SEO & Growth Hacking
Acquired as CTO Founder of Celiane where SEO sat at the heart of the business model. Cross-functional skill at the seam between marketing and tech, occasionally mobilized for B2C product acquisition.
Each segment is a period (journey or achievement) where the competency was applied. The colour and size of the end dot reflect the level reached during that period.
My definition
SEO and growth hacking, in my view, is the cross-functional skill at the seam between marketing and engineering. It covers technical SEO (Core Web Vitals, structured markup, sitemap, internationalisation), content SEO, link-building, SEM, SERP analysis, and the full growth toolbox (instrumentation, A/B testing, acquisition funnel). It is not a commercial add-on: an OSS published without an organic acquisition strategy never pays back the writing cadence.
I run this competency in 2 complementary modes. Audit: site diagnosis in less than 4 hours, 90-day action plan with measurable impact, technical baseline laid before content. Run: editorial calendar, community-driven link-building, paid when relevant. The skill was forged at Celiane (1999-2007) where the entire business model rested on the SEO of a network of 260 multilingual sites monetised through affiliation, and kept sharp afterwards through ACCENSEO engagements and the published OSS (gradient-generator-css, tailwindcss-obfuscator).
In 2026, SEO is going through its biggest shift since the rise of Google with the emergence of GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation): optimising to surface as a citation in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews answers, no longer just to rank in the traditional SERP. AI-referred sessions jumped 527% in five months in 2025, and Search Engine Land details the mechanics in Generative engine optimization (GEO): How to win AI mentions. The CTO or founder who misses the GEO 2026 transition silently loses a growing share of qualified traffic.
My evidence
Anecdote 1 : From the Celiane SEO business model to the OSS gradient generator
My first real SEO learning was Celiane, the company I started at 18 in 1999. For 9 years the business model rested entirely on the organic traffic of a network of 260 multilingual sites (15 languages, 5 countries), monetised through affiliate marketing. When Google penalised content farms in 2006-2007 the venture wound down - but the SEO discipline acquired across those years stuck. More recently, in January 2026, I wanted to verify that the muscle was still active on a developer OSS: the CSS Gradient Generator (Next.js 16 + React 19 + ~980 presets + AI generation through OpenAI).
I applied the same discipline as back then, modernised. On the technical side, Core Web Vitals baseline (strict TypeScript, optimised Tailwind 4, Next.js prerendering), structured markup SoftwareApplication + Article, auto-generated sitemap, clean internationalisation. On the content side, semantic clusters around CSS gradient search intents (linear, radial, conic, mesh) and an editorial calendar on color spaces (OKLab, OKLCH). On the distribution side, community-driven link-building through open-source publication and developer-focused channels. On Celiane back then, it was the same playbook - just with a weekly cadence and manual SERP tracking on Google + MSN + Voilà.fr.
On Celiane, sustainable organic traffic across several years, TOP 10 France for Carpediem affiliates, PageRank 5-6/10 on the main sites, roughly 500 K euros of cumulative net profit. On the CSS Gradient Generator, measurable organic acquisition within the first week of release, fast indexation of the preset pages.
20-6 years after my first Celiane sites, SEO remains a reproducible muscle - the principles (intent-driven, technical baseline, structured content, link-building) survived every search-engine evolution. It is a background competency I now replay automatically on every ACCENSEO product I publish, and it differentiates me from pure-tech CTOs who must lean on a growth manager to even exist on the engine.
Anecdote 2 : Pushing tailwindcss-obfuscator into the SERP and into LLM answers
When I shipped tailwindcss-obfuscator to npm in late 2025, I knew technical quality was not enough: in such a competitive niche (first Tailwind v4-compatible package), if nobody found it, the package would die in obscurity. The 2025-2026 SEO novelty was GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation): showing up in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity answers when a developer asks a technical question - now as important as ranking on Google.
I built the SEO + GEO strategy in parallel with the code. Classic SEO: on-page optimised product page (title, meta, SoftwareApplication schema), long-form content on Babel AST + PostCSS to rank on precise technical intents ("how to obfuscate Tailwind v4 classes", "Tailwind v4 mangle plugin"), VitePress for indexable documentation, clean sitemap. GEO: structuring explanations by clear intents, detailed code examples, explicit comparisons with the incumbent. I test every quarter the appearance in LLM answers on 5 key intents.
External team adoption within the first weeks after release, organic mentions in several tech newsletters, top positions on the specific queries (Tailwind v4 + obfuscation), surfacing in LLM answers on the clearest search intents.
From this package I built a reproducible SEO/GEO framework that I now replay on every ACCENSEO OSS release. It is my differentiator against pure-tech competitors: an OSS without SEO/GEO strategy does not pay back the writing cadence, and that is exactly what makes a content-led / product-led growth strategy thinkable on the next CTO scale-up role without depending solely on a paid budget.
My self-critique
Level Confirmed. Production exposure rests on two registers: founder SEO at Celiane, where organic traffic stood in for the entire business model for 9 years, and recent OSS growth SEO on gradient-generator-css and tailwindcss-obfuscator. Solid mastery on technical SEO (Core Web Vitals, structured markup, sitemap, internationalisation), correct on semantic strategy and community-driven link-building. What still needs strengthening: GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) in sustained practice, and large-scale paid SEM.
High-leverage complement to Strategic Vision. It closes the gap between the technical decision and the acquisition metric: an OSS shipped without an SEO/GEO strategy never pays back the writing cadence. For a B2B SaaS scale-up CTO role, it is what makes a *content-led / product-led growth* strategy possible without depending solely on a paid budget. Not a primary axis, a multiplier.
Self-taught learning kicked off at 18 (1999), no theoretical training. 9 years of Celiane reverse-engineering Google, MSN and Voilà.fr in parallel of running the 260-site network - this competency was forged in the field, not in a certification.
To myself: stay close to GEO developments in 2026, test every quarter the appearance in LLM answers (Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude). To others:
- do not wait for content to set the technical baseline (Core Web Vitals, URL structure, sitemap)
- invest in authorship and proven expertise (E-E-A-T) rather than keyword stuffing
- measure in attributed revenue, not raw visitors
My evolution in this skill
SEO and growth are what turns an ACCENSEO product into organic revenue. In the 24-month plan, they fund the first acquisition phase of a new B2B SaaS without depending solely on a paid budget, and they make the published OSS tools (gradient-generator-css, tailwindcss-obfuscator) profitable in developer attention. Without them, every new product starts from zero.
Not a Senior bump axis. the goal is to stay audit-grade: diagnose a site in less than 4 hours and propose a 90-day action plan with measurable impact. The main effort goes to the GEO extension (Generative Engine Optimization), the most moving terrain of 2026 SEO.
ACCENSEO customer engagements as continuous training, application on the published OSS tools (gradient-generator-css, tailwindcss-obfuscator). Monthly follow of Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools evolutions.
Formal GEO certification as soon as a recognized training emerges (HubSpot, Ahrefs, Semrush are close). Advanced Content Marketing training (Animalz / Marketing Examples) targeted 2026 if the content axis becomes a priority.
Weekly reading: Search Engine Journal, Ahrefs blog, Aleyda Solis newsletter, Lily Ray. Quarterly study of SERP evolution on 5 ACCENSEO keywords as a benchmark. Monthly test of appearance in Perplexity / ChatGPT answers to calibrate the GEO strategy.