Case Study: SaaS Accounting Site Grows to About 800 Visitors per Day

Quick Summary (If You Are in a Hurry)

The client was a SaaS company that sold bookkeeping software across several EU countries.
Their main marketing site was a big WordPress multilingual site with WPML, five languages, and about 15,000 pages.
They first asked me to “just” check SEO on a small 30-page test site. When I finished, the CEO said, “Now we move to the real job.”
I used Screaming Frog and SEMrush to audit the main site.
We found thousands of auto-translated pages, many of them empty, plus slow pages, broken links, missing meta descriptions, and weak content.
I proposed a staged repair: clean and optimize the German core first, delete useless translated pages, then rebuild translations and add a blog in five languages.
Over months, daily traffic grew from around 20-30 visitors to 200-250, and later to about 800 per day.

The lesson: large sites need regular care, or small issues quietly grow into big risks.

Full Case Study

Client and Website

The client was a SaaS company that offered accounting and finance software. Their customers were companies in several EU countries. The website was a key part of their sales process.

They used WordPress with WPML to serve five languages. The main site had around 15,000 pages. On the surface, it looked complete. Inside, it was a different story.

The CEO first asked me to check a small 30-page site. It was a test. When he saw my report and was happy with it, he told me about the main site and its size.

The Problem

The CEO’s request was clear. He wanted to know if the site was technically sound, fast, and ready to rank for important keywords in five languages. He also wanted ideas to grow organic traffic.

Their marketing team had used automatic translation for thousands of pages. They used WPML together with Google Translate. After that, they noticed a serious issue. Some translated pages were completely empty.

They did not know why this happened. They also did not know how to find all the broken or blank pages. If you have 15,000 URLs, where do you even start?

The risk was easy to see. If potential clients in any language hit empty pages, what would they think about a company that sells finance software? Would they trust it with their books and reports?

Underneath the translation issue, there were deeper problems. No one had a full view of the site’s health. The CEO did not know about many of the errors. The marketing team did not have the skills to fix them.

What I Found

I started with a full crawl using Screaming Frog. Screaming Frog is a tool that scans all pages of a site and lists technical SEO issues. The report was huge.

I saw blank pages. I saw broken links. I saw large images that were not optimized. Many pages had no meta description. Others had very short content, maybe one or two sentences. Headings often had no useful keywords.

The real cause of the mess became clear. The marketing team had launched a large automatic translation project without a backup. They translated thousands of pages from German into four other languages. Some pages failed in the process. And there was no safe way to roll back.

You might think the main problem was “a few errors.” But the real problem was lack of process and lack of checks.

My first insight was that we needed a smart way to reduce the mess. Trying to fix every single broken translated page would take forever. We needed to simplify the structure.

I explained this to the CEO in simple words. The site was not only broken in parts. It was also bloated with low-value pages. Before we could grow, we had to clean.

The Plan We Followed

The base language of the site was German. So I suggested we treat German as the “source of truth.” If a page in German was thin, empty, or pointless, it made no sense to keep its translations.

I proposed a clear plan.

First, delete all the automatically translated pages in the four extra languages. These could always be created again later, in a clean way.

Second, audit the German section. Remove pages that had no clear purpose. Add content to pages that mattered. Fix internal links and set 301 redirects where needed. A 301 redirect is a permanent move from one URL to another.

Third, do basic on-page SEO for all core German pages. That meant better titles, meta descriptions, headings, and internal links.

Only after the German part was stable and optimized would they re-create the other language versions. But before doing that, they had to create a full backup.

The CEO agreed. He hired a freelance WordPress developer. The three of us held a Zoom call and aligned on roles. My job was to design the steps, supervise the process, and report progress to the CEO. The developer handled the implementation. One marketing team member helped with content edits.

I also suggested they use SEMrush. SEMrush is a tool that can run technical SEO audits and track issues over time. We used it to confirm when errors were fixed and when new ones appeared.

Every Monday, I sent the CEO a short report. It showed which issues were solved and what the next steps were. When needed, I answered questions from him or the developer.

The Results

In about three weeks, the site looked very different from the inside. Technical errors dropped to zero in the SEMrush audit. Pages loaded faster, thanks to image optimization and plugin cleanup. The structure was clearer.

Rankings for existing keywords started to improve. Many terms moved from positions in the 20s and 30s to better spots. This was only the first layer, but it mattered.

For long-term growth, I told them they needed a blog. They added a blog section and began writing helpful, SEO-friendly posts in five languages. DeepL helped them with higher-quality translations.

Traffic first climbed from about 20-30 visitors a day to around 200-250 per day within a few months. Two to three years later, when I checked in SEMrush, I saw they were getting about 800 visitors per day.

The CEO thanked me for my patience and said he had learned a lot during the process. He also realized how much risk had built up while no one was watching the site.

One marketing employee told me she had learned more in two days of working with me than in her previous two years at the company. That meant a lot.

Key Lessons for Other Site Owners

Large sites need regular health checks. Problems grow quietly when no one is looking.
Never run big changes, like mass translation, without a full backup. It is cheap insurance.
It is better to have fewer strong pages than many thin ones. Quality beats volume.
Tools like Screaming Frog and SEMrush help you see what is really happening behind the scenes.
Teaching your team basic SEO skills pays off for years.

Are You Facing a Similar Problem Right Now?

It can feel scary to think your site might have hidden problems. Many owners avoid looking because they fear what they might find. But most issues can be fixed with a clear plan and steady work.

If you want calm, simple help to understand your own website, you can contact me.