Pedro @ Block Agency

Just over a year on Upwork, and I’m proud to share I’ve earned the Top Rated Plus badge. This milestone reflects not just hard work, but the trust and collaboration of incredible clients. Thank you for being part of this journey.

Most clients who ask for a redesign don't need one. They need someone to figure out what the site is failing to communicate. And say it. The visual is usually fine. The message underneath it isn't.

Most WordPress problems I've seen aren't WordPress problems. Four page builders stacked on each other. A theme with 200 options nobody configured. Three plugins doing the same thing different ways. The platform gets the blame. The build deserves it.

AI can generate a layout in seconds. What it can't do is figure out what the page needs to say, to whom, in what order, and why any of it should make someone stay. That part is still the job. And honestly, it's the harder part.

Marketing handed me a mockup. Functional, but built by someone thinking about content, not about the person reading it. I stripped it back. Fewer decisions for the user to make. Clearer path to the one thing they needed to do next. Same information. Different priorities.

Copy shapes the layout. Not the other way around. When the structure gets locked first and the copy fills in later, the message ends up fitted into boxes it was never meant for. Looks fine. Doesn't say much.

Good web design usually feels calm. Not empty. Not boring. Not overworked. Just clear. That’s part of why I’ve become less interested in trendy websites over time. The older I get, the more I care about work that still makes sense 2 years later.

Honestly, I think most WordPress problems come from bloat. Not WordPress itself. Too many plugins. Too many layers. Too many things added without a clear reason. Then the site gets slow, fragile, harder to maintain, and WordPress gets blamed for all of it.

One thing I’ve learned from agency projects: clients rarely get stuck on “design taste” for long. They get stuck on messaging. What do we lead with? How do we explain this clearly? What matters most to the buyer? That’s usually the harder part.

A lot of web design is really sequencing. Not decoration. What shows first. What supports it. What earns trust. What can wait. When the order is right, the design feels easier. When it’s wrong, even good design feels harder than it should.

Most agency websites don’t need a more creative hero. They need a clearer one. A lot of founders land on their own homepage and still have to “explain the business” out loud. That’s usually the sign. The design isn’t doing enough.

A simple rule for agency homepages: Visitors arrive with three questions. What do you do Who do you help Why should I trust you If the homepage doesn’t answer those in the first few seconds, people start guessing. And guessing usually leads to leaving.

@jonathanmahomes Yeah, exactly. Speed just buys you a bit more attention. But if the page doesn’t answer what they came for, they’re gone anyway. Both have to work together.

@pedro_reyesh Speed will make them stay a little while longer. But if they have a question that’s needs the website doesn’t answer they’ll leave immediately.

Website speed is still massively underestimated. A slow site doesn’t just feel annoying. It changes behavior. People leave faster. Ads become less efficient. Conversion drops. Performance is not a technical detail. It’s part of the user experience.

@huge_icons Namecheap

where do you usually buy your domains? - GoDaddy - Cloudflare - Dynadot - Namecheap

Most agency redesigns fail for a predictable reason. They redesign the homepage. But keep the same messy structure. Navigation stays confusing. Pages stay scattered. User paths stay unclear. A nicer UI can’t fix broken architecture. Structure first. Design second.

That’s usually how it goes. Clients rarely ask for a “redesign”. They come in with a symptom. Onboarding, drop-offs, low conversions… then you start pulling the thread and realize it’s a bigger system issue. The interesting part is not the screen itself, but how everything connects behind it.

most clients don't come to me asking for a full redesign. they come asking for onboarding. then it turns into ASO screenshots. then a paywall. then somehow.. the whole app. most of the time it starts the same place. that's part of why I've been building before.click differently. not just a design gallery. a resource for founders and designers who care about App Store optimization too. this week: onboarding flows and paywalls are live in the directory. next week: rankings with some keyword insights next next week: improved ASO checklist. somewhere in between new homepage. also started tracking which apps people actually look at most. curious where that data goes. also discovered yesterday @burnbarapp - what a well designed app

@rxhit05 Talk to people, but more importantly… watch what they already pay for. If someone is spending money (or time) on a workaround, there’s usually real pain there. Ideas are everywhere. Willingness to pay is the filter.

Founders and devs, what is the best way to find a painful problem to solve?

Good breakdown. I’d just add that a lot of gains usually come before link building. Fixing intent, cleaning up pages, and improving internal linking often moves the needle faster than backlinks in the early stages. Links help, but only after the foundation actually makes sense.

3rd month working with this client. It's only March 18th and we already added $1,677 MRR. All from SEO and AEO. Here's the exact blueprint 👇 1. Remove toxic AI content If you used AI to bulk-publish blog content, chances are some of it is actively hurting you. Unrelated topics, keywords that have nothing to do with your niche, and outbound links going to other sites in their network. What I do: remove them all and set up 301 redirects to either the homepage or the closest relevant article. 2. Reverse engineer the competitors I want to see exactly what's working in the space before building any strategy. What pages do they have? How are they doing internal linking? What backlinks do they have? This tells me what's already working, so I'm not guessing. 3. Fix technical issues and on-page SEO Doesn't matter how many backlinks you have. If your site has technical issues or poorly written content, you won't rank. Fix the foundation first, then build links. 4. Invest in link building and PR Backlinks are still one of the most important ranking factors. In any semi-competitive niche, you're not getting to the top 3 without them. I get the best links possible, sometimes the exact same ones as competitors, and run PR campaigns every other month. Don't sleep on this. 5. Monitor what's working, constantly My daily routine: Search Console -> what's working and what's not -> Ahrefs -> check competitors SEO is not a one-off game. You need to stay on top of the data, watch your competitors, and keep adjusting.

@KatieKeithBarn2 Honestly still pretty simple on my end. ChatGPT/Claude for outlining and refining ideas. GSC + real search data for deciding what to actually write. AI is great for speed, but if the topic isn’t grounded in real demand, it usually doesn’t go anywhere.

Marketers - what AI tools are you using to plan and implement content changes? For example: - Researching content ideas - Recommending article titles which are are likely to rank and convert - Writing article outlines - Updating existing articles for AI overviews

@vibeonX69 Namecheap

Devs, where do you usually purchase your domains from? -GoDaddy -Hostinger Or somewhere else?