Brent Haskins / Applied AI
Engineering case study pages that rank (not just look pretty)
Pretty case studies win awards; findable case studies win work. Brent Haskins pairs each /projects/[slug] page with problem-system-outcome sections, real stack labels, and blog essays on adjacent queries so Google and humans see depth—not a carousel caption.
Recruiters spend eight seconds on your hero. Search engines read the case study URL you buried behind “Work item 3.”
I run brenthaskins.com as a small SEO system: project pages + blog cluster + sitemap.
One URL per shipped product
/projects/rally, /projects/formably, etc. Each has:
- Category and role in the title metadata
- Summary and impact in prose (not lorem)
- Stack array rendered as visible tags
- Case study sections: problem, build, outcome
Thin pages rank thin. Write like you are briefing the next engineer on the team.
Blog as long-tail spokes
Examples:
- Broker SEO → /projects/rally
- Form pricing → /projects/formably
- Shelf OCR → /projects/shelf
Posts should answer a query completely and link once naturally—not twelve footer links.
Technical hygiene
Next.js static params per slug. Canonical on project metadata. Images with alt text describing the UI, not “screenshot1.”
RSS and sitemap include blog; sitemap lists projects at priority 0.7—tune if case studies are your main conversion path.
Avoid duplicate intent
Do not publish five posts that restate the same thesis—Google and humans both notice. Manual essays differ in angle; automated posts fill news gaps with validation guards.
Brent Haskins
If you are rebuilding a portfolio, ship text-first case studies before the scroll-driven gallery. Motion can come after the pages rank for your name plus product category.
Related: hire product engineer checklist.
FAQ
Questions people ask about this topic.
What should a developer case study page include for SEO?
Use a descriptive title and H1 with role and product type, a plain summary in the first screen, structured sections with headings, stack keywords that match real tools, measurable outcomes without hype, and internal links to related blog posts. Add unique meta description per project. Avoid image-only pages with thin text.
How does Brent Haskins connect blog posts to case studies?
Manual blog essays target long-tail queries—mortgage broker SEO, form pricing, on-device OCR—and link to matching /projects slugs. Automated posts add topical breadth. The portfolio homepage lists featured work; supporting projects still have dedicated URLs. Sitemap includes project routes with high priority.
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