If you run an online business, you’ve probably heard of SEO by now. If not, SEO simply stands for “Search Engine Optimization”, aka optimizing your website to be found in Google searches.
Doing SEO well will help you bring in thousands of people to your site every month for free!
While SEO isn’t particularly hard, there are a lot of parts to it that all need to work together.
It is really overwhelming to piece it all together from the free information available online.
Taking a course is your best bet to get a strong foundational understanding and help design a strategy for your own website!
This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission if you use them, at no additional cost to you. See disclosure policy for details.
That’s why I took Erica Julson’s SEO course, SEO Made Simple!
Note: this course is no longer running as a standalone course, but you can access it through her Search Savvy Membership – Check it out here!
Erica Julson is a Registered Dietitian who is making a full time income online!
She runs several blogs, provides website support for RDs and other health professionals, has an awesome Facebook group for unconventional RDs, a podcast for dietitians who run online businesses, AND has a membership geared towards dietitians.
This review and case study is only about the Erica’s SEO course, SEO Made Simple.
My traffic literally exploded after taking her SEO course so I wanted to share my results with you in this review & case study.
A bit about me:
I’m a Registered Dietitian and blogger at Frugal Minimalist Kitchen.
I’ve been doing SEO since 2017 on my own site, a niche fitness site, and several other websites for RDs. I also do SEO site audits for RDs.
With my SEO knowledge, Erica was happy to have me as a CDR reviewer for her SEO Made Simple course.*
Disclosure:
Because I reviewed her SEO course, I received access to it for free and it’s only appropriate I disclose that to you.
That being said, this review you’re currently reading is voluntary and completely separate from the CDR process. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
If you purchase her course through my link, I will earn a commission for referring you, at no extra cost to you.
*Note: As of May 2023, CEUs are no longer available for this course
Bonus!
Get a FREE SEO audit from me ($300 value) if you use code SEOFORDIETITIANS when you purchase SEO Made Simple!
To get the bonus, simply CLICK HERE which will take you to the waitlist page where you’ll sign up to watch the FREE SEO Master Class and get access to purchase the course.
Remember to use code SEOFORDIETITIANS at checkout, then email your purchase receipt to me at [email protected] and I’ll send your bonus to you shortly!
Disclaimer: this is my affiliate link which means I may earn a commission if you purchase through my link, at no cost to you.
My Results – A Case Study
Going into this course, I already had a solid SEO strategy for my site. I wasn’t starting from scratch by any means! I was able to use the solid base of articles I had written to accelerate the growth.
Up until when I started the course, I had been mostly focused on clients’ sites and only publishing here and there on my own site.
My traffic was ok. It was steady and I was ranking on the first page of Google for many keywords, but I didn’t have enough traffic to get ads on my site yet.
I finished the course in April 2020 and started seeing my traffic go up almost immediately! You can see my traffic trend in the image below.
What made my traffic go up so dramatically?
I used the keyword research method Erica teaches in her course to come up with some new topic ideas that help my audience.
The way I was doing keyword research before was simply thinking of an idea and then looking for keywords to fit with it.
While it was working to a degree, I was limited to how my brain thinks. Not everyone thinks like me so I was missing out on all those people’s searches!
With the keyword research method Erica teaches, you can see so many more keyword variations that you can choose from to make sure you target the best one!
My pageviews almost tripled!
You can see my traffic nearly tripled from mid April to mid July as compared to the previous period!
Notice the fairly steady traffic over time rather than huge spikes and valleys. This is the difference between SEO traffic compared to social media traffic.
Social Media vs SEO Traffic
People are Googling their questions every day, so if you’re on the top page of search results, you can expect to have a pretty steady stream of people coming to your site!
With social media on the other hand, you may see a brief spike when you post something new, which will quickly flatline again within a few hours to a few days.
You might get the odd viral post which can bring in traffic for a few weeks to months (if you’re really lucky!), but the downside is that you have virtually no control over whether something goes viral or not.
Personally, I’d rather have that steady stream of reliable traffic with no additional work, than to have to continually feed the social media fire to get traffic and leads to your site.
Obviously social media still has an important place in online strategies, but as a source of traffic, it’s really not the best longterm strategy.
How do you know if it was good SEO or just good timing?
We’re all research minded folk, so I’d be remiss to not mention the potential confounding effects of the increase in people going online during the pandemic and lockdowns.
The spike in my traffic does correlate somewhat with the timing of a lot of lockdowns across North America. With people being home more often, more people were online so a lot of website creators saw huge increases in traffic.
While this might have had some effect on my traffic, I’m confident my traffic increase is related to the new articles I wrote using the keywords I brainstormed while taking Erica’s course.
Here are some reasons why I know it’s not just temporary lockdown traffic:
- most of the traffic increase is from the new articles I wrote using Erica’s keyword research method. If the traffic was only from more people being online, I would have expected to see traffic from all articles go up dramatically as well
- these articles started ranking on the first page of Google (for multiple keywords) and bringing in a lot of traffic within a few weeks of being published
- the traffic is still holding strong several years later
New keyword research strategy
Even as an SEO expert, I’m continually learning.
One major takeaway from Erica’s SEO course for me was her approach to keyword research as I mentioned earlier.
There were several factors that I changed about what I had been doing before:
- I brainstormed keywords in a different way
- I went for more competitive keywords
- I went for higher volume keywords
To put it simply, I realized I had been playing small in my keyword research strategy!
Erica’s course gave me the confidence/reality check that I needed to step it up!
While going for lower competition and volume keywords was working for me in some ways (such as ranking on the first page for my target keywords), it wasn’t helping me grow my traffic by much because I simply wasn’t ranking for many keywords that were searched a lot.
When I first started, I wanted to write about things that I would be able to rank for right away with a new blog.
While that is a great strategy for beginners, the main problem for me was I hadn’t adjusted my strategy as my site grew! #wakeupcall!
If you’re ready to get Erica’s SEO course, click here to sign up for the waitlist and be notified as soon as it’s available!
Don’t forget about the free bonus!
Get a FREE SEO audit from me ($300 value) if you use code SEOFORDIETITIANS when you purchase SEO Made Simple!
To get the bonus, simply CLICK HERE which will take you to the waitlist page where you’ll sign up to watch the FREE SEO Master Class and get access to purchase the course.
Remember to use code SEOFORDIETITIANS at checkout, then email your purchase receipt to me at [email protected] and I’ll send your bonus to you shortly!
Disclaimer: this is my affiliate link which means I may earn a commission if you purchase through my link, at no cost to you.
Highlights of Erica’s SEO course:
I’ve taken quite a few SEO courses and trainings, but this was by far my favorite! I loved this course and felt motivated to focus on and improve my blog after each module.
Here are some of the best aspects from Erica’s SEO course.
- Comprehensive course that provides ALL the info you need to succeed in SEO
- Get any questions answered in the private Facebook group
- Covers all aspects of SEO in depth (not just keyword research or on-page SEO like other courses)
- Takes you step-by-step from beginner to intermediate SEO skills
- Examples are specific to online nutrition businesses/blogs which makes it so much easier to comprehend
- Course is mostly in video with written transcripts if you prefer to read (I do recommend watching the videos though as some things are visual)
- Handy tech features like searchable videos, speed adjustments, and saving your progress where you left off
- Holds your hand through the scary tech stuff
- Action-oriented “homework” to implement after each section of the course
- Regularly updated so you always get the most up-to-date SEO information you need to keep up with the competition
Room for Improvement:
While there was absolutely nothing major missing from the course, here are a few points that could be improved in my opinion.
I felt the backlink section could have had more detail, examples, and how-to. While it had more than enough info for a beginner to get started, I did wish there was a bit more depth to this section for myself going through the course as an expert.
Erica totally revamped this section and added so much more to it! I’m totally satisfied now!- A few of the videos combined how-to tech for different platforms into one longer video. I would have found it more helpful to have each platform split into a separate video, or at least have the timestamps listed to see where each section started and ended
- There are not a lot of tips for free keyword research, so you’ll likely need to spend some additional money on a keyword research tool in order to follow her method, however the main tool she recommends is pretty affordable at under $15/month.
Is Erica’s SEO Made Simple Course worth the money?
Truly only you can answer that for yourself. It totally depends on so many factors, but overall, I would say a resounding…
YES!
The course is an investment in your business. If you take the course and implement what you’ve learned, there is no doubt in my mind that your business will take off!
This course paid for itself
My increase in traffic after implementing the course allowed me to qualify for ads on my site. (I use the ad network, Ezoic, which accepts websites starting at 10K monthly pageviews or less – much faster to get into than some of the other major ad networks like Mediavine or Adthrive which require at least 50K-100K monthly pageviews!)
As my traffic increased, I earned enough to cover the cost of the course in just a couple months with ad revenue, increased affiliate revenue plus some new products I created.
In other words, the course paid for itself within a couple months once I added these new income streams that were made possible by implementing what I learned from the course!
If you’re seeing clients, it would only take one or two new client packages to recover the investment.
You could sign up using the payment plan to make it super easy to manage!
Note that my blog was already semi established and getting some traffic from Google already. This course helped me ramp it up. If you’re completely brand new with little to no existing traffic, expect it to take longer to earn back the investment.
If you’re still not sure if it’s right for you, I’ve listed some scenarios to help you decide below.
Erica’s SEO Made Simple course is for you if:
- you’ve heard SEO is important but aren’t sure where to start. This course will take you step-by-step (even through confusing tech stuff!)
- you want to get more people coming to your site while spending less time on social media
- you want consistent traffic that converts to paying clients
- you want to apply SEO to your site so you can free up time in your business
- you have several hours per week to commit to taking the course and implementing the suggestions
It’s not for you if:
- you are looking for instant results. SEO only works when implemented repeatedly over time. Anyone who promises otherwise isn’t being truthful.
- you are absolutely strapped for time and can’t find a way to make time to work through the course. You’ll only see results if you implement what you learn.
- you are completely strapped for cash. I don’t recommend going into debt for a course you aren’t able to afford. Cut back your expenses where possible, save up, then buy it. There’s also a payment plan available which works out to the same price as paying in full so that’s quite accessible!
- you’re already an SEO expert. This course is geared towards beginner to intermediate SEOs
- you don’t even have a website yet. Take Erica’s free course on how to set up a website first. While technically you could take it before starting a website, I think it’s much better to learn on a “just in time” rather than a “just in case” basis.
FAQ About SEO Made Simple:
Read some common frequently asked questions about Erica’s SEO course:
Click here to sign up to the waitlist where you’ll get the most current pricing info.
There is a payment plan available to spread the payments out over several months. The total price works out the same as paying in full so that’s quite accessible!
Some parts, such as the technical site audit, could be easily outsourced, while other parts cannot.
SEO affects almost everything you do on your site so you’d have to outsource pretty much everything from site setup to keyword research to writing to getting media quotes.
I think it’s really important to have a solid understanding of SEO for any website owner whether you’re DIY or are hiring out. There are a lot of people/companies willing to charge for bogus SEO work that won’t even help your business (and may even hurt it). If you know the fundamentals of SEO you can at least assess whether the SEO company you’re hiring does good work or not!
I think it’s much better to learn on a “just in time” rather than a “just in case” basis.
Technically you could take the SEO course before starting a website but I recommend you take Erica’s free course on how to set up a website first. Check it out here.
Erica goes over detailed instructions for how to implement SEO in WordPress, Wix, and SquareSpace in the course, however, some things are only possible with WordPress, which is why it’s the most widely used blogging platform.
If you use another blog platform other than what’s listed above, you’ll probably need to switch to get the full value from this course.
The SEO Made Simple course was originally approved for 24 self-study CEUs but is no longer participating in the CEU program. I was actually one of the professional CEU reviewers!
Erica does an excellent job of explaining the theory behind each aspect of SEO while also giving highly actionable steps for each lesson.
Paying in full will save you a couple dollars over paying in instalments.
You could also sign up to the affiliate program and earn a commission if someone buys through your link.
If you’re a DIY type, or just looking for help on a specific topic, check out my recommended SEO resources!
I hope you found this case study and review of Erica’s course helpful!
Don’t forget about the free bonus!
Get a FREE SEO audit from me ($300 value) if you use code SEOFORDIETITIANS when you purchase SEO Made Simple!
To get the bonus, simply CLICK HERE which will take you to the waitlist page where you’ll sign up to watch the FREE SEO Master Class and get access to purchase the course.
Remember to use code SEOFORDIETITIANS at checkout, then email your purchase receipt to me at [email protected] and I’ll send your bonus to you shortly!
Disclaimer: this is my affiliate link which means I may earn a commission if you purchase through my link, at no cost to you.
SEO Made Simple
$1997
Pros
- comprehensive & in-depth
- step-by-step & actionable
- beginner to intermediate friendly
- nutrition specific examples
- makes tech stuff easy
Cons
- need to spend additional $ on keyword research tool
- videos not fully optimized for different users