My traffic stinks

1k seo course? Unless its face to face you got ripped, plus it sounds full of upsells/affiliate sales as well!

Seo isnt really that hard. Whats the ballpark stats for what your trying to rank (eg [exact] monthly search volume, top 10 competition, broad niche)? If you have monitoring software, what type and what does it have to say about the difficulty (eg traffic travis will say 'medium difficult' 'easy' etc)

Most of the keywords i see people spending months building crappy links for could be ranked in a week with $50 spent on the right services.

Carrot makes some good points. I hate to tell you but $1,000 could have gone a long way on very effective link building services. I'm seeing very good results with Build My Rank, despite what a lot of people say profile links are still very powerful if you're using the right outsourcers...

Quality content is #1, which is seems like you understand, the right on-page stuff which again it seems like you understand, but after that it's all about back links, and good ones. Submitting to a bunch of PR0 article directories isn't going to do anything unless they are getting syndicated on real sites- you'd be better off writing BMR posts, and using some of the highly-rated backlink services here on the warriors for hire section.

Wow! That's a lot of money for a course.

People get very complicated in their SEO techniques, but it really depends on how competitive your keywords are and how strong your competition. If you are targeting something difficult, then it will take every tactic in the book to get yourself ranked. That would really require outsourcing unless you have a lot of time.

If it's not an overly competitive keyword, then I think you just need to be more selective. Focus on quality over quantity, and relevant links.

More than that, however, don't rely on Google for your traffic! You'll ultimately get burned. Network where your market is, whether its forums, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube or elsewhere. Those are great links, sure. But the real value is in building traffic directly from sites like those.

Going back to your course, I'd also say that you should try to evaluate just how profitable you think your blog can be. If you're going to have to invest a lot in SEO outsourcing or your own time, it better be worthwhile. Otherwise, there are many other niches out there.

Yes .. you are being jacked around and it is really not that hard

Definitely a high price for an SEO course where it doesn't seem to be delivering. I can't really speak to that though without knowing more. Regardless, you need traffic!

Are you only wanting to focus on SEO, or are you just looking for ways to generate more traffic period? Give me some more insight..

Add me on skype too, I'd be more than willing to help you get some traffic!

dennismw25

I hate to tell you but have to side with everyone here in saying that you got ripped off! Sorry! You could have invested that money into a company to do the work for you. And a lot of it. Especially if you shop around here on the WSO your money can go a long way. Check it out.

Spent 1k for seo course not a great thing to do!

for 1k you could've paid for your sites seo and you could've been making good money by now

Take my word for it....Dont worry so much about seo!!!

SEO CAN ONLY GET YOU SO FAR......some niches it gets you nowhere and in some niches you live and die by it. Imo I would much rather build my traffic in more reliable ways that wont F me if google wakes up on the wrong side of the bed one morning

Honestly if you cant network in at least a minimal way in your niche that is a niche not worth being in

I am building a new blog now and it will be launched in mid FEB. I will tell you exactly how I will build my traffic

VIRAL

I will be running 2 different viral scripts on my blog. Hopefully every 1 visitor will turn into 3 and build from that.

On top of that I will be using youtube to advertise my site..... WIll I be making my own videos YES..... But is that what will be getting me traffic NO (well I hope it will but its not what I am banking on )

I am building connections with much higher people in the food chain in my niche on youtube and getting them to advertise for me.....how I am doing so is a little secret

But if everything goes as planned I could have 40,000 unique eyes on my site that I wouldnt have had

and lets not forget about the viral component.

The traffic that I already would have would hopefully give me 3 people for every 1 (honestly it will be more...but its just a simple number for the example).....Now throw in the youtube connections traffic.

This is a much more reliable way to go about gaining traffic. You are DIRECTLY DEALING WITH PEOPLE...ACTUAL PEOPLE

With SEO you are dealing with a theory.....A theory that you will rank for what you want to.....A theory that they will search for that phrase.....A theory that they will click on your site

Sorry but thats too many variables for me...My focus is better spent doing other things

You have your plugins....you have your on site seo...Just stop there and just do the other stuff you are talking about every once in a while

I have spent about $400 (hosting and all) and I feel like I have what I need to take off like a rocket once I launch my blog...

If I had another $600 I would drop $200 on ppc and use the rest on more viral tactics

I would much rather deal with tangible people than intangible google bots....I dont even know if i used tangible and intangible correctly there but u get my point lol

and if the course is a year long I would see if i could get a refund lol

what exactly COULD THEY TEACH YOU that would take a full year?

NOTHING

H3LL in a full year you could learn the meat of information from the top 10 Internet marketers and probably a SEO guy...again the meat

what exactly are you doing in this 1 yr span? If you are spending a lot of time sitting on your butt than see if you can get your cash back now! It will only be a detriment to you and in the end will waste a year of your time.

To give you a reference, Frank Kerns courses (over $1000) are around the 4 week span

He more than likely is jacking around with you. Is this course dripping content over a period of time? If so he is probably trying to stall for something

What niche are you in?

Are you a Guru in that niche? If not either;

- become a Guru,
- change niches to something where you know you are a Guru;
- or join someone who is an Guru and sell their expertise.

If you were a Guru in your niche - traffic will find you. You won't need to find it.

Honestly, spend 2-3 hours/day reading posts in this particular forum (SEO, Adsense...) for 10 days. I worked at a search engine marketing agency for 3.5 years and have already learned more in here in the past week. It's crazy.

And how bout that So Cal weather?! It's been incredible here lately!

One piece of advice I'd give you is to also focus on email marketing. Create a free mailchimp.com account, offer a giveaway, free ebook or something, and build a list to mail out on a regular basis. This won't necessarily help your SEO, but it'll keep bringing traffic. And if your readers enjoy your articles, they'll post backlinks fro you when they share your content.

Good luck!

what???? 1K for an SEO course? WTF! that's no joke right?

NetLady, you've been stole, now you are wondering why you didn't find this forum before buy any course. I've been there too.
Here you've gonna find loads of info(for free), try to focus in 1 thing first and then move on.
The first thing I'd do is learn how to find profitable keywords with low competition(if you don't know how to do that, you go nowhere),fact.
Then learn SEO,off page thing, you will find many services around here.
I think you're going too ahead, forget mail list, don't spend money with autoreponders yet.
...Yeah, get ready to spend more money too, but on the right services and programs

Regards,

You might want to diversify your backlinks. Obviouslly the contexal type backlinks that you are using are good, but a natural looking site in google's eyes would have more than that. Try web 2.0 properties. Blog comments, Forum profiles. Etc.

Step 1: Demand a refund from the SEO course.
Step 2: Repeat step 1.

How are you going about finding the KW's for your articles and knowing what to write about once found?

Here's the best advice in this thread..ready?

Give up. Not in marketing but in this niche. At least for now. Go back to keyword research and start building something that will bring a return. Once you do that then you can invest in trying to rank your competitive niche.

Also, who cares how much time you've invested. Take a long hard look at whether you should give up. That's an important part of being a successful marketer. Identifying when you should give up.

The problem is you don't have the experience to know when that is yet. That is why advice to set it aside and start from the beginning in a new niche. You are not learning anything with one sample size. You can't tell if anything is working. You need to cross reference information on a new niche.

Good luck.

Here's the best advice in this thread..ready?

Give up. Not in marketing but in this niche. At least for now. Go back to keyword research and start building something that will bring a return. Once you do that then you can invest in trying to rank your competitive niche.

Also, who cares how much time you've invested. Take a long hard look at whether you should give up. That's an important part of being a successful marketer. Identifying when you should give up.

The problem is you don't have the experience to know when that is yet. That is why advice to set it aside and start from the beginning in a new niche. You are not learning anything with one sample size. You can't tell if anything is working. You need to cross reference information on a new niche.

Good luck.

It seems that the amount of money you put out for the SEO course is out of line. The answer to your question is in plain sight. I believe that this course is way over priced for what is promised to deliver.

There is no hard and fast rule to SEO, I think best way to learn SEO is to gather info over the net and try to implement it.