Way back in February, I was chatting with my blogger friend Claudia (from Two Cup House). I was talking about how I wanted to start a new guest series called the Roth IRA Challenge and how she should be the first one to take the challenge. She agreed and said she and Garrett (her husband) were working on a new, online course and asked if I would take it and give feedback.
In February, I knew that SEO stood for Search Engine Optimization and had something to do with getting people to be able to Google your website better. Yeah. I would say I started at level 0 (maybe 0.1 if you give me credit for knowing what SEO stood for!). I had tried Googling things like “how to SEO your WordPress site” and I installed Yoast (an SEO plugin) here at Northern Expenditure, but didn’t do anything with it (secretly, I hoped it was magic and it worked entirely on its own).
The course is called SEO Audit Guide and is an amazing resource. Claudia and Garrett are real SEO specialists. They work in SEO full time, hustle in SEO after hours, and have decided to expound their knowledge to level zeros like me!
There are 2 different packages of the course available:
- Package 2 – $189 – This package is for a site-owner. It shows you how to perform an SEO audit on your own site (including things like: page load speed, whether there is malicious software on your site, whether your site is mobile-friendly, etc.). Each step is incredibly detailed and easy to follow. If you’re looking to take your website or blog to the next level, you need to learn about SEO, and $189 will save you hundreds of dollars over hiring someone to perform an SEO audit for you. (And you learn how to use Yoast!)
- Package 1 – $389 – This is the same course as Package 2, but includes all the tools necessary to launch an SEO side hustle: an SEO audit template to send to clients, access to the SEO Audit Guide Facebook page with job leads, and advice on how to find your own clients.
I spent a solid weekend taking the Package 1 course. As a course-reviewer, I asked all the dumb questions! Claudia and Garrett updated the course (or should I say “dumbed it down” from a level 2 to a level 0!) so even I could understand every single aspect. I started the course as a favor for a friend, but actually emerged feeling pretty confident in my SEO capabilities (and plan to start work on Northern Expenditure at the end of the summer!).
Claudia messaged me that she had an SEO audit lead. It wasn’t the first SEO audit (which would have paid around $1000!), but I would be performing a follow-up SEO audit. A month after completing the course, I made $525 as an SEO specialist (which you’ll see in my May plan update) on just one follow-up SEO audit! That means you can make your course money back in SEO side hustle revenue in just one project!
I am a researcher by profession, which involves a lot of thinking, studying, and hardly any projects that can ever be considered “done” (research is very fluid… you can always research something MORE). I like SEO work because it’s so different from that. The course walks you through everything step by step. When you’re finished with a step, you’re done! You move on! Performing an SEO audit is like a giant checklist. Once you check all the boxes, you actually know you’re done!
I’m not saying the course is for everyone (maybe you don’t care to SEO your site, don’t have a site, or aren’t looking for a new side hustle), but I can tell you honestly that I knew nothing when I started the course and have now successfully made over $500 doing SEO work for someone else! The whole process has made me rethink everything! Anything is possible! I can learn anything! Isn’t that exciting?
Have any of you taken the SEO Audit Guide Course? What are your experiences?
After thoroughly enjoying the course (which I did not anticipate) and after making my first SEO paycheck, I joined the course’s affiliate program because it really is awesome!
believefire
Wow, really cool! We’re newbie bloggers and could definitely benefit from SEO help. The side hustle aspect is very intriguing as well.
MaggieBanks
I’m telling you that I knew exactly nothing when I started the course. Now I know all the (many) things I need to do on my own site! 🙂
thejollyledger
I have wondered about this course…but I don’t think I am ready yet. Thanks for reviewing, I will put in in my to-do list!
MaggieBanks
I’m not ready to start implementing, so I’m with you. Probably toward the end of the summer… 🙂
Tawcan
Haven’t heard about this court, can’t say I know much about SEO. Do you find it helping with your search engine traffic at all?
MaggieBanks
I haven’t made many SEO changes to my own blog yet. But now that I understand SEO better, I can definitely see how several changes could impact search traffic. I’m sure I’ll write an update as I start updating the site toward the end of the summer (after the upcoming trip!). It usually takes SEO updates a few months to make an impact, so maybe by the end of the year (if I start improving in August), I’ll see results. It’s definitely a long-term aid.
Harmony Smith (@CMK_Harmony)
Awesome! How long did it take you to do the audit. I have to imagine that it ended up being a really good hourly rate.
MaggieBanks
It ended up being about $75/hour!
our next life
What great results! We’re still on WordPress.com, which doesn’t allow any additional plugins, and so I’m doing my best to limp along with SEO in the alt tags and just the basic body copy. I’m sure there’s tons more we could be doing, but not sure how many options there are until we upgrade to self-hosted.
MaggieBanks
Our blog has a LOT of SEO work to do! 🙂 But again, since I’m not really pegging it to be a big money maker, I’ll probably just make slow changes over the next year.
Dividendsdownunder
Very interesting Maggie, please keep us updated on this as it sounds very interesting. I’d be very interested to know how your SEO changes and what you do and what results it gets. We have made adjustments to our blog as times has gone on, so that things are more ‘googleable’, particularly with tags. Thanks for sharing Maggie, you should charge them an advertising fee..haha.
Tristan
MaggieBanks
I’ll definitely discuss any SEO changes that make a major impact on the blog. Again, SEO is a long game… it takes awhile to implement the changes and for them to make a difference in traffic.
Steven Adams
I recently found out about the SEO course and am thinking about signing up for it. Now that it’s over a year since you posted this entry, how has your SEO work been since then?
MaggieBanks
We really haven’t jumped all in like we could (especially with the help of Claudia and the Facebook group), but we’ve dabbled here and there over the past year and made a few thousand dollars. If you’re really ready to start pitching your services, the possibilities are much, much greater (that’s the part that always stops us from being awesome… we HATE pitching or selling ourselves and our capabilities).