Today on the Content Hacker™ blog, I’m passing the mic over to one of my students: Monique Muro. 🎤 She’s a graduate of my Expert SEO Content Writer Course. This is written by her. In no way did I pay Monique for this endorsement. These are her honest thoughts as a student of my SEO writing course. Her story is amazing. Enjoy!
My name is Monique. I review online courses at Proof Mango, to help course creators feel more confident in their course when it’s time to sell it.
But back in 2018, when I was just starting my course review business, I didn’t know what the best method was to attract leads and clients.
I decided to attend Social Media Marketing World to learn how to grow my business, and at one of the sessions, one of the speakers said:
“The fastest way to a million dollars? Solve one problem, with one solution, and one traffic source.”
I took that advice to heart.
Having been a writer and blogger since about 2009, I decided my “one” traffic source would be organic traffic from Google. I would write for the rankings and grow my business by writing valuable content that people would love, so I could build trust.
It was around this time that I’d discovered Julia McCoy’s business, Express Writers. I attended a few of her Twitter chats, subscribed to her list, and even won her Practical Content Strategy & Marketing book in a Twitter chat!
I started obsessing over how I could rank in Google, and I kept fantasizing about getting organic traffic without having to work so hard for it.
Later that year, Julia was launching her SEO Content Writing course, so I figured I could learn a thing or two from someone who had seen so much success with her content.
In September 2018, when I bought Julia’s course, I had zero everything.
Zero subscribers (aside from mom, thanks mom!), zero traffic, and zero clients. I guess you could say I was at square one.
But Julia had always said that SEO was a long game and it would take time to see results, so I saddled up and told myself this would all pay off in the end. (And it did.)
Looking for mentorship that will change and transform your business goals, touching all aspects of growth including your content skills? Check out our Content Transformation System, enrolling now.
Committing to The Expert SEO Content Writer Pathway: Going Long-Term
I wrote one blog post a week from September – December 2018 using Julia’s strategies. Each post was a long, well-researched, high-value post, with the aim of helping people walk away with something actionable they could do to make their course better.
My traffic stayed flat the entire time, but one night on October 2nd, I got my very first organic subscriber.
Someone had found me somehow, without me doing anything! This was proof that something was working, and it gave me momentum to keep going.
Then, on December 2nd, someone found me on BuzzSumo, the content discovery platform, and found my content so engaging, they booked a call and wanted to discuss a partnership.
What! This was magic! I kept going.
By January 2019, I was a little burnt out from writing so much content, so I scaled back to 2 blog posts a month. The content was just as valuable, but I wasn’t publishing as often.
But from January 2019 – March 2019, everything started to change.
I went from zero everything, to 1-3 web visitors a week. Not life changing, but I was thrilled that somehow I was getting found. Especially starting at ZERO!
By April 2019, I was getting about 5-8 web visitors per week, and a couple of new organic subscribers per month. This was HUGE for someone who had been used to zero everything for months.
May 2019 is when I started realizing my work was FINALLY paying off. At this point it had been 8 months since I published my first post using Julia’s SEO content writing technique. I was getting close to 17 visitors per week to my site, and I’d gotten my highest number of subscribers in one month at that point — FIVE!
And? My traffic started to float, meaning even though the incoming traffic was still small, it was steady. I wasn’t seeing those huge up and down spikes of traffic that come from promoting one post every couple of weeks. My traffic was consistent and steady, even on days I didn’t promote it.
Things only got better from there.
By the next couple of months, I was getting 20-40 visitors a week, and at least 6 subscribers per month.
Then, around this time, I decided to stop blogging as much, and took about a month and a half off from writing blog posts to focus on other areas of my business — and my traffic continued to climb.
From September – December 2019, I was getting consistent volume and subscribers without doing a thing.
I was getting on average 50 web visitors a week, and at least 12 subscribers a month.
Note: I literally STOPPED blogging from September 2019 to June 2020, and my traffic and subscribers kept growing month over month.
But here’s where things got out of control, in the best way possible.
By March 2020, right when COVID started taking its hold, my traffic literally exploded. I went from getting about 20-40 users per week, to over 200 users per week.
I attribute this to the flood of people who were now forced to teach online. I had been writing about the best methods to welcome your students online, and give them a great learning experience, and it met the need of online teachers everywhere.
600 Organic SEO Visitors in One Day!
By the end of May 2020, I got 600 visitors to my site in one day.
That was so insane, my jaw literally dropped. Who would have thought an average person like me, who never really understood SEO, would get that much traffic in one day, ever?
As of right now, I’m getting a steady 300-400 people to my site PER DAY. And I’m publishing a blog post about once per month.
As far as subscribers, I’m getting about 35 new subscribers each month, with that number growing month over month. Here’s a graphic of my journey to date, from Google Analytics:
And just for fun, here’s what my subscriber growth has looked like over the same amount of time:
I now have a flood of people interested in online courses flooding my site daily, which is exactly my target audience.
I’ve been able to engage with them via email, and nurture them, which has led to great relationships and interest in my service.
It’s so hard to build relationships with people who aren’t on your email list, so the fact that Julia’s techniques put me in a position to attract the right audience and build relationships with them via email without having to work so hard, is amazing.
The two biggest things that helped me in Julia’s Expert SEO Content Writer course were:
- Her blog content templates
- The recording of her editing a blog post for SEO, from one of her writers
First off, her blog content templates are fire. Julia offers blog content templates for two types of blog posts: Brand Awareness and Long-Form SEO.
These are like magic formulas that help you structure your blog posts for SEO success. I followed them exactly as she instructed, so I could not only provide the most valuable and educational content in my niche, but also so Google would recognize me!
I now strive to follow this formula for every single blog post I publish.
Next, the recording of her editing a blog post in real time helped me create the mindset I needed to be able to craft content that was authoritative and trustworthy.
Because she did live rewrites of so-so copy, I was able to see how I could make my writing better.
Instead of just telling me what I needed to do, she showed me how to do it.
As an online course reviewer, I can tell you, that is the mark of a great course!
I personally recommend the Expert SEO Content Writer course for these three reasons:
- It breaks down confusing SEO concepts into doable action items
- It uses simple templates to plug-and-play so your content can index higher in search results
- It teaches you the value of building a repository of content that works for you long after you’ve stopped working on it
SEO is a long game, but it’s worth playing. If you put in the time and effort up front, you’ll get way more leads and traffic over time, spending less money than you would paying for ads.
Creating high-value content allows you to create trust with your audience, which is the one thing they need from you to buy your product or service. And when that content is found easily by someone looking for it? You’ve pretty much struck gold.
Julia McCoy makes all of this super easy, even for someone like me, who wasn’t thrilled about SEO at the outset. If I can do it, YOU can do it, too.
Thank you, Monique, for sharing your amazing story, and for putting in the work. That’s the hardest part! ❤️
Are YOU ready to take the plunge and learn the art of SEO writing? Join us here!
Additionally, if you’re looking to grow your business skills beyond content alone, consider our 5-phase hands-on mentorship with live coaching. Build the strategy, skills and systems you need to exponentially grow online.
