What I'd do if I didn't know where to invest my money and was just starting out

BHW used to have a lot of threads about "if you had $500 to invest, what would you do with it?" so I'm going to try to address all of those questions.

This is going to be a short post, but basically I'd hire an experienced expert in your field of interest by booking a 15-20 minute call with them.

Consulting directory: https://clarity.fm

For example, Nick, founder of one of the top 10 ranking blogs for "seo blogs" on Google knows his way around SEO. He costs $5 per minute. 20 minutes, that's $100 and he'd answer every question you've ever had about your SEO uncertainty.

Thomas Smale also has a profile there among other experts.

Instead of putting $100 towards a couple micro niche sites in the BST section, spend some money on educating yourself first. There's a lot of garbage info out there, and it's hard to trust. Call an expert in their field, and ask them your questions.

I think a lot of people don't invest in themselves as much as they should.

Couldn't agree more. Forum reading should definitely be supplemented with other forms of education

Another example = investing in a course

I would only hire a consultant for deep deep questions, but for someone new to the seo world that would probably ask things like what's a backlink or how to do onpage seo properly I wouldn't recommend it. You can find that kind of info here for free.
Just my opinion.

Buying knowledge is one of the best things you can do to get ahead in any field.

Imagine if Mike Tyson was your boxing instructor, how good you would be at boxing?

Imagine if like OP said, you hired a SEO guru, how good you would be at SEO?

Stop being cheap and pay to play.

Paying a little bit of $$ upfront is going to be a lot cheaper in the long run than doing it yourself and failing for weeks/months/years.