What else should I do?

reznev799 said:
Financial services. Investing. Financial advisor.
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Thanks, not much expertise there.

Given the amount of money you are putting along with weekly youtube videos, I suspect you are fighting against some top players in that space.

I think you are probably getting many clicks but they are not converting.

SEO is one side to get clicks, other side is adding heavy google analytics / fine grained events to analyze traffic funnels - specially paid clicks to understand where yu are losing.

Some of the users could be useless people - with low buy intent / accidentally landed that you can try to omit out of google ads,
Some might have the buy intent but got turned off somewhere on your site
 
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hent said:
Thanks, not much expertise there.

Given the amount of money you are putting along with weekly youtube videos, I suspect you are fighting against some top players in that space.

I think you are probably getting many clicks but they are not converting.

SEO is one side to get clicks, other side is adding heavy google analytics / fine grained events to analyze traffic funnels - specially paid clicks to understand where yu are losing.

Some of the users could be useless people - with low buy intent / accidentally landed that you can try to omit out of google ads,
Some might have the buy intent but got turned off somewhere on your site
Click to expand...
Oh yes! There are 2 major players in my space, but they are companies, whereas I’m an independent professional. I see them more as cousins than brothers.
People looking for a company aren’t necessarily looking for me and vice versa. Banks are another competitor, but they provide financial advice with conflicts of interest, while I don’t. Again: cousins.

One of those companies reportedly spends 60.000€ a month on Google Ads (they tried to eliminate me as a competitor by offering me a job and that’s when they told me this figure. I’m not sure whether it’s accurate, but it sounds plausible), compared to less than 2.000 of me. Yet I still break even month after month, so I’m reasonably happy with that.
I’m sure scaling up Google Ads would make me happy, but I don’t want my business to depend entirely on it.

Honestly I suspect my main problem isn’t conversion but traffic. Despite my spending I struggle to get even 100 unique visitors a day. I can’t seem to increase it, despite everything I’ve already tried.

What’s your take? Do you think traffic is the real bottleneck?
 
Can't say, you already have done a lot of SEO work.

Do you want to reduce dependence on google's paid traffic / get more free google organic traffic/ get more bang for buck / get non-google traffic / something else?

Google is defacto way to connect to real buying audience in the western world.

Banks / Big brands kind of sit over people's heads by injecting crazy sums of money into commercials, banners, etc. It's like fighting google/bing in search space. That requires lot of work because these companies usually provided packaged solutions.
Not saying you should not challange them but its a long walk. It requires your product to be disruptive.
 
Sadly my service will never be truly disruptive.
I think I'll end up sticking to Google Ads and link building. Speaking of link building, I'm now almost #1 on Google for my main keyword, which drives pretty much all of my qualified traffic (perhaps luckily so).
Still it makes me sad to think that Google Ads and link building are pretty much the only strategies I can rely on to generate good returns.

I really appreciate your help.
 
For queries you are already #1 - you can exclude them from ads and save some money.

Best luck
 
Since Google Ads converts, i'd take one converting query cluster and test two useful support sites, capped at ten comparison/troubleshooting pages total. Automate drafts from checked product data and publishing after review there, then a small relevant lower-tier link campaign with GSA SER aimed at those support pages, not your main site. Fixed budget. Measure actual indexed support pages and tagged referral leads against cost, not submission totals. Tiers aren't penalty protection; treat it as a test.
 
You can check whether the authoritative, exact niche backlinks you bought are indexed by Google and whether they’re ********.

Analyze, which pages bring in traffic and conversions. Update those existing pages and optimize the internal linking. It will help you. Also, try relevant listicle placements, digital PR, and brand mentions to improve visibility in Google and AI search.
 
Ngl the numbers you posted tell me the problem isn't more channels, it's whether the money comes back. €10k on links for €2k back is a bad ratio, and it's hard to say what's working when you're running 5 things at once
 
BinarySeo said:
Ngl the numbers you posted tell me the problem isn't more channels, it's whether the money comes back. €10k on links for €2k back is a bad ratio, and it's hard to say what's working when you're running 5 things at once
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What's running is Google Ads. If I turn it off, I've zero contacts and sales. Almost literally. -90%.
If I turn it on. I immediately begin again to have contacts and sales.
The problem is that I don't want to rely on Google Ads forever and I was looking for something else :-(
 
With that much invested, I'd stop adding tactics and audit what's actually producing leads. Look for pages ranking just outside the top positions, improve conversion paths, and analyze competitor content gaps. More backlinks and automation won't help much if the bottleneck is elsewhere.
 
I did it. Sadly it's Good Ads. Nothing else is giving results.
Link building is #2, but it's not worth the investment.
This is why I was looking for something else. I want to try more "tacticts".
 
Honestly breaking even on under 2k a month while the other guy burns 60k isnt a bad spot at all lol.
 
BinarySeo said:
Honestly breaking even on under 2k a month while the other guy burns 60k isnt a bad spot at all lol.
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Oh yes! For sure. But they're doing the same I suppose. They work on the whole country, while I do it in a little radious of not even 50 km.
 
with that level of content and link spend the issue is probably topical authority gaps or cannibalization. worth running a crawl and checking how many of your articles compete for the same keywords internally. also check if your money pages are actually getting any of the link equity or if it's all flowing to blog posts.
 
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?
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Just buy more high quality backlinks. $10k in 12 months is low, there are do follow links worth 8k-9k each from +90DA with high traffic.
 
At this stage focus on analyzing competitors backlink gaps and testing expired domains carefully also review which existing pages actually convert rather than investing more in automation without clear ROI.
 
Marshall123 said:
Have you considered Reddit? :)
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Yep. Did and doing it. Almost no results and the few were a huge waste of time. Good for AI and probably ranking the home and the main keyword, but I'm not sure.
 
I’d say keep exploring the forum, read discussions in your niche, share what you know, and learn from experienced members. Stay active and follow the community rules. You’ll pick up a lot along the way! 👍
 
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