You know that moment when you're trying to figure out if your friend in Tokyo is asleep or if it's a good time to ping your teammate in Berlin? I got tired of doing the mental math or opening Google every single time.

So I built whattimeisit.io.

But here's the thing - I didn't just build it to solve my problem. I saw an opportunity to run a real experiment with programmatic SEO while creating something genuinely useful. This is the story of how I built it, why I structured it the way I did, and what I'm learning from it.

How it started

Honestly, it started as a personal itch. I have friends scattered across timezones and work with people in different countries. The simple question "what time is it in New York?" was annoying enough that I wanted something dead simple to answer it.

Not a calendar integration. Not a scheduling tool. Just: show me the time where my people are, right now. Add some visual context so I know if it's the middle of their night or if they're probably at lunch. That's it.

But as I started thinking about building it, I realized something: this could be more than just a personal tool.

The SEO opportunity I couldn't ignore

People search for "what time is it in Tokyo" or "current time in Berlin" constantly. I'm talking hundreds of thousands of searches per month across all cities and countries. And most results are either generic time converters or Google's built-in widget.

What if I could:

Build 350+ location-specific pages covering major cities and regions
Make each page actually useful (not just SEO spam)
Capture that search traffic organically
Use it to drive backlinks to my other projects like testagent.io and derdidas.wtf

This wasn't just about the tool anymore. It was about testing whether programmatic SEO still works in 2025, whether search traffic converts to users, and whether I could build something that serves both purposes without compromising on either.

So I leaned into both. Build something I'd actually use while playing the long game with content strategy.

The technical execution

I wanted to move fast and keep it simple, so I made some deliberate choices:

Pure vanilla JavaScript

No React. No Next.js. No build pipeline. Just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript using the browser's Intl API for timezone handling.

Why? Because I didn't need the complexity. The tool is entirely client-side, which means:

Zero hosting costs beyond static file serving
Instant load times
No backend to maintain
Works offline once loaded

350+ programmatically generated pages

I built location pages organized by region:

/usa/california.html, /usa/new-york.html
/europe/berlin.html, /europe/london.html
/asia/tokyo.html, /asia/singapore.html
And so on across Africa, Australia, South America, etc.

Each page targets long-tail keywords like "what time is it in California" while providing the full timezone tracker functionality. They're not doorway pages - they're legitimate landing pages with real utility.

SEO infrastructure that matters

I didn't cut corners on the technical SEO:

Proper meta tags: Title, description, robots, canonical URLs for each page
Schema.org markup: Structured data so Google understands what each page is about
Regional URL structure: Organized by geography for topical authority
Sitemap: 350+ URLs properly indexed and submitted
Real IANA timezone data: Because daylight saving time is real and I'm trying to not give anyone the wrong time

The interface

Clean and simple:

Add friends/colleagues with their timezones
See their current time updated every second
Visual indicators (🌅 morning, ☀️ day, 🌆 evening, 🌙 night) so you know if you're about to wake someone up
Time difference displays - no more mental math
Remove/rearrange as needed

I kept it free for personal use because that's how I use it.

The content vs. utility balance

This is the interesting tension I'm navigating.

I could have built 350 thin pages with just a clock widget and some filler text. That's what most SEO plays look like. But I wanted to thread the needle between "SEO content" and "useful tool."

Every single location page has the full timezone tracker. If someone lands on /asia/tokyo.html from Google, they get:

The current time in Tokyo
The ability to add Tokyo plus any other cities they track
A fully functional tool they can bookmark and use

So yes, it's SEO. But it's also genuinely useful. That's the only way I was comfortable building this.

The launch and reality check

I pushed it live in mid-October and launched on different platforms a few weeks later to get early feedback.

The response was... mixed, in a good way. Some people immediately got it and validated that yes, this is a convenient tool they'd use. Others questioned whether the market for "tracking friends' timezones" was big enough to be viable.

But here's the interesting part: multiple people suggested I pivot toward distributed teams and B2B instead of positioning it as a friends tool. The enterprise use case might be way bigger than the personal one.

I'm sitting with that feedback. Maybe there's something there. Maybe the B2B opportunity is the real play and I just happened to build the foundation by scratching my own personal itch first.

What I'm learning so far

A few weeks in, here's what I'm seeing:

SEO takes time: Pages are indexed, but ranking takes patience. I'm not expecting overnight results.
The personal use case is real: People do have this problem. Remote work made timezone confusion universal.
The B2B signal is loud: Multiple people independently suggested team features. That's not random.
Traffic patterns are revealing: I'm watching which pages get visits, how long people stay, whether they actually use the tool or bounce.
Building in public works: Sharing the process creates conversations that wouldn't happen otherwise.

The strategy

This fits into my broader approach: build projects (I can't tell you enough how much I love building things), use each one as an SEO and traffic experiment, link them together for compound growth, and learn in public.

Whattimeisit.io is one node in that network. It drives traffic, tests ideas, and exists as a useful tool on its own. If it takes off, great. If it stays small, I still solved my own problem and learned something about programmatic SEO.

Everything else is upside.

What's next

Right now I'm in observation mode. I'm giving it a few weeks to breathe, watching the data, and seeing if the patterns I'm noticing turn into real signals.

If the B2B feedback is real, I'll explore team workspaces path.

But I'm not rushing into that yet. First, I need to see if people actually use what's already there.

The thing about building in public is you don't really know what you have until you let people touch it.

So that's where I am. I built a thing I needed. I wrapped it in an SEO strategy. I shipped it. Now I'm watching what happens.

If you want to check it out: whattimeisit.io

Or find me on Twitter: @atbrakhi