It wasn't written for search.

Nobody googles titles like 'what I learnt'

The blog post shares every single insight I learnt reviewing landing pages and running my business without any SEO implemented at all.

Ignore the haters. They don't have anything better to do. It's a great article and I found it really useful!

Bookmarked, on the assumption that you were right.

Did I miss the data that backs up your assertions that the improvements were effective?

This used to be the case but Google is getting much better at understanding topics and how they relate to each other. These days, writing good quality content that is comprehensive is best for humans and Google. Sure there is some gaming of the system but it's not like it used to be

It's way worse now.