Taking new projects

Niterói, BR · 08:00 UTC−3

RafaelSottomayor

Independent web engineer. Webflow and WordPress builds, technical SEO, security and privacy. Since 2013.

I build sites that load fast.rank on Google.don’t get hacked.your team can edit.

§01 — The problem

Most websites look fine and fail quietly: slow on a phone, invisible to Google, one outdated plugin away from a breach. I work on what’s underneath, and I prove it with numbers, not adjectives.

§02 — Services

Four disciplines. One standard.

01 / 04Build

Webflow

Builds and rebuilds with a class system the next person can actually read.

  • CMS collections your team can publish to without calling me
  • Interactions that respect LCP instead of destroying it
  • Migrations both ways, with the rankings carried across
  • SEO-safe launches: redirect maps, canonicals, sitemaps
02 / 04Build

WordPress

Over a decade and 100+ sites, in whichever builder you already pay for.

  • Elementor, WPBakery, Gutenberg, Divi: your stack, not mine
  • WooCommerce with a checkout that actually finishes
  • Builder migrations with the rankings intact
  • Speed work: caching, images, CDN, render path
03 / 04Grow

Technical SEO

The part of SEO that is engineering, not content calendars.

  • Core Web Vitals measured in the field, not a flattering lab run
  • Crawl and index audits, including “crawled, not indexed”
  • Schema, canonicals, hreflang, sitemaps, robots
  • GA4 and Search Console, firing only after consent
04 / 04Protect

Security

Hardening, cleanup, and GDPR/LGPD consent that actually blocks scripts.

  • Least-privilege users, 2FA, abandoned plugins removed
  • Malware cleanup and a backup restored at least once, on purpose
  • Security headers, HTTPS/HSTS, WAF, login rate limiting
  • Consent Mode v2: nothing fires before acceptance

Not sure which one you need?

Send me the URL

§03 — Receipts

Numbers you can check.

Every figure is visible on a public profile or in a client’s own analytics. Nothing rounded up in my favour.

100%

Job Success on Upwork, Top Rated

8/8

Client reviews, every one at 5.0

100+

WordPress and WooCommerce sites shipped

10+

Years building for clients

5

Continents with clients served

C2

English, EF SET certified

§04 — Selected work

Outcome first.

A screenshot of a homepage proves nothing. These are the results the client was actually paying for.

A premium digital presence aimed at international oil and gas suppliers entering Brazil: tender intelligence, local commercial support, an interactive market map. Built to be read by procurement teams on bad hotel Wi-Fi, which set the performance budget before a single pixel was drawn.

93

Lighthouse performance

100

Lighthouse SEO

EN

International audience

A European manufacturer wanted to sell in Brazil and had no local infrastructure. I set up the store, the payment and shipping rails, the marketplace channels, and then ran the operation: catalogue, pricing, stock, orders, customer response.

$18K+

Monthly revenue reached

2 mo

From zero to that figure

9 mo

Operation run end to end

A full content migration off Webflow with the SEO setup rebuilt properly on the other side: URL mapping, redirects, metadata, schema, speed. The client kept me on after delivery for work they thought of later, which is the part of a migration that tells you it went well.

5.0★

Client rating

0

Broken URLs at handover

+9 mo

Retained after launch

Rebuilding a site's entire page-building layer without losing the positions it took years to earn. Markup parity checked page by page, heading structure preserved, schema re-emitted, Core Web Vitals measured before and after so the improvement was a number rather than an opinion.

100h

Delivered build

SEO

Held through migration

Most cookie banners are decoration, because the tracking already fired before anyone clicked. I scan what loads before consent, then rebuild the gate so nothing runs until it is allowed: Consent Mode v2, granular categories, refusal as easy as acceptance, consent records stored, and the documentation your lawyer needs to sign off.

N → 0

Scripts firing before consent

v2

Google Consent Mode

ROPA

Delivered as documentation

Before I optimised other people's stores I ran one. Site plus marketplaces, with an automated routine checking 191 listings a day against the supplier's API for price and stock drift. It is why I talk about margin, stock and response time instead of just conversion rate.

8 yrs

Operated by me

191

Listings synced daily via API

§05 — Clients

What they wrote after the invoice.

Quoted exactly as published on Upwork, where the review cannot be edited by me.

★★★★★ 5.0

“He doesn’t just follow instructions; he suggests good options for reaching our goals. He’s reliable in every way.”
Webflow → WordPress migration + SEO · Upwork, 2026

★★★★★ 5.0

“We initially hired Rafael for one small project, but he ended up working with us for over seven months.”
E-commerce and marketplace operations · Upwork, 2026

★★★★★ 5.0

“He worked very quickly, went above and beyond expectations, and was proactive in fixing and improving any issues that came up.”
WooCommerce configuration · Upwork, 2025

★★★★★ 5.0

“Another designer had created the site but there were small fixes that we needed, and the designer wasn’t available. I found Rafael and he jumped in right away.”
WordPress rescue work · Upwork, 2025

§06 — About

I came to the web from heavy industry.

Before I built websites I wrote technical bids at GE Aerospace, then coordinated accounts at Expro and Siemens Energy: nine years of scoping work precisely, in English, where an unclear assumption costs real money. That is still how I run a project.

Then eight years running my own e-commerce operation, and over a decade building and maintaining sites as owner of Niterói Web Design. So when we talk about your site, I am thinking about margin, stock, response time and what a lead is worth, not only the layout.

Everything I build is delivered in your accounts: your host, your domain, your Webflow workspace. No lock-in, and documentation you can hand to the next person.

Rafael Sottomayor smiling in his studio, with code on the monitors and a microphone behind him
Rafael Sottomayor · Web engineer · Niterói, RJ

Now

Owner and Director, Niterói Web DesignSince 2013

Before

Account Coordinator, Siemens Energy2012–2016

Before

Proposal Analyst, GE Aerospace2007–2011

Education

BBA, Universidade Estácio de Sá

Niterói, Rio de JaneiroUTC−3English C2 · Português · EspañolUpwork Top Rated · 100% JSS

§07 — Method

Measure, scope, build, measure again.

Step one and step four are the same tests. You get a before and an after, not an assurance.

  1. 01

    Audit

    Lighthouse and field vitals, a full crawl, response headers, plugin and user inventory, analytics and consent state. Written down before anything is touched.

  2. 02

    Scope

    What I will do, what I will not, what it costs and what I need from you. Fixed and in writing. Surprises are a planning failure, not a line item.

  3. 03

    Build

    In your accounts and the platform you already use. Staged first, reviewed by you, released with redirects and monitoring ready.

  4. 04

    Re-measure

    The step-one tests, run again, side by side. If a number did not move, I say so and we look at why.

  5. 05

    Hand over

    Admin access, documentation, and a recorded walkthrough of what changed. You should be able to replace me without pain.

§08 — Contact

Send me the site and the problem.

Give me the URL and one sentence on what is going wrong: slow, not ranking, hacked, unmaintainable, or just old. You get a plain diagnosis and a suggested next step, not a brochure.

Start an audit→