Bought a domain. Built a search engine magnet.
origami purchased origami.chat in january. i built the entire website from scratch and owned seo & aeo from day one as founding engineer. by the time i handed it off, the infrastructure was already compounding — and it kept compounding after i left.
source · google search console · origami.chat · jan 28 – mar 23
Client
Origami (YC F24)
Role
Founding Eng.
Tenure
Jan → Mar 2026
Scope
SEO/AEO, 0→1 Web Dev
Total Impressions
42.2K
across 54 days · from a zero-authority domain
Total Clicks
3.53K
qualified organic traffic to the product
Average CTR
8.4%
industry benchmark: 1.9% · this is 4.4x that
Average Position
8.3
front-page of google, on average, at every query
The Curve
From a flat line to a vertical takeoff.
the domain was brand new when i joined — no backlinks, no indexed pages, no authority. for weeks, the seo graph was a flat line at the bottom of the axis. then it broke.
Clicks & Impressions · 54 days
Source · Google Search Console · origami.chat · Jan 28 — Mar 23
The compound storythe data only runs 5 days past my handoff — and the curve was still climbing. that's what good seo infrastructure looks like.
Flat line
~60d
of near-zero at the start
First spike
30d
for the first major breakout
Peak daily
13K+
impressions in a single day
The Queries
Ranking for the right words.
branded volume validates recognition. non-branded volume is where i expanded the surface area — ranking for product categories origami actively competes in.
Query · top 10 over 54 days
Clicks
origami ai
1,445
origami chat
327
origami
222
origami.chat
176
origami leads
105
oragami ai
misspelling58
origami tool outreach
55
origami agents
39
origami lead generation
39
origami ai tool
35
the site now ranks for "origami leads," "origami agents," and "origami lead generation." that's category capture, not just name recognition.
The Position
Front page, every time.
average position across every query origami ranks for is 8.3 — meaning the site lives on page one of google, at the average query. that's the real moat.
8.3
Avg. Position
Click-through rate · 8.4%
vs. industry benchmark of 1.9% (SaaS average)
8.4% CTR at position 8.3 means the meta titles, descriptions, and snippets are doing their job. this is copywriting that compounds.
The Playbook
What I actually shipped.
numbers without mechanics are marketing. here's the actual work that produced them.
Programmatic content pipeline
Built a system to generate long-tail SEO pages at scale. Every "origami vs [competitor]" and "origami for [use case]" page is a search-intent capture point — engineered, not hand-written.
Output · Indexed pages
AEO for the LLM era
Structured content for answer engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews) — not just traditional SERPs. Schema markup, clean Q&A structure, citation-ready writing.
Output · LLM discoverability
Category keyword capture
Targeted non-branded intent queries — "lead generation," "outreach tool," "AI agents" — not just protecting branded search. This is how you grow beyond the people who already know you exist.
Output · 5 non-branded top-10 rankings
Conversion-tuned meta
Every title tag and meta description written to earn the click, not just fill the slot. Result: 8.4% CTR versus the 1.9% industry average — 4.4x better at turning impressions into visits.
Output · 4.4x benchmark CTR
Technical SEO foundation
Sitemaps, indexing signals, canonical URLs, internal linking architecture, page speed, mobile-first. The boring infrastructure that lets every other lever actually pull.
Output · Crawlable, indexable, fast
Handoff built to last
The curve was still climbing when the data cuts off 5 days after I left. I built systems, not spreadsheets. The work keeps compounding without my hand on the wheel.
Output · Self-propelling engine
Zero to 42K impressions from a brand-new domain.
Paid spend
$0
entirely organic
Domain age at start
0d
brand new, zero authority
CTR vs industry
4.4x
benchmark
Austin Kennedy
Founding Engineer · Origami
Jan 2026 → Mar 2026