Stroke 1
AI Overviews
Every legal page opens with a 45–60 word answer that names the regulation, the signature level and the jurisdiction — the exact shape an AI answer lifts. Sources are linked inline to EUR-Lex and national registers.
SEO case study · Content Engine
Quellmark
E-signature & contract workflow SaaS · Amsterdam
How a mid-size e-signature tool became the source AI search quotes on digital signing law
112AI Overview citationsin 10 months · Amsterdam, Europe
I · The challenge
A blank page where the answer should be
Generic signing guides from larger rivals dominated both classic results and AI answers, leaving Quellmark absent from evaluation-stage searches.
Buyers comparing signing tools do not search for a brand — they ask whether a signature will hold up: in Dutch employment law, in a Belgian lease, under eIDAS. Those questions were answered by two far larger rivals with broad, global guides, and AI answers repeated them. Quellmark had the deeper product for European legal teams, but nothing on the open web said so in a way a crawler or an answer engine could quote.
- Large rival A41%
- Large rival B27%
- Government & legal portals18%
- Encyclopedias & forums9%
- Everyone else5%
- Quellmark0%
II · Diagnosis
Reading the blot: seven findings
- 01 · Content
Fourteen near-identical “how to sign a PDF” posts
Cannibalising each other for the same five queries; none answered the legal question evaluators actually ask.
- 02 · Entity
No machine-readable identity
No Organization, SoftwareApplication or sameAs markup; AI systems could not tie the brand to eIDAS expertise.
- 03 · Templates
Templates locked behind sign-up
62 contract templates lived in the app only — invisible to crawlers, so rivals’ thinner versions ranked instead.
- 04 · Authority
Legal claims without sources
Statements about binding signatures cited no regulation, article or case — the opposite of what answer engines quote.
- 05 · Technical
Broken nl/en hreflang pairs
Dutch and English guides pointed at each other inconsistently; 31% of NL pages were served to EN searchers.
- 06 · Technical
Template previews rendered client-side
Preview text appeared only after JavaScript ran, delaying indexing of the few public pages by weeks.
- 07 · Expertise
No named reviewers
Pages carried no reviewer, date or jurisdiction note, so freshness and trust signals were absent.
The pattern: real expertise, written in ink no machine could read.
III · The strategy
Four strokes of the same pen
Built on our Content Engine plan: publish the definitive, sourced answer to every evaluation-stage question, and make it impossible to misattribute.
Stroke 2
Topic clusters
One pillar on EU signing law, with country hubs (NL, BE, DE, FR, ES) and use-case spokes — HR, real estate, procurement. Fourteen thin posts were merged into four canonical guides.
Stroke 3
Template library
The 62 in-app templates were rebuilt as public, server-rendered pages with clause notes, a jurisdiction badge and a one-click ‘sign this template’ trial path.
Stroke 4
Entity optimisation
Organization, SoftwareApplication and Legislation markup, consistent sameAs profiles, a named legal reviewer on every guide, and a glossary that defines each eIDAS term once.
IV · 10 months
Drop by drop, along the fold
Month 1
Ink on the nib
Crawl, query log and AI-answer audit across 120 evaluation prompts in four languages.
Month 2
Consolidation
Fourteen overlapping posts merged into four canonical guides; redirects and hreflang repaired.
Month 3
Entity layer
Structured data, reviewer profiles and the eIDAS glossary shipped site-wide.
Month 4
First templates
Twenty high-intent templates (NDA, employment, lease) released as public pages.
Month 5
Pillar live
EU signing-law pillar and the Netherlands hub published with answer-first summaries.
Month 6
Country hubs
Belgium, Germany, France and Spain hubs, each reviewed by a local practitioner.
Month 7
Library complete
All 62 templates public; ‘sign this template’ trial path A/B-tested.
Month 8
Use-case spokes
HR, real estate and procurement spokes link templates to the law that governs them.
Month 9
Refresh cycle
Answers re-tested against AI Overviews; twelve summaries tightened, sources updated.
Month 10
The signature
Quellmark is the most-cited source on Dutch e-signature law in the tracked set.
V · Results
What the blot revealed
112
AI Overview citations
+76%
Organic trials
+300%
Template page sessions
+184
Non-brand top-3 keywords
Modelled scenario for a fictional business — not a client result. Rankings and traffic are never guaranteed; see our Terms.
citations, cumulative
112in month 10 of 10 · from 0 to 112
Before and after, on the page that matters
is an electronic signature legally binding in the netherlands
AI Overview
Electronic signatures are generally accepted in many countries. Requirements vary…
- [1] Large rival A — e-signature guide
- [2] Large rival B — signing basics
Organic: #14 · Quellmark blog post
is an electronic signature legally binding in the netherlands
AI Overview
Yes. Under the EU eIDAS Regulation, an electronic signature cannot be denied legal effect; a qualified signature equals a handwritten one…
- [1] Quellmark — Dutch e-signature law, explained
- [2] Government portal — eIDAS overview
Organic: #1 · Quellmark NL law hub
Keyword ledger
| Query | Before | After | Cited in AI Overview |
|---|---|---|---|
| is an electronic signature legally binding in the netherlands | #31 | #1 | Yes |
| qualified vs advanced electronic signature | #48 | #2 | Yes |
| eidas signature levels explained | — | #1 | Yes |
| nda template netherlands | — | #2 | — |
| employment contract template dutch english | — | #3 | — |
| can you e-sign a rental agreement in belgium | — | #1 | Yes |
| e-signature tool for mid-size companies | #22 | #3 | Yes |
| digitale handtekening rechtsgeldig | #17 | #2 | Yes |
| how to sign a pdf legally in the eu | #14 | #3 | Yes |
“—” before means the page did not exist or did not rank in the top 100.
Modelled scenario for a fictional business — not a client result. Rankings and traffic are never guaranteed; see our Terms.
Get a plan like this
A content engine that writes the answer your buyers — and the machines they ask — will quote.
Signed for Quellmark, Amsterdam