote for a client in the resume writing space, targeting tech workers following mass layoffs in 2022.

In my experience, email marketing has the highest conversion rate when compared to paid marketing, organic content marketing, or social media marketing.

I invested a considerable amount of time on Quora responding to career questions already answered in blog posts. I rewrote the content to address the specific question asked, while the blog post is a more comprehensive yet general guide on how to add a resume to LinkedIn. We promoted a few of the most popular bottom-of-funnel posts that brought leads from Quora into the marketing funnel.