Dave Poortvliet, MS

Global Fishing Watch

• Own web strategy and roadmap for the organization’s WordPress-based flagship site, which has reached 1.35 million users and nearly 2 million sessions over three years, setting vision and prioritization across content and design to align each surface against audience and growth goals.
• Direct the external delivery bench against that roadmap: an ad placement agency and contractor, a contract web developer, and a digital asset management (DAM) manager, including scopes of work, budgets, and delivery against priorities.
• Grew active users 73% year over year, from 317,739 in 2024 to 550,236 in 2025, and built GA4-based dashboards to track funnel performance and inform prioritization calls.
• Built organic search into the site’s single largest traffic source, delivering more than 447,000 active users over three years and peaking at 232,364 organic sessions in 2025.
• Drove 1.83 million key events including 14,813 sign-ups and 275,690 clicks into the interactive map, sustaining an engagement rate above 71% and 1.5 million sessions of 1.5 minutes or longer.
• Ran usability testing, heat maps, and user surveys that overturned the site’s core navigation assumption: over 90% of users never see the homepage, arriving directly on editorial articles, and over 60% of those who do land on the homepage are only trying to reach the interactive map. Reorganized the site’s navigation and information architecture on those findings, with new page templates in development that treat every article as a primary entry point rather than a step on a path.
• Extended the search practice into AI answer engines, applying structured data, clear entity definitions, and citation-oriented content so the site surfaces in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity responses, and introduced AI tooling across content and SEO operations with human editorial review as the gate.
• Led a multilingual redesign and localization program across international markets, cutting page load times 35% and improving engagement metrics 25%.
• Achieved WCAG 2.2 accessibility compliance, embedding accessibility and performance standards into the site’s design and development process.

Grand Valley State University

• Directed multi-channel digital strategy, an 8-person team, ad placement agencies, and a $4M marketing budget through a full site overhaul, driving a 30% increase in conversions through SEO and CRO initiatives.
• Built KPI dashboards (Google Data Studio, Tableau) linking digital ad spend to enrollment outcomes, contributing to a 30% increase in applications and clearer ROI reporting for leadership.
• Synthesized data across Google Analytics, Slate CRM, and ad platforms into a unified measurement story for executive stakeholders.
• Built and led an internal team delivering scalable, high-craft digital experiences aligned to institutional growth goals.

Luck Dragon Games

• Co-founded a gaming startup, owning web strategy, product, marketing, and analytics for the company’s debut title, TinyAttack.com (PHP/JavaScript, AWS).
• Grew and retained a player community through iterative, data-informed web and product experiments across Discord and web channels.

Grand Valley State University

• Led a cross-functional web development team, driving an 18% increase in new site visitors through experimentation, CRO, and content strategy, including record application volume in Q4 2020.
• Implemented Google Analytics and Tag Manager instrumentation across all university web properties, establishing the measurement foundation used to prioritize initiatives.
• Directed accessibility and compliance strategy (WCAG, GDPR, CAN-SPAM) across all university web properties and served as Inclusion Advocate for over a decade, championing equitable, accessible digital experiences.
• Built the university’s first CMS and enterprise email marketing platform, establishing the publishing standards and web governance that let departments publish autonomously across a decentralized, multi-site university web environment.

Grand Valley State University

• Hired as the university’s first full-time web developer; built its inaugural CMS and converted paper-based workflows into online systems, presenting data-driven ROI analyses that secured team expansion.