{"id":5725,"date":"2022-03-28T07:11:47","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T07:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seobuddy.com\/blog\/?p=5725"},"modified":"2022-03-28T07:12:31","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T07:12:31","slug":"my-seo-journey-achievable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seobuddy.com\/blog\/my-seo-journey-achievable\/","title":{"rendered":"My SEO Journey: Tyler York from achievable.me – Don’t skip the Keyword Research phase of your SEO Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My SEO Journey is a series where entrepreneurs and Indie makers share their honest SEO Journey filled with failure and success, and most importantly proven results.\u00a0Episode #77 features Tyler York from Achievable<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tyler<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Hi, I\u2019m Tyler York and I co-founded Achievable<\/a>, a test prep company focused on exams that unlock opportunity in people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our platform is a complete solution for passing any exam we offer. Each course contains rich textbook content, reviews powered by our advanced memory science algorithm, and realistic full-length practice exams. Our unofficial ethos is \u201clearn by doing<\/em>\u201d, and we believe that we\u2019ve built the best platform for training people to pass these tests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our flagship product is our FINRA SIE exam prep course<\/a>, and we also offer courses for a number of other FINRA exams like our FINRA Series 7 prep course<\/a>. We also have successful and rapidly growing courses for GRE exam prep<\/a>, USMLE Step 1 exam prep<\/a>, and AMC exam prep<\/a>. We\u2019re always adding more courses that align with our mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our motto is \u201cStudy and pass. Period.<\/em>\u201d With Achievable, you study, you follow our program, you know where you stand, and when you\u2019re ready – you succeed. That\u2019s the Achievable difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Justin, my co-founder, came up with the idea for Achievable through his experience at multiple EdTech companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justin is an engineering leader who helped build the product and engineering team behind Cerego, a platform for memory-based adaptive learning. Cerego\u2019s platform used a method called spaced repetition to help students retain memory of large bodies of knowledge over time, like a new language or the periodic table. Spaced repetition is a very powerful and effective method, but only when the student is committed and can study often enough to make the most of the method. We saw an opportunity to take this innovative method to a highly motivated customer: adult students and professionals preparing for life-changing, career-advancing exams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the test prep industry is far behind what we\u2019d consider table stakes for user experience today, especially on mobile devices. Some more competitive segments like the SAT market have decent technology, but the professional prep market has not seen the same drive to stay up to date. Even today, many of our competitors don\u2019t have true mobile experiences or any kind of \u2018adaptive learning\u2019 that has become one of the de facto standards of test prep platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We first started in 2016, with a business of supporting professionals at wealth management firms who wanted to pass their FINRA Series 7 exam. Wealth management is one of the highest paying careers that is accessible to people without an elite background, and passing the FINRA Series 7 is often a serious hurdle for people that have not spent time in finance or the stock market before. People must pass their Series 7 before they can begin interacting with financial clients, so it is a hard requirement of the job. Once they get the job, anyone who performs well can become a highly successful – and wealthy – person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We started Achievable to help students pass these exams and democratize this wealthy career path for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since launch, what has worked to attract more organic traffic?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"achievable.net<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We relaunched our product with a focus on consumers in 2019. At that time, we had a better idea of how to start after a few years in the business on the B2B side, but still had a lot to learn. Consumer digital marketing is a well-known space, with only a few core approaches: content marketing and SEO, digital advertising, affiliates, influencers, and communities. We tried each in turn and found that all five avenues could be successful to varying degrees, but where we really hit our stride was in content marketing and SEO (why you asked to interview us!) and affiliates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you\u2019re starting a business, it\u2019s important to prioritize because you\u2019re starting from scratch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most marketing avenues will work for Apple, Sony, etc – because each requires a mix of product-market fit, messaging, brand, and, of course, money (spend). Big companies have all four things in spades, for the most part (that\u2019s probably why they\u2019re a big company). As a startup, you\u2019re often trying to figure out what channel you can make the most headway in by leveraging just one or two of those ingredients (typically PMF and messaging). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal isn\u2019t just to find what works at all – it\u2019s to find what gets you the best ROI for your money and time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this end, we found affiliates to be an excellent source of organic traffic early on in our business. Affiliates add value in that they have an existing audience, they generally have product-market fit between their<\/em> content and their<\/em> audience (whether your product fits that audience is your problem, not theirs), and people trust them and by proxy their recommendations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re trading the money component (typically 30% of each sale) to borrow these attributes for your benefit. This was the most effective way for us to quickly spin up a new line of business and get customers in the door, and we now do it first for each new course we launch. If you\u2019re worried about revenue, don\u2019t be – affiliate marketing was almost half of our sales at the beginning of Achievable SIE, but is now less than 10% of total sales as we have built out our other channels. Many of our early customers wouldn\u2019t have found out about us without affiliates, and then they wouldn\u2019t have told their friends, et cetera. It\u2019s worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Achievable.me
Achievable.me sales page on WallStreetOasis, our first affiliate<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Content marketing and SEO is our next step. This approach is still the most effective way to build durable inbound traffic related to your business, and then you just need to turn that traffic into sales. But at this point, it\u2019s heavily competitive and well-known – yes, even your oldest school competitors are doing it by now. The best way I\u2019ve heard content marketing and SEO described is by Bernard Huang of Clearscope: \u201cContent marketing is a commitment. You either know you need to do it, in which case buckle up for 2+ years of hard work, or you don\u2019t need to do it and shouldn\u2019t do it at all.<\/em>\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We knew that we had to build out our inbound presence because it is the #1 way that all of our competitors get customers. After two years, this is a cornerstone of our marketing portfolio, and the sales and traction we have with it make it clear that this was the right call for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, our content coverage is strong, with blog posts for every major topic we want to rank for and a rapidly growing DR. We just need to stay the course and keep working on our backlinks and content quality to continue to level up.<\/p>\n\n\n

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There\u2019s more\u2026<\/div>\r\n

Now it\u2019s time to discover the other 102 steps that will get more organic traffic flowing to your website. Get the SEO Checklist here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Want to get a sneak peek of what it looks like?<\/strong>
\nEnter your email and get a free demo version of the SEO Checklist.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n

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