Case Study

TrackAndFieldStandards.comTurning Recruiting Chaos into Clarity

01 — The Problem

Information existed, but never in one place

When I was going through the college recruiting process as a track & field athlete, researching qualifying standards was one of the most frustrating parts. The information existed, but it was scattered, hard to read, and never in one place. I built the solution I wish I'd had.
02 — Who It's For

Athletes, coaches, and parents

High school track & field athletes navigating the college recruiting process, their coaches, and parents trying to understand what marks actually matter at each level of competition.
03 — What I Built

A clean, centralized resource

TrackAndFieldStandards.com — a clean, centralized resource for track & field qualifying standards, built and distributed under the Preferred Recruit brand. The site organizes standards by event and division so athletes can instantly understand where their marks stand and what they need to hit.
04 — Growth

650,000+ views, $0 in ads

The site has grown to over 650,000 views with no paid advertising — driven entirely by strategic content on @preferredrecruit across Instagram and TikTok, direct sharing with coaches and athletes, and organic search. The recruiting community found it useful and spread it themselves.
05 — What the Data Shows

Two stories, depending on when you look

The analytics tell two distinct stories depending on when you look.

At launch, a single push across @preferredrecruit on Instagram and TikTok drove an immediate spike to nearly 2,800 daily visitors on October 13th. That validated the distribution strategy instantly. The audience existed and was hungry for exactly this resource.

The more interesting story is what happened after. Over the following months, Google became the dominant traffic source, now driving 45,000 visitors in the last 90 days alone compared to 18,600 direct. The site went from social-dependent to search-driven without any additional content spend. That compounding SEO effect was never the original plan. It became the growth engine.

A few other signals worth noting. 72% of users are on mobile, which validated the decision to keep the site clean and simple rather than data-heavy. Users are also browsing an average of 3 to 5 pages per visit, meaning athletes are not just landing and leaving, they are exploring standards across multiple events and schools. Visit duration sits between 4 and 7 minutes, showing genuine engagement rather than a quick bounce.

Launch spike driven by @preferredrecruit content in October 2025 · click to enlarge
Sustained organic growth and Google is now primary traffic source in June 2026 · click to enlarge

The site went from social-dependent to search-driven as organic SEO compounded without additional content spend.

06 — Product Decisions

Simplicity, on purpose

The core decision was simplicity. It would have been easy to add noise — rankings, profiles, comparisons — but the insight was that athletes under recruiting pressure don't want more to sort through. They want one clear answer fast. Every design choice was made around that.
07 — What's Next

V2: from reference to planning tool

The most requested evolution is personalization. The planned next feature is a mark progression calculator — athletes input their current marks and the tool projects what they could realistically hit by their senior year. That shifts the site from a reference tool to a recruiting planning tool, which opens up a meaningfully larger use case.