The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

*** The Official - Quick Sprout and Moz Guides - Educational Challenge ***

Daniel A

DIESEL
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
116%
Jun 20, 2013
1,061
1,233
California, USA
Hey TFF,

I have been wanting to go through the free guides offered by Quick Sprout and Moz for some time now but I never got to it.

Yesterday I decided that I would finally start with just one guide, read it until completion, then repeat.

My plan is to read one guide a day.

I was already going through the guide I chose to begin with today, but I felt that I'd better share them with you all here too. Maybe some of you would appreciate it and participate, which would make it a bit more fun!

Remember, they're completely free and available right now! Even more important though, in my opinion, is that they were created by experts. People you can trust and people who do know what they are talking about.

So here they are, the Quick Sprout and Moz guides...

The Quick Sprout Guides:

  1. The Beginners Guide To Online Marketing: http://www.quicksprout.com/the-beginners-guide-to-online-marketing/
  2. The Complete Guide To Understanding Consumer Psychology: http://www.quicksprout.com/the-complete-guide-to-understand-customer-psychology/
  3. The Definitive Guide To Copywriting: http://www.quicksprout.com/the-definitive-guide-to-copywriting/
  4. The Complete Guide To Building Your Blog Audience: http://www.quicksprout.com/the-complete-guide-to-building-your-blog-audience/
  5. The Advanced Guide To Content Marketing: http://www.quicksprout.com/the-advanced-guide-to-content-marketing/
  6. The Definitive Guide To Landing Page Optimization: http://www.quicksprout.com/landing-page-optimization/
  7. Double Your Traffic In 30 Days: http://www.quicksprout.com/double-your-traffic-in-30-days/
  8. Double Your Conversions In 30 Days: http://www.quicksprout.com/double-your-conversions-in-30-days/
  9. The Advanced Guide To SEO: http://www.quicksprout.com/the-advanced-guide-to-seo/
  10. The Advanced Guide To Link Building: http://www.quicksprout.com/the-advanced-guide-to-link-building/
  11. The Definitive Guide To Growth Hacking: http://www.quicksprout.com/the-definitive-guide-to-growth-hacking/
The Moz Guides:

  1. The Beginners Guide To SEO: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
  2. The Beginners Guide To Social Media: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-social-media
So those are all the guides and there are 13 in total! My plan is to read them all within the next 13 days.

Alright I'm about to continue where I started off and I hope a few others will get started too!

PS: It's best to read Moz's "Beginners Guide To SEO" before reading Quick Sprout's "Advanced Guide To SEO".
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Midas Touch

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
109%
Mar 31, 2014
35
38
I've been looking for a direction to start my fastlane education. Thanks!
 

Daniel A

DIESEL
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
116%
Jun 20, 2013
1,061
1,233
California, USA
I've been looking for a direction to start my fastlane education. Thanks!

You're welcome man! I actually noticed there were a lot of new people constantly joining the forum. I had that in mind when I posted this thread. Let me know when you get started bro :)

So here's an update on my progress...

I am still on the guide that I started reading yesterday! :embarrased:

I underestimated how much time I would need to complete one of the guides. I wanted to go through the guides quickly but retain as much information as possible with one go. What I was doing is reading it aloud, as well as writing notes. A LOT of notes. I was pretty much re-writing 80% of it down lol.

That takes much more time than reading so I'm going to stop that for now. I'll just read them aloud and then review it all again during the Summer with notes too.

Today I have 2 guides to complete since I still want to to stay on track with my original plan.

I'm on it!
 

Andur

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
50%
Mar 4, 2014
40
20
San Francisco
Thanks @DanielTArgueta! These guides look awesome. My Amazon wish list is HUGE right now with books to educate myself...then there is the 30 day copywriting challenge....now this!! I will definitely check it out ASAP though.

Roughly how long does it take to go through each guide, would you say?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Daniel A

DIESEL
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
116%
Jun 20, 2013
1,061
1,233
California, USA
@Andur I know exactly what you mean man! :joyful: They're really top-notch guides man. I'm glad they'll help you out :)

The amount of chapters/words in each guide varies but, with focused reading alone I'm guessing it takes 3-8 hours to finish a guide. That's just a guess so I'll time myself on the one I start with tomorrow (The Copywriting Guide) and let you know.

If they were formatted as physical books, I bet they'd be small books, and small books can easily be read within a day most of the time.
 

JasonR

Maverick
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
544%
May 29, 2012
2,102
11,425
Las Vegas
While I'm sure some of those guides are good, I would throw the SEO, link building, blog etc. ones out of the pile.

Instead of SEO, I'd highly recommend Traffic Blackbook 2.0.

You can thank me later. ;)
 
Last edited:

Daniel A

DIESEL
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
116%
Jun 20, 2013
1,061
1,233
California, USA
@JasonR That course has been on my 'to-dos' man! I know what you mean though. With highly targeted paid ad traffic, email auto-responder sequences with great copy specifically for those leads, and the offer they are looking for...that's a money system waiting to be built! And I am in the process of building it ;)

My college 'stuff' has been getting in the way but things are slowing down now and it's almost Summer so I'm getting it rolling right now.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

nzerinto

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
91%
Aug 1, 2012
454
411
Toronto, Canada
While I'm sure some of those guides are good, I would throw the SEO, link building, blog etc. ones out of the pile.

Instead of SEO, I'd highly recommend Traffic Blackbook 2.0.

You can thank me later. ;)

The amount of promoting you've been giving them, are you sure you aren't getting a cut...? ;)

Just kidding - thanks to your constant recommending, I'll be signing up for the course next week....
 

JasonR

Maverick
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
544%
May 29, 2012
2,102
11,425
Las Vegas
The amount of promoting you've been giving them, are you sure you aren't getting a cut...?

Even if I was, I think maybe one person has taken the course. You can always do what I did, and just get started without any training or guides. :)

I see so much talk about SEO, and SEO, and link building, and blogging. Every, and I mean EVERY, single decent sized small business ($10m/year or more) has been built with primarily paid advertising.

So many people here preach SEO, because it doesn't "cost" anything. Well, it does. It costs TIME. Instead of finding out if your product/service/idea will work in one month, it takes you 6. Furthermore, you can't rank without paying SOMETHING. And you have no control.

That's why I recommend it. The course is mind blowing if you've never seen or heard of paid traffic. It's mind blowing how many people you can reach. Instead of SE-SLOW.

But hey, if you don't want 100 sales a day at a click of a button, don't listen to me. :)
 

Andur

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
50%
Mar 4, 2014
40
20
San Francisco
This may be a dumb question, but why are the SEO, link building and blog guides scrap-heap worthy? Is it because the methods are redundant now or that the efforts outweigh the results?

Edit: @JasonR posted before I submitted this response. Still...should one with zero knowledge in the above mentioned topics still use the guides for a basic understanding? I'm always looking for ways to prioritize my education, but will gladly dive into this if even a basic knowledge would be useful.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

JasonR

Maverick
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
544%
May 29, 2012
2,102
11,425
Las Vegas
Neil Patel (owner/author of Quick Sprout) is smart, and has done well. All I was saying is to skip the SEO, Blogging, and Link building stuff, in my humble opinion. I'm willing to bet the Guides that the OP posted are good material.

Screw SEO. If you can't build an online business with paid advertising, it's not a business worth building.
 
Last edited:

mohan

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
133%
Apr 9, 2014
3
4
37
Hi Guys,

I was a SEO converted into a PPC professional. I manage a team of SEOs, adwords guys and content writers in our Company in India.

I work on 2 US targeted sites and one Indian site.

My Observations on SEO:

SEO has become very unpredictable. Sure, I can still rank keywords with Blog networks... But... It's not something I'd rely on.

If you want SEO that actually works, then you'd need to spend money. Content, Infographics, Videos, etc.

Suppose... if I want to test a different title (and meta description) to increase CTR, I need to wait a couple of days for Google to index my new title and description. And a few more weeks to get the data.

But I can change them in a minute on my landing page and PPC ads. I'll get the data in a matter of days.

And, of course, SEO takes time & effort.

You can still succeed in SEO... If you can be creative with gaining high-quality backlinks from authoritative domains.

But, in my opinion, we should be creative with growing the business... rather than creatively gaining backlinks. And moreover... we cannot be sure about the longevity of those creative backlinking strategies.

I'd say... start with the paid traffic, test things out, find a winning combination that works -- consistent flow of leads/sales... then expand your marketing onto SEO... to supplement your marketing, but not as your main source of traffic.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

MVDH

Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
153%
Jul 29, 2012
62
95
37
Cairns, Australia
Hi Guys,

I was a SEO converted into a PPC professional. I manage a team of SEOs, adwords guys and content writers in our Company in India.

I work on 2 US targeted sites and one Indian site.

My Observations on SEO:

SEO has become very unpredictable. Sure, I still rank keywords with Blog networks... But... It's not something I'd rely on.

If you want SEO that actually works, then you'd need to spend money. Content, Infographics, Videos, etc.

Suppose... if I want to test a different title (and meta description) to increase clicks, I need to wait a couple of days for Google to index my new title and description. And a few more weeks to get the data.

But I can change them in a minute on my landing page and PPC ads. I'll get the data in a matter of days.

And, of course, SEO takes time & effort.

You can still succeed in SEO... If you can be creative with gaining high-quality backlinks from authoritative domains.

But, in my opinion, we should be creative with growing the business... rather than creatively gaining backlinks. And moreover... we cannot be sure about the longevity of those creative backlinking strategies.

I'd say... start with the paid traffic, test things out, find a winning combination that works -- consistent flow of leads/sales... then expand your marketing onto SEO... to supplement your marketing, but not as your main source of traffic.

A few points here..

1. You still rank keywords with blog networks.. this is a major concern seeing what's been happening lately with Google penalising bad linking practises, I would avoid this like the plague.

2. Reindexing of new meta title and description is a matter of hours.

3. Backlinks is not a strategy, its a tactic, and an old school one at that.

Too many people look at SEO = Rankings... SEO != Rankings..

Just like backlinking is a tactic, so is SEO.

Your overall online marketing strategy should dictate which tactics work well and/or are good investments for your time and resources.

In some industries, paid search is too expensive, a combination of SEO to gain traction and conversion optimisation to squeeze the most of your visitors is what is needed.

9 times of 10, "SEO Companies" focus on ranking a keyword, they do not consider variations of keywords, and/or different stages the buyer goes through and target keywords accordingly, hence, SEO doesnt work.

SEO (more than anything) is almost the reverse of the 80/20 rule, 80 of your traffic is not going to come from your top, but rather your long, low competition type keyword phrases
 

nzerinto

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
91%
Aug 1, 2012
454
411
Toronto, Canada
Even if I was, I think maybe one person has taken the course. You can always do what I did, and just get started without any training or guides. :)

I see so much talk about SEO, and SEO, and link building, and blogging. Every, and I mean EVERY, single decent sized small business ($10m/year or more) has been built with primarily paid advertising.

So many people here preach SEO, because it doesn't "cost" anything. Well, it does. It costs TIME. Instead of finding out if your product/service/idea will work in one month, it takes you 6. Furthermore, you can't rank without paying SOMETHING. And you have no control.

That's why I recommend it. The course is mind blowing if you've never seen or heard of paid traffic. It's mind blowing how many people you can reach. Instead of SE-SLOW.

But hey, if you don't want 100 sales a day at a click of a button, don't listen to me. :)

I do SEO for a living (when I started the company I thought I was building out a fastlane business, but I basically created a job for myself thanks to the lack of control....duh, lesson learned), and I agree with you, the old saying of "SEO doesn't cost anything" is a load of baloney.

I think people are stuck in the "SEO is free" days of pre 2012, when doing a few simple things would get you ranked, and you would seriously be getting a ton of traffic, for next to nothing.

However with the introduction of the animal algorithm updates, being able to rank consistently and efficiently is no longer the case, and it makes more sense to investigate other forms of traffic that you do have control over (hence me needing to take a few courses to expand my offerings).

Having said that, I don't think SEO should be excluded completely, because you are still missing out on a major potential traffic source. It's just that the mindset needs to change, to "do" SEO these days. Instead of link building, you should be "link attracting", and a lot of that is to do with the overall marketing strategy you run, which includes paid marketing, offline efforts etc etc etc. I could go on and on about this, but suffice to say, if paid marketing isn't within the overall marketing strategy, something is wrong...!
 

Andur

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
50%
Mar 4, 2014
40
20
San Francisco
In the space of three posts, my knowledge expanded tenfold on a subject I previously knew nothing about. This place is awesome! :D

Thanks everyone!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
S

stranger

Guest
Good list, however, most of those guides are real old in our days. Things are changed so quickly. Really, it's not matter how many books/guides you've read. It's only matter how well you use the information you got from books.
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top