DiscoverPortugalToday
Case Study Summary
Client Problem
A travel agency needed a high-performance, SEO-optimized content platform that non-technical editors could manage independently.
My Role
CTO / Core Engineer / Architect — also built an AI auto-content generation system that plans, does SEO research, writes, reviews, proofreads, checks facts, and publishes ready articles
Result
Delivered a production travel platform with near-perfect Lighthouse scores, headless CMS for editors, automated SEO infrastructure, and an AI-powered content pipeline.
Relevant For
Content platforms, travel/media startups, SEO-driven businesses, AI content automation
A statically generated travel content platform dedicated to exploring Portugal's diverse regions, from the vineyards of the Norte to the sun-drenched beaches of the Algarve, Azores, and Madeira.
Role: CTO / Core Engineer / Architect
My Contribution
- Technical Leadership: Owned the entire technical vision and architecture from initial PoC through MVP to production launch. Made all key technology decisions and defined the system's long-term direction.
- Architecture Design: Designed a performant, SEO-first static site architecture using Astro's content collections with Zod schema validation, ensuring type-safe content management at scale. Engineered a headless CMS workflow with Decap CMS and Git-gateway for non-technical content editors.
- Performance Engineering: Built a custom rehype plugin for responsive image delivery via Netlify Image CDN with dynamic srcset generation, lazy loading, and async decoding. Achieved near-perfect Lighthouse scores with zero-JS-by-default rendering.
- Content Architecture: Designed the content taxonomy system with region-based categorization across 7 Portuguese regions, 40+ tags, automated reading time estimation, related post algorithms, and full RSS/sitemap generation.
- Infrastructure & DevOps: Configured the deployment pipeline on Netlify with immutable asset caching (1-year TTL), trailing-slash URL normalization, and a custom prebuild asset-path replacement script for CDN compatibility.
Key Highlights
- Took the product from PoC to production MVP as a solo technical lead
- SEO-optimized with Schema.org structured data, dynamic sitemaps, and RSS feeds
- Mobile-first responsive design with hero-aware sticky navigation
- Headless CMS integration enabling content contributors to publish without developer involvement