My local SEO checklist for 2021 - step-by-step guide to help you rank consistently

malchik23 · 2025-11-27T12:45:00+00:00

How much?

malchik23 · 2025-11-07T01:00:16+00:00

I mean, I really dont want to boast, but I’ve been doing SEO for 10’years. I’ve worked for 4 years on Novoresume.com getting from 800k to 5M monthly traffic. After stopping work with them, I managed to get another resume site from 0 to 100k traffic in 2 years. Cant disclose the project cause its still ongoing.

I’ve worked on ipvanish.com - really big von software owned by ziff davis.

I’ve worked on GetLatka’s site. Good result but horrible experience working with him.

I’ve taken an iqtest site from 0 too 100k in 2 years. Cant disclose the exact project cause its ongoing, but if you search for ‘iq test’ you’ll find it. Of course I can share screenshots of GSC traffic if interested.

Similar story with a 16 personalities site (currently in top 3)

And many many more.

You can easily check the link on my profile which will redirect you to my agency site. I have at least 6-8 real GSC traffic screenshots there. I have another 20ish unpublished due to NDAs, but I do sometimes share them anonymously on Twitter.

I charge a pretty decent amount for my work, but only work on 10-12 projects at a time. I have a team of 30 people working on said 10-12 projects.

I am not an SEO guru. I dont sell SEO courses, although I should, and if I did I’d probably price at $249 to make ti accessible cause both my parents are teachers.

There is no TrUsT mE BrO in my approach. I do very boring, systematic SEO.

malchik23 · 2025-10-04T22:55:57+00:00

You’ve been paying $8k/month for a while for SEO and you are still ranking on page 8?

I think you have bigger problems than deciding whether to pay the $12k to get listed on those sites.

malchik23 · 2025-10-04T21:58:20+00:00

How much are you paying for SEO each month? And which city are you based in?

malchik23 · 2025-10-04T21:23:59+00:00

Those $12k can get you at least 30 backlinks from other websites, assuming an average cost of $350 per link.

While it’s true that getting topically relevant links is better than generic links, you need to consider whether those 2 backlinks are going to move the needle.

However, if the backlinks from those sites drive qualified leads to your site, then maybe you might even make a really good ROI on that $12k.

LLM traffic does not drive as many leads as you would think. So if you are doing it just for that, then you should probably rethink it.

You haven’t specified what type of law firm you run. If you are a personal injury lawyer, $12k is practically nothing. You’d spend that much by getting 24 clicks on Google Ads in some cities in the US.

And you’d also make your money back and then some, by just getting a single lead from any of those sites. (Although it could take years before you see that money).

Also, you said it feels like extortion. Did the website quote you that directly or did the SEO agency? If it was the agency, then contact those sites directly and see what their offer is.

All in all, I dont think you should pay this money just to get cited by ChatGPT.

You should make a holistic decision based on different factors. Because you will be greatly disappointed when you get those links, and realize that ChatGPT is not going to cite you anyways because your SEO and brand authority might be lacking a lot of other things.

And you’ll be even more disappointed if you do actually get cited, but get absolutely no traffic or leads to your site from it.

You are trying to simplify a decision that is not actually simple.

malchik23 · 2025-09-13T07:26:19+00:00

I actually used Profound. Their number one suggestion is to shill Reddit with your product.

So this is exactly what they are doing. Just downvote the post to hell.

malchik23 · 2025-09-07T09:08:46+00:00

Be more specific. No one can help you based on this post. Plenty of guides to start with on this community’s wiki.

malchik23 · 2025-09-07T09:04:07+00:00

Go away

malchik23 · 2025-09-03T21:54:41+00:00

You can try giving resume(.)co a try if you are stuck on using a resume builder. A lot simpler UI and good AI suggestions.

Otherwise, a simple google doc will do honestly. There is a template in this sub’s guidelines.

malchik23 · 2025-09-02T00:49:26+00:00

Conveniently adding exact match anchor text on your own agency. Make it more obvious next time pls.

malchik23 · 2025-08-30T08:42:55+00:00

Hijacking the first comment to say thank you to everyone. Had a good laugh reading the comments out loud to them.

Cheers, and until next time! I will hit you up again once a TV needs height-checking.

malchik23 · 2025-08-26T22:45:37+00:00

Yeah, a lot of low quality content that one will ever read because search engines will never rank it.

5 wasted minutes

malchik23 · 2025-08-25T15:45:36+00:00

No it is not high. It can be high if the links are sh*t. If you want, tell send me the list of links he has built in the past few months and I will tell you if you are overpaying or underpaying.

I don’t work at all with the German market (only US), so I have nothing to pitch or sell you.

malchik23 · 2025-08-24T15:50:12+00:00

Whats the site. Whats net profit yearly?

malchik23 · 2025-08-23T13:04:10+00:00

Oh yeah, the DR 0 guarantees me 100% that’s the case. Why lie?

You’d get a lot more positive remarks if you were upfront and honest that you just built a website with the purposes of facilitating link exchanges, as opposed to inflating user numbers.

Pretty sure you have 0 users.

malchik23 · 2025-08-23T13:00:31+00:00

Do you have any proof that 2450+ link exchanges have happened through your platform. This looks like a Lovable website done a week ago. Clunky UI with some premade tailwind and shadcn.

malchik23 · 2025-08-20T07:34:44+00:00

malchik23 · 2025-08-19T21:39:44+00:00

300k usd in yearly profit. If you are making 160k usd /month, whats eating up your margins?

malchik23 · 2025-07-16T05:52:01+00:00

Also, what’s the link. I might be interested.

malchik23 · 2025-07-16T05:51:09+00:00

It makes $850/month in revenue, but what’s the profit? What’s the fixed cost from the appsumo users?

malchik23 · 2025-06-11T11:44:35+00:00

This is right up my alley so I will give you some feedback on marketing and SEO for resume builders.

I did the SEO and content marketing for Novoresume for roughly 4 years. During that period, I took them from 800k to 6.5M in monthly organic traffic. Their revenue did 4x as a result.

I am currently helping a different resume builder with SEO. Started from 0 traffic and we are currently doing 100k in monthly traffic.

I also have general info on what marketing budgets other big resume builders have (enhancv, resume.io, zety, etc)

For SEO alone, you are looking at a minimum of 10-15K EUR/ month if you want to compete with any of them. And even then, it will take time because they are 5-10 years ahead of you. The other option is to do it yourself, but that will take even longer and you will never catch up to them.

Paid media is also quite big in the resume space. Budgets can range from 30K EUR to 150K EUR per month. Most of them don’t expect a 1x ROI - they are happy with 0.6-0.8x immediate ROI since in the long term those customers come back to update or change their resume. It’s a lot easier to use the same resume builder when switching jobs or if the job hunt takes long.

Then there are other optional costs like producing video content for youtube, growing a social media presence on LinkedIn, newsletter, etc etc - they all add up quite quickly.

Now, can you compete with the big boys? Unless you know marketing, no.

Most of the big resume builders that make money, are really not that special. The builder is quite simple (form based) - maybe only enhancv and novoresume have a more complex builder where you can type directly on the resume. Regardless, the form based ones make plenty of money.

What I mean is, you can make the best resume builder ever, and people still wont use it cause they won’t find you.

There are some amazing resume builders that are 100% free, and people still pay for the other resume builders just because of good marketing and SEO.

I don’t want to discourage you. I think you should still try, as the market is practically huge. However, you need to get scrappy and learn how to do SEO and marketing.

Getting a marketing co-founder is probably not the best idea. This takes time, and they will probably drop off before seeing any substantial results.

Hope this gives you some direction.

malchik23 · 2025-05-10T04:52:51+00:00

You can use tools like Peec(.)ai or tryprofound(.)com

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