What else should I do?

SEO Executive said:

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?

Click to expand...

I'd say everything. No new rankings improvements without new link building. Same with traffic and conversions.

reznev799 said:

I'd say everything. No new rankings improvements without new link building. Same with traffic and conversions.

Click to expand...

Are sales flat, or is the conversion rate also poor? I’d compare pages receiving new links with similar untouched pages, then check whether the gains last and the extra sales justify the spend.

CTR on Google Ads is almost 10%. Conversions also good in my opinion. 33-50% of the phone calls end with a contract. If they don't, it's because the "price is too much" and they didn't check the landng page (they land and call without reading anything else...).
Everything not from Google Ads is very bad or nonexistent. Link building conversions are a bit better because they usually read calmly, but financially speaking it's not worth the expense.

reznev799 said:

Financial services. Investing. Financial advisor.

Click to expand...

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

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.

Interested!

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

Click to expand...

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".