Project · EdTech, India

A unicorn-stage EdTech, and the page speed that was costing it

LEAD School is an Indian school-education platform. It was one of three unicorn-stage clients I owned end to end at Neil Patel Digital — strategy, execution and the client conversation. Across that portfolio the work that moved the needle fastest was not content. It was cutting a third off page load.

Brand
LEAD School
Sector
EdTech, K–12
Platform
WordPress
Engagement
Client at Neil Patel Digital
Role
SEO Manager
Period
September 2021 – March 2022
15%month-over-month organic traffic growth across the client portfolio
6s → 4spage load, a 33% cut, by resolving render-blocking resources
5reporting dashboards built to standardise how the portfolio was measured
Read the numbers on this page carefully

The three figures above are the results I am accountable for across the three unicorn-stage clients I owned at Neil Patel Digital, of which LEAD School was one. They are not all attributed to this client alone. Where a number belongs specifically to LEAD School, it says so. This distinction matters more than the size of the number.

What I did

  1. Took full ownership of strategy, execution and client communication, rather than executing someone else’s plan.
  2. Resolved render-blocking resources and the technical issues behind them, cutting page load from six seconds to four and lifting Core Web Vitals.
  3. Built five reporting dashboards — internal linking, content calendar, keyword rankings and two others — which standardised reporting and, more usefully, surfaced new ranking opportunities as a by-product.
  4. Led a team of 10.

The result

Organic traffic grew 15% month over month, and I was recognised twice internally for research depth and execution quality.

Where it stands now

Semrush, 15 September 2026Value
Semrush Rank9,690
Ranking keywords4,738
Keywords in positions 1–3422
Estimated organic visits a month116,463
Keywords that trigger an AI Overview4,144

India database, pulled 15 September 2026 — four and a half years after this engagement. It describes the domain today, not my work. Context only.

Tools used

SEMrush, Google Search Console, SearchMetrics, Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, Looker Studio, SE Ranking, Ubersuggest.

Rankings holding but the site is slow?

Send me the domain. I will tell you in twenty minutes whether speed is actually what is costing you, or whether it is the easy thing to blame.

Typical reply time: within one working day