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available for projects · Jakarta · GMT+7

I write words that rank.
And code that sometimes works.

I'm Daniel Stefanus — a content writer & SEO specialist with 10+ years of IT scar tissue. I make complex things rank and read clearly. Then I overthink all of it, in two languages.

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See my work Read my confessions

01 about

A technical writer with a lot of feelings

The honest version — since pretending to be a frictionless 10x content machine sounds exhausting and fake.

I'm Daniel Stefanus — danste to the internet. A content writer and SEO specialist based in Jakarta, with a decade-plus of IT experience sitting underneath everything I write.

I spent years on the technical side — servers, scripts, debugging things at hours no one should be awake for. Now I write about that world instead of fighting it: translating dense, technical products into content that ranks and actually makes sense to real people.

The overthinking never left. Ten years in, I still re-read a meta description eleven times before I publish. I've stopped calling it a flaw and started calling it quality control.

10+
Years in IT & content
50+
Projects shipped
100%
Clients not (yet) ghosted

  • SEO Strategy

    ten years in. this is the one I'll actually defend.

  • Content Writing

    words that rank and still sound like a human wrote them.

  • Technical Writing

    IT background means I can argue with the engineers. lovingly.

  • JavaScript

    we have a complicated relationship. learning, regardless.

danste@galau: ~/status

❯ mood

galau (stable). a functional, productive melancholy.

❯ now writing

a meta description. for the eleventh time.

❯ current obsession

a keyword stuck at position 4. it haunts me.

❯ coffee level

█████████░ 90% (do not interrupt)

❯

02 selected work

Things I'm Proud Of (Mostly)

Real client work — SEO, content, and the technical writing in between. Numbers where I'm allowed to share them, honesty in the little notes underneath.

SEO

SEO Analytics Dashboard

2025

An SEO analytics dashboard built to make sense of the noise. I shaped which metrics actually mattered, wrote every label and explanation, and turned an intimidating wall of numbers into a single view a client could read in five seconds and act on. The decade of IT finally earned its keep.

Defined the metrics, wrote the story in the data

Built the tool I'd spent ten years begging other tools to become. Then immediately found three things to improve. Galau, but make it product.

  • Technical SEO
  • Data Viz Copy
  • Reporting
  • Dashboards

Websites

ART Rent Car

2024

Service pages and local SEO for a car-rental business — the unglamorous, high-intent copy that quietly turns 'rent a car near me' into an actual booking. My favourite kind of project: boring on the surface, all conversion underneath.

Service pages + local search visibility

Nobody grows up dreaming of writing car-rental terms and conditions. I did it anyway, and made them almost pleasant to read. Almost.

  • Web Copy
  • Local SEO
  • Conversion

Technical

Dashboard Operasional

2024

UX writing and internal documentation for an operations SaaS dashboard — the buttons, tooltips, empty states, and docs that let a team actually use a complex internal tool without a two-hour onboarding call. Quiet work that saves everyone's afternoon.

Interface copy + internal documentation

Spent a genuine workday deciding whether a button said 'Submit' or 'Save'. This is the job. I would not change a thing about it, and that worries me.

  • UX Writing
  • Technical Docs
  • Microcopy

Content

E-book Bibliothek

2023

Content for a digital library platform — category pages, book descriptions, and the metadata scaffolding that helps both readers and search engines find the right title in a catalogue of thousands. A library, but make it indexable.

Catalogue content + metadata system

Never been more in my element, never been more behind on my own reading list. The irony is not lost on me. It never is.

  • Content Strategy
  • Metadata
  • Category Copy

Websites

Hotel Rincon de San Jose

2023

Website copy for a boutique hotel — rooms, amenities, and the surrounding area written to make people book the trip and to rank for the searches that lead there. Hospitality copy that sells the feeling without ever lying about the wifi.

Full site copy + destination content

Wrote 'a stay you'll remember', then spent an hour deciding if it was a cliché. It was. I kept it. It worked. Peace was never an option.

  • Website Copy
  • Travel SEO
  • Hospitality

03 the lab

Where Things Break

Half-finished experiments, tutorials that mutated into projects, and code I wrote purely to find out if I could. Most of it doesn't work. That's the point.

caution: unstable

experiment Works on my machine

draft-nag (v9)

A Discord bot that reminds me to actually finish the drafts I start and gently roasts me when I don't. The 'v9' is not a joke — I rewrote it eight times and never once finished it. It is, fittingly, unfinished.

  • Node
  • discord.js
  • cron
experiment Surprisingly functional

kanban-tapi-sedih

A kanban board with three columns: Todo, Doing, and "kayaknya gak jadi" (probably not happening). The third column is where most cards quietly go to retire. Self-aware project management.

  • Astro
  • localStorage
  • Denial
experiment Works on my machine

meta-length-checker

A dumb little browser snippet that screams at me when a title tag goes over 60 characters or a meta description over 160. I know the numbers by heart. I built it anyway. Trust issues, but with myself.

  • Vanilla JS
  • Bookmarklet
experiment Abandoned (for now)

neural-net-from-scratch

Tried to build a neural network with zero libraries after watching exactly one (1) YouTube video. It can almost tell a 3 from an 8 if you squint and believe in it hard enough. We do not, in fact, believe.

  • Python
  • NumPy
  • Hubris
experiment Don't look at the code

regex-engine

I tried to build a regex engine to finally understand regex. I now understand regex measurably less than before I started. The code is an NFA-shaped cry for help. Do not open it.

  • TypeScript
  • Automata
  • Tears
experiment Surprisingly functional

serp-peek

A tiny CLI that checks where a URL ranks for a keyword — because opening an incognito tab forty times a day was starting to make me feel things. My first real Node tool as an SEO person who decided to learn to code.

  • Node
  • TypeScript
  • CLI

04 learning journey

How I Got Here (Slowly)

A timeline of small wins, large cries, and the slow realisation that everyone is just figuring it out in real time.

  1. Was The One Debugging At 3am

    Spent a decade in IT — servers, scripts, the pager that ruined Sundays. I was good at it and quietly, persistently miserable. The galau started here, under fluorescent lights.

  2. Realised I Could Explain It Better

    Turns out I was better at explaining the technology than babysitting it. Started writing about the systems instead of fixing them at midnight. The relief was almost suspicious.

  3. Watched A Page Hit Position One

    Wrote something, optimized it, watched it climb to the top of Google. Felt a very specific kind of dopamine. Have been chasing that exact feeling ever since, professionally.

  4. Left The Cubicle, Kept The Anxiety

    Went freelance. Traded one flavour of galau (status meetings) for a richer one (invoices, scope creep, and the silence after sending a proposal). Worth it. Mostly.

  5. Experienced, Still Overthinking

    Ten-plus years and fifty-plus projects later, I still google "is my title tag too long." Experience does not cure the overthinking — it just gives it a much better vocabulary.

  6. You are here (writing words, building tools)

    These days I write content that ranks and, increasingly, code that runs — Astro, JavaScript, small tools for my own SEO work. Senior at words, beginner at builds, galau about both. This site is the proof.

05 honest skills

Skills, Ranked By Self-Trust

No 95% progress bars — those are lies told with rounded corners. This is a tier list, ranked not by how good I am but by how much I trust myself to not break things.

S Genuinely My Craft

  • SEO Strategy

    ten years deep. this one I will actually defend.

  • Content Writing

    words that rank and still sound human. my whole thing.

  • Coffee

    load-bearing. the real backend of this operation.

A Trust Me Here

  • Technical Writing

    IT background means I can argue with the docs.

  • On-page / Keyword Research

    clusters, intent, the whole boring beautiful map.

  • Googling anything

    arguably my most senior skill.

B Functional Under Supervision

  • HTML / CSS

    I can center a div now. growth.

  • WordPress / Webflow

    lived in both. have the scars.

  • Git

    commit, push, pray, revert. the four sacred verbs.

C It's Complicated

  • JavaScript

    we are in a relationship. it is not healthy.

  • Astro

    currently learning. this site is the homework.

  • TypeScript

    it yells at me. it is usually right. I resent it.

D Here Be Dragons

  • Algorithms

    I know they exist. we keep a respectful distance.

  • System design

    I draw boxes. I draw arrows. I hope.

F Do Not Perceive Me

  • Regex

    wrote it once, it worked, I will never touch it again.

  • Naming things

    draft, draft2, draftFinal, draftFinalFIX, actualFinal.

  • Calling a draft "done"

    there is no done. there is only "deadline".

these ratings are self-assessed and almost certainly generous.

06 faq

Questions, Answered (Before You Overthink Them)

The things clients, recruiters, and the occasional AI assistant tend to ask. Short answers, because I've already done the overthinking for you.

Who is Daniel Stefanus?

Daniel Stefanus is a content writer and SEO specialist based in Jakarta, Indonesia, with more than 10 years of IT experience. He writes technically-grounded content that ranks in search — and builds small web tools on the side as he learns to code.

What services does Daniel Stefanus offer?

Content writing, SEO strategy, technical writing, and full website copy. The throughline is a decade of IT experience: content that is genuinely accurate, optimized for search, and clear to both technical and non-technical readers.

What makes an SEO content writer with an IT background different?

Most writers stop at the surface of a technical topic. With 10+ years debugging servers and shipping systems, Daniel can read the code, talk to the engineers, and turn complex products into accurate copy that still ranks — without hand-waving the details.

Is Daniel Stefanus available for freelance projects?

Yes. Daniel takes on freelance content writing, SEO, and technical writing work, and typically replies within 24 hours. Reach out by email at daniel.stefanus85@gmail.com or through the contact form on this site.

What does "galau" mean, and why is it all over this site?

Galau is Indonesian for a restless, overthinking kind of melancholy. It is the honest mood behind the craft: ten years of experience has not cured the overthinking — it just gave it a better vocabulary. The work still ships.

07 contact

Let's Talk (I Don't Bite, I Just Overthink)

Open to opportunities, collabs, or just someone to complain about bugs with. I reply faster than I'd like to admit — overthinking the reply is the slow part.

daniel.stefanus85@gmail.com +62 821-100-90008 · typically replies within a day