How Averi Grew Her Organic Website Traffic to 10k Visitors – And Teaches Others to Do the Same

• Course Instructor: Averi Melcher

• Website: averimelcher.com

• Course Topic: SEO Content (search engine optimization)

• Interesting Stats:

– Launched an online course with an audience of….zero!
– 10k monthly organic visitors with zero paid ads
– Went from being a $50/blog post writer to a $500/blog post writer

1. Who are you?

I’m Averi, an SEO writer and consultant, almond milk latte-addict, full time digital nomad and your biz bestie here to show you how to turn your website into a 24-hour a day, never-needs-a-break employee that brings your ideal clients right to you.

After starting my career as a ghostwriter for top CMOs, I went on to work in well-known agencies like Neil Patel Digital and Siege Media. During that time, I turned a $15,000 a year side hustle into a business that consistently makes over $15k a month – all while traveling the world and working from my laptop.

2. What’s your course all about?

SEO Content and organic traffic growth, aka how to get your (or your clients’) website to show up on the first page of Google for the terms your dream clients are using online.

Start your free Thinkific trial here.

3. What makes you an expert in this field?

I’ve been in marketing and advertising for over 10 years. I’ve worked in corporate, in agencies, and as a freelancer. And over the years, I’ve worked for or written for marketers in some of the most well-known companies in their respective industries, such as Neil Patel, Fashion Nova, and more.

4. What is the transformation your course offers to the students?

I teach you everything I’ve learned from 10 years of being a professional copywriter and 5 years of being an SEO Consultant, including how I grew a new website to 10k monthly visitors in one year – with zero paid ads and writing less than one blog post a month.

For any of my writers out here, this is what you need to ditch the yo-yo of feast and famine in your business. What you need to know to go from a $50/post writer to a $500+/post writer with consistent retainer clients.

Best yet, ANYONE can do this. I made my explanations jargon-free and easy-to-implement so you can start getting results tomorrow or next week – not next month or next year

5. Which market does your online course serve and how did you get into it?

I serve copywriters, content creators and small business owners who are their own copywriter.

From the time I was young I wanted to be a writer. It’s all I’ve done my whole life. I studied and have a degree in Fashion Journalism with an emphasis in Advertising and Marketing.

And from my very first “big girl” job over 10 years ago, I’ve worked numerous corporate and freelance jobs in advertising sales, copy writing, PR, SEO, and back link building. 

6. Why is it important to you to serve this market?

I’m so passionate about helping these women because my ideal client avatar IS ME. Past me. Every time I create a piece of content or put together a service, I think of what me 5 – even 10 years ago needed.

I was the woman who wanted more than anything in the world to be able to share her content and copy writing with the world, get her brand out there, work with really cool clients, and build a business that let me create the life I wanted. I wanted to work remotely and see the world and I knew it was possible because I saw online entrepreneurs talking about it.

But I had no idea how to grow my site traffic and attract readers online, much less attract paying clients.

I had no idea how to create content that made people want to raise their hands and buy my services. And I didn’t know how to position myself to clients as more than a one-off blog writer in order to secure monthly retainer packages. 

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7. Describe the moment when you decided to create your own course. Where were you, what happened and why did you decide to do it?

The moment I decided to do it, the moment I outlined it, and the moment I actually sat down to do the dang thing actually happened across more than 2 years. 

The moment I decided to do it, I was living in Puerto Rico during my second experience living as a digital nomad. I spent the summer driving around the island with friends, taking lunch breaks to swim under waterfalls and going to the beach for sunset surf and people kept asking me what I did that let me live that way. One friend in particular was asking me questions about how I learned how to write and do SEO. I told him if one more person asked me this (he was about the 1,000th person by this point), I was going to create it.

A week later, we were together with another friend who started asking me how he could learn SEO and how to build an online business.

Our eyes met it that sort of way when someone holds you to a promise you made. And so it was decided.

Fast forward about 6 months, and I was having brunch with a girlfriend when we were talking about business ideas and the idea came flooding back – with exactly how I wanted it to look.

I wrote down the outline of the first 4 modules right then and there on the back of a napkin in a bar in San Diego.

But I got busy with the job I had at the time.

And then a year and a half later, I was living in Argentina during the pandemic, when I saw the online space was shifting. More and more people were moving their businesses online and/or starting to freelance. And they were looking for guidance.

And that’s finally when I created and launched the course.

8. How did you overcome doubtful moments during your course creation journey?

I reached out for help.

When I was feeling overwhelmed with tools and creation and launching, I sought out people who’ve been there before to guide me (be it a friend or a mentor).

When it was about the curriculum, I turned to my audience. I sent out surveys and questions and had phone calls asking people what they wanted, so there was no doubt I was creating something valuable. It helped take the pressure off me needing to be the expert and helped me focus on answering the questions my future customers had.

9. What are some of your tricks to deal with imposter syndrome?

I think seeing how long it took me to get this dang course in the world is an indicator of the internal struggles I was having, haha!

Oh hello, imposter syndrome!

But I’m a numbers/results driven gal, so I kept reminding myself of the facts: the results I’ve gotten for clients, the past team members I’ve helped trained, the accounts I’ve worked on.

I’d read through old testimonials and talk to trusted friends when I needed a boost of confidence and a reminder that I was an SEO badass and on the right path.

10. How long did it take you to create your course?

Start to finish, a little over 7 months. This included already working full time in my agency, building my audience, building and launching a website, etc.

11. How did your first launch go?

I was happy with my beta launch. I started with an audience of zero with no website. Literally zero.

By the end of it, I had a course, two freebies, a website, an email list of 300 people, a FB group with almost 300 people, 400 followers on Instagram and around 10 sales.

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12. How do you structure your launches in general now?

Now, I’m moving to a 60-day live launch period of ramp up content with a new freebie, live challenge or live masterclass to draw people to the offer. I’m focusing on Instagram, Instagram Stories with Close Friends (with exclusive trainings leading up to the freebie or masterclass), my private FB Group, email and paid ads.

After my next launch in April, I’m going to be temporarily closing evergreen access to my course and putting people on a waitlist, so their only chance to get the course will be during the live launch. 

13. Where does your traffic come from?

For the first two years of building this part of my business, my approach is to cast a wide net and really learn where my audience is hanging out online.

I’m currently getting traffic, in this order from:

– Facebook ads
– Google (SEO)
– Instagram (organic)
– Pinterest (organic)
– Facebook Groups

14. Which content do you like producing the most?

Once a writer, always a writer – I love writing blog posts, or sharing training style videos on IG and FB.

15. What online course platform are you using?

Kajabi

16. What is amazing about this platform?

Their customer support is second to none and they’ve really thought through every possible scenario a course creator needs/wants.

17. Which features do you wish this platform would have?

Honestly, it has everything I want and need. If I don’t know how to do something or turn on a feature, I just email them!

18. Why did you choose this platform over other platforms?

It had amazing reviews and really delivered when it came to the logistical side of setting up your course. For new course creators, it’s also an all-in-one platform with email marketing, landing pages, funnels, affiliate programs, and more. I even launched my website on Kajabi!

19. Which other tools do you use to keep your online business running?

– Asana (project management)
– Slack (communication)
– SEMRush (SEO)
– Tailwind (Pinterest & IG management)
– ShowIt + WordPress (website)
– Canva (designs for IG, Pinterst, ads, etc)
– ActiveCampaign (email)

20. How many students have you served so far?

I’ve had over 1,000 students sign up for my Traffic Secrets Mini Course and almost 30 students in the Complete SEO Blueprint.

21. How much revenue have you created during your first launch, and ongoing?

My first round/iteration of the course made about $5,000.

22. What are you running costs to keep the online course business going?

ActiveCampaign is around $400 a year and Kajabi is $199 a month. I also do consulting and have an agency, so many of the other software costs + my email marketing are split between the three parts of my business.

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23. What are some of the biggest mistakes you made along the way?

Hiring top-dollar coaches and experts before just taking messy action and understanding how things worked. I was so concerned about wanting everything to be perfect the first launch that I got too caught up in appearances and “how they are supposed to work.” I was looking for some secret formula that would guarantee success and launch my course for me – but that doesn’t exist.

Looking back, I would tell myself to just launch with the information I have and get messy, because I knew more than I thought I knew – especially when it came to what my students wanted and needed.

The rest comes later as you refine and scale. That’s when you should call on those experts to elevate you to the next level. You’ll get more value out of your investment.

The other mistake I made was launching before I had really invested a lot of time in building and nurturing an audience.

24. How has your business changed since implementing an online course into the business model?

We’ve changed our entire program suite. We now serve a whole different segment of customers and love getting to have conversations with students and even just readers who love our email and Instagram content!

Having the course has also brought more agency clients to our door, and I’ve hired an additional part time team member to help serve them.

25. How has your personal life changed?

I took my first 6-week vacation IN MY LIFE! Having an online course didn’t transform my life, per se, but it only solidified the life that I started building 5 years ago (of freedom, working when I want, etc) when I bought my first one-way plane ticket.

We’re just getting started with our sales and numbers, but I wanted to take the time to celebrate having the course created and doing the first launch.

26. What’s the greatest transformational story you can tell about one (or more) of your students?

I had one student message me on Instagram after signing up for my Traffic Secrets Mini Course. She said that, before taking my courses, she was thinking about giving up on SEO and wasn’t sure she wanted to offer it to her clients as a part of her VA services. That’s when she found my Traffic Secrets Mini Course and decided to try one last time for a client of hers. They were already working with her on other VA services and asked if she could help with SEO. They had a few keywords that they wanted to rank for but couldn’t get to move up in Google search engine results pages. After learning the strategy and tactics I laid out in the Mini Course, she applied everything she learned to the client’s account. And, within just two weeks, they were on page one for their most important keyword! Not only was this a win for her client, but it restored my student’s faith in SEO.

After that success, she purchased the Complete SEO Blueprint, my full curriculum. She recently messaged me again to say that the tacts and detailed strategies have opened a new service offering in her business and have shown her how to confidently raise her rates as a service provider.

Another student messaged me just a week after purchasing the Complete SEO Blueprint. She was regularly blogging before the taking the course, but not seeing the increase in traffic to her website – or an increased time on page once people did arrive (this is an indicator of quality content that resonates with them/what they were searching for online). She said she devoured the course in one weekend and used my keyword research and topic brainstorm approaches to plan, strategize, and schedule over a quarter of her business’ content marketing! In just one weekend. She said the course saved her hours of time and confusion trying to figure out what to write about how to organize it in an effective way.

Finally, another student reported that she used The Complete SEO Blueprint to build up the inbound marketing for her own course. Her dream was to create a passive income stream in her business and she had a lot of content ideas, but she wasn’t sure what her students were looking for online or how to get her website to show up when they turned to Google for answers. She said the keyword research module and the checklists in the course helped her gain clarity about which keywords and topics to use – and how to set up her technical website structure to rank higher in Google. While still going through the course curriculum, she said she was out to dinner one night and – ding! – heard the sound of a passive sale come in. It was a real indicator that all her marketing efforts were paying off. And she now has a repeatable plan to scale that even more. She told me that there is so much value in the course, she plans to rewatch multiple lessons and modules so that she can build on the SEO foundation she has now set for her business.

27. If you could use a time machine and send yourself back to the time before you started out, what advice would you give yourself, knowing what you know now?

Start sooner. It doesn’t need to be perfect the first time. Your students will tell you what they want to learn/what resources they need and it will be constantly evolving anyway.

28. What is your million dollar piece of advice to those who are just getting started in their online course journey OR for those who are looking to scale?

Probably the same thing: get started now, with what you have. Forget launch formulas, funnels, and fancy tools – for now 🙂 (you’ll need those later).

Instead, find one person whose life or business you can change.

Create a curriculum for that one person. Record the videos as if you are talking directly to them, because there are a lot more people just like them out there. 

Track every single hour you work on, think about and dream about your business – including invoicing, taxes, and admin work. The hours you spend in these areas will increase the larger your business becomes, and they are the areas that often make or break your profit margins. So, you need to account for them.

That will help you know how much you are actually making hourly and give you a baseline to calculate your prices, profit margins, and future budgets for outsourcing.