Composite walkthrough, SaaS, 6 weeks
A SaaS site goes from C to A in six weeks
Mid-market B2B SaaS with strong product, anonymous content. The playbook: bylines + schema + BLUF on the top 12 pages.
Readiness, out of 100: up 27 points in 6 weeks.
Composite walkthrough: patterns aggregated from real implementations. No specific named brand. Numbers are typical, not promised.
The site
Series-A B2B SaaS, 40-person team, ~80 indexed pages, ranking mid-page-1 for branded queries but absent from AI Overviews.
What moved, signal by signal
In priority order. Signals in the 47-signal rubric link to their documentation.
author-byline
Fail to Pass
Author byline
Added 'By [Name]' to every blog and landing page. Linked each to a /authors/[name] bio with prior roles and LinkedIn.
bluf-answer
Fail to Pass
BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front)
Rewrote the first paragraph of the top 12 pages to lead with a 2-sentence direct answer. Moved the marketing copy to section 2.
faq-schema
Fail to Pass
FAQ schema
Added FAQPage schema to 8 pages with 4–6 Q&A pairs each. Used real buyer queries pulled from sales-call transcripts.
json-ld-presence
Weak to Pass
JSON-LD presence
Organization + SoftwareApplication schema on every page via the layout. Article schema on blog posts. Validated each before deploy.
brand-entity
Fail to Pass
Brand entity in Wikidata
Earned 3 press mentions over 4 weeks (TechCrunch, SaaStr, a sector trade pub). Submitted Wikidata entry; approved in 9 days. Cross-linked Crunchbase + LinkedIn.
outbound-authority-links
Weak to Pass
Outbound authority links
Added 2-3 outbound citations to .edu / .gov / Wikipedia per long-form page. Mostly methodology notes that already existed but hadn't been hyperlinked.
h2-coverage
Weak to Pass
H2 coverage
Restructured 6 high-value pages into 5+ H2 subsections each, aligned to sub-queries from the query expander.
How it went
Week 1–2 was diagnostic: ran the audit on the top 12 pages, identified that anonymous content + missing schema were the dominant gaps. Week 2 set up byline conventions and the /authors directory. Weeks 3–4 rewrote first paragraphs (BLUF) and added FAQPage schema. Weeks 5–6 chased press for the Wikidata entry; the entry posted at the end of week 5 and immediately moved the brand-entity signal from absent to ok. The score lift was strongest on Authority (24 → 91) and E-E-A-T (10 → 88), driven by bylines + brand entity. Trust + Content were already mid-tier and got smaller bumps.
Takeaways
- Bylines are the cheapest E-E-A-T win: adding 'By [Name]' linked to a credentialed bio page moves a hard-fail signal to pass in one PR.
- FAQPage schema is the single highest-leverage structured-data lift. Pull the Q&A pairs from real sales-call transcripts, not what marketing thinks customers ask.
- A Wikidata entry takes 1–3 weeks of moderation but moves a category-defining signal. Start the press-mention groundwork in parallel with on-page work, not after.
Run the audit on your site
The full 47-signal audit tells you which of these moves applies to your URLs.