Adventures In SEO Review + My Brutal Experience With Online Courses

Welcome to my Adventures In SEO review. Read about my super brutal experience with buying online courses and why Lena’s course is different than others. This post is long because I have had bad experiences with online courses before – but not this time! P.S. This post contains affiliate links.

bodyweight squats for the glutes — Hey, it’s Chantal, your favorite little fitness blogger!

Most people these days start blogs because they want to make money. But figuring out how to make money blogging is another story.

If you have been blogging for even TWO SECONDS, you know that there are a LOT of moving parts. There are always more things to try, more room for growth, more thresholds to cross.

Adventures in SEO was one of those thresholds for me.

<<CLICK TO CHECK OUT ADVENTURES IN SEO>>

I have owned and operated Ironwild Fitness for over two years now.

But before I started this blog, I had been a blogger for a couple of years on and off.

I’d successfully grown a few different blogs back when blogs were still easy to grow (think 2014). I’d seen pretty consistent growth and was making okay money with my old mom blog, but Ironwild Fitness struggled. (Click here to read a recent income report.)

While I reached 30,000 page views within a few months of operating my last mom blog, it took me a full two years to reach that with Ironwild Fitness.

And it wasn’t like I wasn’t trying.

Sure I’ve been inconsistent with this blog. But I certainly worked – and hard. I read every article, took every free email course, and was constantly tweaking things.

Related Reading: Why I Stopped Using Facebook & Instagram

But I still couldn’t hack it. My traffic was stalling anywhere between 7,000 and 17,000 page views per month. And it wasn’t consistent. Back in January 2018, I was SUPER jazzed just to have 9,641 page views!

Butttttt…. it wasn’t any better in June of 2019. Here I was stalling at that 10k mark:

Yep, my progress had stalled for over a year! To say that I needed help is a huge understatement. I needed help and I really wanted to give up. Heck, if I couldn’t get any decent traffic, I certainly couldn’t make much money. Right?

**My Adventures in SEO review is going to help you understand how I changed that after almost throwing in the towel.**

With a bank of over 100 posts, I was bringing in a tiny bit of traffic, and with that, a tiny little trickle of money. I’m talking about anywhere from about $50-150 per month. (Read some of my older income reports here.)

I knew that I was doing a few things wrong – like relying on sponsored opportunities and ads for a tiny bit of income.

But what didn’t help was that I didn’t know how to get traffic to my blog after Pinterest’s latest algorithm changes. Moreover, I didn’t really know a thing about Google SEO.

I thought that if I had the YOAST SEO plugin “in the green” for each post, that would be enough to get some traffic.

If you’re here, I probably don’t have to tell you just how WRONG I was about that one.

My Brutal Online Course Experience

If online courses were all affordable, no one would hesitate to buy them. I originally started a blog in 2014 because I was a broke stay-at-home mom that wanted to help out with income.

There was absolutely NO way that I could afford to spend even $50 on a blogging eBook. And there was NO WAY IN HECK I could spend a couple hundred on it.

I remember thinking to myself, “Shoot, I’ve taught myself so much about blogging for FREE. Why would I ever pay for anything when it’s all available to me online?”

But then I found myself in this situation where things were NOT budging. You saw that from my analytics.

I was at the point that I was investing so much time on my blog that if it didn’t pay off soon, I knew I had to quit.

Blogging was taking away from my health (there’s a lot of staring at screens) and I felt like it was also taking away from family time.

So fast forward to this year – my family sold our house. We made a little profit and decided not to buy another house for at least a few months, meaning that we didn’t have a mortgage any more.

I started to splurge on blogging tools a little bit. (Think Lightroom, a new theme, etc.)

Related Reading: Blog Income Report For April 2020

Then I stumbled upon this semi-random SEO course that made a lot of big promises. I went for it without thinking and without any research, which is totally unlike me.

via GIPHY

I know this is an Adventures in SEO review, but I HAVE to rant about this course for a bit.

This was a BIG fancy, FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAR course on SEO. It came from a guy who *supposedly* ran the SEO show at AirBNB, and his whole business is basically all about growing websites and making sales.

OMG.

You guys, I cannot tell you what a complete WASTE of time and money this garbage course was. I trusted this person who claimed to know a bunch of magic strategies on SEO (and at the end of the course you’re even “SEO certified!) but it just wasn’t a good course.

I’d just lost a LOT of money on a course that:

Wasn’t actionable at all.
Had a lot of personal ranting.
Was slightly offensive (a lot of cursing).
Didn’t feel professional.
Was filled with affiliate links to other products.
Didn’t help me with any major (or even minor) breakthroughs in traffic.

I am not going to sit here and bash any more, but I just want to let you know that you are completely RIGHT to be skeptical about a course or really, any investment in your business.

Back To The Adventures in SEO Review

I had read about Adventures in SEO for several months, and had wanted to take it, but for some reason I didn’t. Even though I’d been following Lena Gott for years, and even admired her as a blogger, I randomly went with this other course because of credentials. (Lena runs the successful mom blog, “What Mommy Does.”)

#Fail

I finally decided to take Adventures in Blogging when, on my birthday, Lena *just so happened* to open up enrollment for a few days.

It was like a sign!

And guess what?

It was a breath of fresh air to start learning who a blogger who understood my issues with Pinterest and Google. (And a mom like me, no less!)

But the best part?

Feeling like I was learning something NEW for once.

Not something fluffed up.

Definitely not something regurgitated.

And not something I had already figured out myself.

When Lena explained her “end of Pinterest” theory, I truly felt like I’d had an “a-ha” moment. Like wow. This makes so. much. sense.

I was so eager to implement what I’d learned that I’d kind of make tweaks and write new posts while going through the lessons. And even though I only finished the course about a month ago (meaning I still have a lot of work to do) there is a ton of improvement already.

I have consecutively broken my own traffic records (two months in a row now, and on track for another) since taking the course.

I was SO excited to bust my plateau and become “MediaVine eligible” in July:

Take a look at the next month (August 2019):

The numbers for August were super impressive for me and my little blog!

<<CLICK TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ADVENTURES IN SEO>>

But the BIG deal for me here is that usually when I have a spike in traffic, it doesn’t last. Sometimes I’ll have a Pin “go viral” and it does super-duper well for a week or two, then it just kind of drops off. Not this time!

My traffic has been pretty consistent rather than tapering off like usual. And with that, I have seen a little boost in income, too! (P.S. There is now a free trial of Adventures in SEO! Check out this amazing course here.)

Instead of selling *one* workout program per month (average), I sold FOUR in July.

And instead of having $5-10 in Amazon affiliate earnings, I had about $45 in August.

Plus, my ad revenue, while still small, is definitely higher.

What I Like About Adventures in SEO

Obviously, the increase in traffic is amazing. But as far as the course design and content, here’s what I really liked:

Tons of real-life examples from Lena.
Super actionable tips and strategies. (You won’t be left wondering how to do something. She will tell you step-by-step!)
PDFs of everything important.
Awesome bonuses.
A great FB support group.
No vague strategies here – only super specific ways to grow traffic!
The Pinterest + Google combo – learning how to dual optimize is a game-changer.

Next Steps For You & Adventures in SEO

If you are struggling to make any REAL progress like I was, I would encourage you to take a look at Adventures in SEO! It’s time to stop spinning your wheels and bust through that traffic plateau you’ve been struggling with.

(Lena only opens enrollment a few times per year, but if you get on her waitlist, she’ll often secretly open enrollment so you can get it early!)

<<<<GET ADVENTURES IN SEO>>>

If you’re hesitating to make any big purchases, it’s okay! Lena has some awesome free resources and challenges for you:

So, how’s that for an Adventures in SEO review?

Is there anything specific holding you back from making the investment in Adventures in SEO? Ask me your questions below!