What else should I do?

Hey guys, here's what I've already done for my digital project:

• Hundreds of articles in the last years, with 3 authors publishing weekly (€500/month).
• Authoritative and exact-niche backlinks (€10k+ spent in the last 12 months).
• Random web directories and similar backlinks (also comment posting, MANUAL, by me).
• Google Business Profile, posting daily.
• Bing Places and Yandex Business profiles actives.
• Google, Bing and Yandex Webmaster Tools.
• Automated random article posting on LinkedIn (30k followers) and Twitter (5k followers).
• YouTube channel with 1 video per week.
• Volunteer work, earning links from the organizations' websites.
• Indexing service to get missing pages indexed (a few hundred euros spent).
• Tried Instagram, TikTok, etc. but it's bad because you need to pay to have results and the prospects are very bad.

What else would you try, especially on the black hat SEO side?

I'm looking for unconventional tactics, automation ideas and advanced strategies that could give my project an edge. No basic SEO advice, please.

What am I missing?

For digital products, It's better to go all-in on Paid Ads and track ROAS

reznev799 said:

Hey guys, here's what I've already done for my digital project:

• Hundreds of articles in the last years, with 3 authors publishing weekly (€500/month).
• Authoritative and exact-niche backlinks (€10k+ spent in the last 12 months).
• Random web directories and similar backlinks (also comment posting, MANUAL, by me).
• Google Business Profile, posting daily.
• Bing Places and Yandex Business profiles actives.
• Google, Bing and Yandex Webmaster Tools.
• Automated random article posting on LinkedIn (30k followers) and Twitter (5k followers).
• YouTube channel with 1 video per week.
• Volunteer work, earning links from the organizations' websites.
• Indexing service to get missing pages indexed (a few hundred euros spent).
• Tried Instagram, TikTok, etc. but it's bad because you need to pay to have results and the prospects are very bad.

What else would you try, especially on the black hat SEO side?

I'm looking for unconventional tactics, automation ideas and advanced strategies that could give my project an edge. No basic SEO advice, please.

What am I missing?

Click to expand...

Focus on what’s already bringing results and double down on those pages and links.

Oh yes Google Ads is the BEST in my case, but I was looking for something else.

Your an amateur noob thats all. 1 video a week yeah sure... I posted a channel i found that has over 1 million subs, and they done 1 video a week for 19 years, its hand drawn animations. lol lets see you scale up your time factors, and pursue what will actually make money.

You got lots of experiance, you should sit down and have a drink or a smoke for a while on what will be a good use of your talents. Only YOU have the unique perspective you do, we can't know all you know for real.

For a long while i done the same, i jumped many things until i decided more on a mission and strategy for all that i enjoyed doing, and figured out with a vision how i could bring it all to life over a period of time. Now i'm hyper forcused on one thing the meat and bones, and everything else gets time yes, but its not wasted, its consolodated, and done quick so i can get back to the main event.

Success lies on the far side of failure, so if you have actually failed at a lot of stuff, and put in the hours doing it, you can come out on the other side with a final perfect take of your new working plans.

...what?

HustleTong said:

For digital products, It's better to go all-in on Paid Ads and track ROAS

Click to expand...

Facebook or Google ads though?

In my case it's Google Ads and it's working very well, but I was looking for something else.

No ideas guys?

Well @reznev799 what is your outcome results for the efforts you made earlier.

Speaking of Google Ads, they’re working well. If I spend X every month, I generate X in revenue each month. The service I sell is billed annually, so in my opinion, it’s a good investment. I don’t make the money back immediately, but I do after the first year and these clients usually stay with me for life.

Everything else has been inconclusive at best, or downright disappointing.
Link building, for example, is way too expensive. If I spend, say, 10,000, I might generate just 2,000 in return. I feel like it’s still a must in the long run (over a 10 year horizon. I'm "young" and I want to continue for the next 20-30 years), but it’s draining my finances badly in the meantime.
Social media: basically nothing. I get a lot of inquiries, but I end up spending time talking to people about nothing and I’m not making any sales.
Everything else has cost me very little in terms of money (just time) and produced absolutely nothing.

I feel like Google Ads can't be my only source of income.
And link building can't be my only 2nd choice (especially considering the financial results).

Start affiliate, offer users to earn credits on referring to others, this can help you gain real and returning customers.

You’ve already covered most SEO basics, so I’d focus on competitor link gaps, programmatic SEO based on real search demand and automating internal link optimization.

I’d also test digital PR and linkable assets rather than spending more on random backlinks.

You've done a great job! Maybe you should think more about guests posts, potential partnership with services and other. You can automation searching and communication there.

Have you tried testing CTR manipulation to improve rankings on your most important pages

Have you considered Reddit?

maxobom said:

Start affiliate, offer users to earn credits on referring to others, this can help you gain real and returning customers.

Click to expand...

I’ve tried, but it didn’t work out. Financial services are heavily regulated and the law is quite strict. It’s not impossible, but it’s extremely difficult and simply not worth it for affiliates. I do offer discounts to clients who refer new clients to me though. That’s not entirely above board from a regulatory standpoint either, but I do it anyway and unfortunately it hasn’t been very effective.

WickednDivine said:

You’ve already covered most SEO basics, so I’d focus on competitor link gaps, programmatic SEO based on real search demand and automating internal link optimization.

I’d also test digital PR and linkable assets rather than spending more on random backlinks.

Click to expand...

What do you mean by programmatic SEO? I’m not sure I understand. I already have internal link building in place, but it’s done automatically only to a certain extent. I use a WordPress plugin that automatically inserts a link whenever a specific word or phrase appears in the text. Could you recommend a plugin that would automate internal linking more effectively?

Haleifh15 said:

You've done a great job! Maybe you should think more about guests posts, potential partnership with services and other. You can automation searching and communication there.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I'm investing in guest posts as part of my link building strategy and I've already spent quite a lot on them. I'll be investing another 5.000€ or more over the next few months, but so far I haven't seen much of a return on that investment. I've also explored partnerships and a few people have approached me with proposals, but nothing has come of them in the end. People just didn't seem interested. What exactly do you mean by automating prospecting and outreach?

Tiger pro said:

Have you tried testing CTR manipulation to improve rankings on your most important pages

Click to expand...

Nope! How can I? This is something I'll try for sure now!

opkzzz said:

Have you considered Reddit?

Click to expand...

Yep. I tried that for a full year. It was terrible. They managed the ads themselves and the results were extremely disappointing. Organic traffic was pretty much the same story as social media. I helped people in several relevant communities, but nothing ever came of it. Just a lot of talk, people trying to take advantage of me and people looking for free consultations. I still post and stay active on those platforms, but mainly to get cited by AI tools and drive some traffic from social media.

Can you share some more on digital project info / niche to understand if is it still competent in AI era? Most of SaaS is collapsing my friend. People prefer peronalized code/etc..

I think you are spending too much on ads/seo/link building, but if you are able break-even their leads it should be fine.

hent said:

Can you share some more on digital project info / niche to understand if is it still competent in AI era? Most of SaaS is collapsing my friend. People prefer peronalized code/etc..

I think you are spending too much on ads/seo/link building, but if you are able break-even their leads it should be fine.

Click to expand...

Financial services. Investing. Financial advisor.

I’d automate GSC reports to flag valuable queries ranking 8–20, then test changes on a small page group against untouched pages. What’s actually stalled: rankings, qualified traffic or conversions?