Blog Growth Engine Review

As I’ve actively started working to build this website up again, the Google and YouTube algorithms have continually prompted me to watch blogging-related videos.

One that keeps popping up is Blog Growth Engine. Within these videos and ads, I continually hear that you can make $10,000 or more online by following a series of steps.

I started asking myself questions like…

• What is Blog Growth Engine? People claim it works, but does it really work?
• Is Blog Growth Engine free? There has to be a catch here.
• What’s the catch? Is there a hidden course getting promoted?
• Can I trust Blog Growth Engine reviews? They all seem positive with very few negatives.

So, I dug a bit deeper to see what this is all about.

This process led me far beyond the initial landing page, down a rabbit trail of bold income claims, and a seemingly endless supply of “successful” bloggers promoting the course.

Eventually, I bought a course priced at $1,000 – offered very little more than the step-by-step blogging guide that I personally created and give away for free.

I’ll share with you my honest experience in this process.

What is Blog Growth Engine?

Blog Growth Engine is a program designed by blogger Adam Enfroy in 2020 that aims to show readers how to create a blog that generates income online.

The landing page offers an 80-minute masterclass, covering essential topics like keyword research, AI-assisted content creation, content strategy, link building, and affiliate marketing.

By signing up, it is assumed that you will be equipped with the knowledge and tools necessary to attract organic visitors, build authority in their niche, and establish a profitable online content business.

I decided to do a bit more digging and see what this was all about, including what the resource is, what it is promising, and whether or not it can actually live up to the hype.

Initial Thoughts About Blog Growth Engine

When I first browsed the page, I was interested. I start blogs and websites all day every day, so I am always interested in learning more about digital marketing.

The parts that caught my eye were specifically how to use AI tools to fast-track content creation, the framework for building links, and how to build topical authority within content.

I didn’t really know what an “80-Minute Masterclass” was, or what I’d learn in detail.

I was sort of expecting to see a course outline or more about what Blog Growth Engine actually offers, but instead, immediately saw a disclaimer….

…followed by a bunch of different testimonials:

So I went back and re-read the disclaimer. The text is a bit small to read in this image, so I’ll add it again so you can read it clearly:

*The results you see on this page are not typical, Adam Enfroy and his students below are skilled marketers. Their experiences do not guarantee similar results. Individual results may vary based on your skills, experience, motivation, work ethic, as well as other unforeseen factors. The Company has yet to perform studies of the results of its typical clients. Your results may vary.

https://bloggrowthengine.com/

We see that “The Company has yet to perform studies of the results of its typical clients. Your results may vary.”

What confuses me is that this page advertises results, including income figures, but preface those testimonials and income figures by saying that they have not verified them.

While I do understand that this is probably just some legal text to protect the company, it does make me think about the results in a bit deeper detail.

But I have a very open mind and figured that I wouldn’t let my skepticism get in the way. The URLs were publicly available on the site, so why not try to uncover a bit more data about the results these people are clearly seeing.

I opened up Ahrefs, my favorite SEO tool, and started analyzing the traffic patterns of the websites listed in the testimonials. To my surprise, the vast majority of the graphs did not show continued, steady growth.

To be fair, these are just a random sampling of the URLs. Of all the examples, 2 of them actually have seen flat trends that weren’t declining.

I’ll let you make your own conclusions from these traffic patterns, but this initially stood out to me that these sites were being used as testimonials for a system that promotes blog growth.

Despite all of this, I was still curious, so I entered my email to see what would happen.

The Blog Growth Engine Masterclass

After entering my email address, I was immediately taken to another page that included the masterclass. This was a simple landing page that included a video roughly 80 minutes long, just as promised.

I also received an email that included an introduction to the masterclass and a link to the landing page that I was redirected to above.

What was interesting about the landing page is that when I tried to close it, it encouraged me to stay on the page.

Typically when a course promotes a landing page, they just let you read or watch the material at your own pace. They’ve got your email and might reach out every now and then with a sale or something like that.

Like the testimonials I mentioned previously, this also made me think. Why did I have to enter my email, and why am I now being discouraged from watching this 80 minute masterclass on my own time?

Then I saw the countdown clock at the bottom of the page encouraging me to save 50%. This is when I immediately began to realize there was more to this whole thing than watching a simple video.

I had a feeling that the video wouldn’t actually give me all the information I needed to start a blog, but I really wanted to be proven otherwise. So I kept watching it all.

I have to say, the video is well-done. It’s filmed with a nice camera and Adam does a nice job of explaining topics.

There was a lot of high-level information that helped to understand his background, how he’s seen success by starting his own blog, and some conceptual stuff that helps how a successful blog operates.

There were also a few helpful tutorials on basic digital marketing tactics like how to find low-competition keywords to write about, how to optimize a post using Surfer SEO, and basic ways to monetize a blog.

However….

…the video in this masterclass didn’t actually show me how to start a blog. To get that, I would need to sign up for the official Blog Growth Engine course.

The Trojan Horse – A Paid Course

I studied marketing in college, so I was well aware of what was going on from the start, but I kept going because I was truly curious how all of this was going to play out.

The paid course had been promoted on the page, but that was easy to dismiss by closing the popup bar at the bottom. And I kept watching because I thought I would be shown how to start a blog.

But there was a reason that the content creator didn’t want me to click away, instead continuing to watch the whole video – they wanted to sell me a paid program:

Having already given my email and then invested around 80 minutes of my time trying to learn how to start a blog, I felt compelled to buy the course because I had already invested so much time and effort into trying to learn how.

You see, the feeling I got is referred to as the “Sunk Cost Fallacy“. It’s a common marketing trick that people, especially digital marketers trying to get you to buy a product, will employ to drive more sales.

The sunk cost fallacy is a common psychological phenomenon where a person continues a behavior or endeavor as a result of previously invested resources (time, money, or effort), even if the future costs outweigh the benefits.

This fallacy leads individuals to make irrational decisions based on what they’ve already “sunk” into a project, rather than on what would lead to the best outcome going forward.

In my case, after watching the 80-minute video, I feel compelled to buy the course because I’ve already invested a significant amount of time.

My mind may rationalize that by spending more (in this case, buying the course), I can justify the initial investment of time and make it worthwhile.

The feeling is that abandoning the effort now would mean wasting the initial time investment, even though logically, this time cannot be recovered regardless of future actions.

In these cases, recognizing this fallacy can help you make decisions based on potential future benefits rather than past costs.

It’s useful to evaluate whether the course itself offers enough value and aligns with your goals independently of the time you’ve already spent watching the video.

Understanding The REAL Blog Growth Engine

What was being offered, and what could I learn from this course that I didn’t already know? Once again, I decided to remain engaged and check it out.

One thing that immediately stood out to me though was the number “$10,000”. It’s literally all over the top of the sales page:

It is not hard to see how the average person taking this course would likely believe that they can actually make this amount of monthly income by starting a blog based on the verbiage in and around the marketing materials.

I’ve been in the blogging game for over 10 years now, so this REALLY caught my eye. I’ve seen my fair share of “experts” selling courses, but very few make income claims like this.

Let me be very clear – it’s VERY easy to start a blog nowadays. However, scaling it and then implementing monetization strategies that allow you to consistently make $10,000 or more per month is VERY hard.

I’ve taken pretty much all of the well-known SEO and digital marketing courses currently available online. Even some of the most well-known courses like Authority Hacker Pro don’t make claims with how much you can earn.

Instead of making these claims, they could advertise types of blogs that make money, discuss how much bloggers can make if they work hard, or even show examples of successful blogs who have achieved results.

But in my opinion, to advertise that this system is “The Fastest, Foolproof Way to Make Your First $10,000/Month Online” is a very, very bold claim.

In the world of SEO and digital marketing, there’s not one method or framework that can lead to those types of results – other than years of dedication, sweat, tears, and hard work.

How Much Does Blog Growth Engine Cost?

The Blog Growth Engine course costs $997. It’s a one-time fee that offers lifetime access to the current version, but also the future versions and updates as they are released.

I’ll explain in detail what you get with the course below, but let me be very clear – this is an incredibly expensive digital marketing course.

There are a lot of blogging-related courses on the market, but this stands out as one of the most expensive that I’ve seen.

For this price, I expect to get a HUGE amount of value, so the expectation here should be very high at a price point this large.

But I was still curious at this point, so I ended up purchasing the course and taking it personally.

There wasn’t a discount when I purchased the course so I shelled out the $997 for the course and figured I would get enough value from the course to make this investment worth my money.

I was excited and anxious as I set about learning from one of the most expensive courses I’ve ever purchased, so I dove right in.

What You Get With The Course

Bold income claims aside, the course actually does provide quite a bit of value and it is put together nicely.

The videos are also professionally shot, which I appreciated greatly, as videography is a core fundamental of creating a YouTube channel, as well as a critical element necessary for online course creation.

While I don’t agree with some of the information in this course (for example, I highly disagree with “that brand of you” – the process of writing a variety of content to see what sticks) it does provide a fairly clear roadmap of how to grow a blog.

By taking this course, you will be shown, step-by-step, how to start a blog and get it off the ground.

I like how the program first touches on the fundamentals like niche selecting, choosing a domain, and then creating content with authority in mind. These are concepts that some other courses don’t do a good job teaching.

After that, the course will teach you the actionable steps needed to actually build a website and bring it to life.

He then talks about different plugins and tool that you can use to scale, as well as the main pages necessary for getting a blog live.

Being very honest, these lessons are not a strong suit. Yes, this section will help you get a blog off the ground, but there is so much more that could be added to these lessons.

You’ll learn how to design a blog that looks somewhat similar to his. It’s okay, but could be improved:

As you can see, this is a fairly basic page that looks decent but not enterprise-level design.

When I run his site through Pagespeed Insights, it doesn’t meet Core Web Vitals, a very critical component of modern-day SEO:

Again, you are learning how to build a blog the same way that he sets up his site. If his site is lacking, you might consider that before you buy the course.

If I’m paying $1,000 for a course, I would expect this to help me build a site that not only looks incredibly professional, but also comes with a tech stack that meets Google’s basic performance requirements.

My suggestion would to not use his tech stack recommendations (page builders, basic tools) and instead opt for my tech stack recommendations which include:

• The right blogging platform
• A fast, optimized hosting provider
• The right plugins to install

And all of that will be backed by how to properly configure and set up the blog. This ensures that it will run fast and scale as you grow.

Now back to the outline.

After that, it touches on the fundamentals of search intent. Search intent is an important SEO topic that I’ve touched on multiple times in my writing on my own site.

I appreciated how Adam breaks this down, as he conveys the points here in simple terms that anybody can understand.

He relates this well throughout the modules of keyword research, general basics of ranking in Google, and understanding how to spot trends in search data.

Again, these are fairly basic modules, but they are well-explained and engaging.

Next up is link building. I think this is where Adam stands out.

Adam has a unique perspective into link building, as he has contacts at some of the biggest websites and companies within the affiliate marketing space due to his past employment at BigCommerce.

Take his website, for example. Look at the links he’s gained by leveraging his partnerships. It is clear that he knows how to build authoritative links:

When I went through this module within the course, I liked this lesson in particular. But, again, a lot of this information is already available on his YouTube channel.

My suggestion would be to start there and then sign up for the course later if you haven’t made any progress on your own from those videos.

After that comes a section on monetizing your brand.

While I don’t agree with him on a lot of his tactics, this is one thing he has done particularly well. He’s gotten sponsorships from brands and inserted affiliate links pretty much everywhere on the site.

He’s also done a great job of monetizing his work, too. I personally like to give all my information away for free, but I did learn a few interesting strategies (at least conceptually) about monetizing courses and downloadables.

Lastly, the course comes with some other additions such as blog post templates, courses on how to make money by freelancing, and more.

I think these are helpful, but again, this same information can be purchased on Udemy for much, much cheaper. Top-rated freelancing courses can be found for roughly $14.00 if that says anything.

I think the thought is there, and it’s a great addition, but I’m still having trouble getting to the $1,000 price point.

Lastly, the BGE team really likes to promote the fact that you can message the team directly, as well as interact with their community.

I think these things are nice, but you don’t need a coach to start a blog.

Again, it’s very easy to do, and it really just takes patience and determination – along with consistent work – to see results.

A coach is nice, but I would never, ever pay to be coached through the process. If you want a support group, Authority Hacker offers one for free, as does Gigworker’s Community – without payment.

Additionally, I would stay far, far away from the Backlink Exchange that they offer.

As a new blogger, you’ll probably try a bunch of grey-hat SEO tactics to speed up the process of ranking. My suggestion? Don’t. Put in the time, do the work, and be patient.

Backlinking is one of those things. There’s no “magic button” to speed them up, especially not a platform dedicated to link exchanges.

In fact, reciprocal links are VERY against Google’s guidelines, and can even lead to your website being completely removed from the internet if you’re caught.

I would caution you to treat lightly here, especially as Google keeps updating their Helpful Content System to be more and more aggressive against tactics like this.

My Experience Buying and Taking the Course

Overall, I did not get the value I wanted from the course. I ended up reaching out and requesting a refund, which the team understood and very quickly granted me.

First, when I started watching the course, I was a bit disappointed to learn that Adam had already covered most of the information in the course in his YouTube videos.

I had watched quite a few of the videos before I signed up for the course, so I was pretty familiar with Adam’s material already.

But I figured at that price point, the course would offer a ton of exclusive information since he was charging so much. But no, it was fairly standard across the board.

Where I was really disappointed, however, was with the lack of systems and automation.

The main thing I was hoping to get out of the course was how to build the actual systems, workflows, and automations that would allow me to scale my content business.

I figured with the content assembly line that he talks about in his videos, there would be some ironclad systems and templates that I could leverage to make content production easier.

Again, I was let down. He talks a lot about the systems, but doesn’t really show you how to build them.

I had to go seeking other alternatives that were a bit more actionable, which ended up leading to me finding that in Workello’s Content Ops Framework instead.

I’m also an Authority Hacker Pro member, which provides access to a huge amount of templates, workflows, and videos. So my bar was set pretty high in what I expected in exchange for $1,000.

If I could summarize my experience, it would be that the large majority of this course, seems to be conceptual.

There’s not a lot of detailed substance that I didn’t know already, nor is there a lot of information that you can’t find online for free.

While this course is decent for beginners, there’s a whole level of digital courses out there that offer everything Blog Growth Engine does, and much, much more.

If you’re thinking about paying for the course, that is totally fine, and I think you’ll have a great experience.

Over to You

But, for those on the fence, I would consider asking yourself if now is the best time to buy.

First, what type of content are you buying?

Are you buying access to a wide-scale system that has proven itself to work time and time again? Can you verify those results?

Or, are you being sold fairly basic content that is wrapped within the dream that advertises a fast, six-figure income?

Next, ask yourself if paid advice is really that much better than free advice.

A more practical and universally endorsed approach includes starting simply with a domain and hosting, learning SEO and content creation organically, and avoiding costly shortcuts.

I firmly believe in training and upskilling, but only after you’ve built a solid foundation and have gained experience in the field.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – there’s no such thing as a “quick fix” strategy in blogging. It may take years to achieve significant income.

Paid courses are great, but it’s the dedication and grit that will make your blog successful and there’s a high chance of failure – the part that many of the well-known blogging influencers fail to discuss in detail.

Alternatives to Blog Growth Engine

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1. Growth Machine’s SEO Course

The “100,000 Visitors” course is a free, 7-part series that teaches you how to grow a blog from zero to 150,000 monthly visitors in just 8 months.

Using their experience with the Cup & Leaf tea blog, the course covers SEO, keyword research, content creation, promotion, and analytics.

Perfect for SEO newcomers and those looking to enhance their skills.

Price: Free

2. Create & Go’s Blogging Course

The “Six-Figure Blog Builder” is a comprehensive course with six modules and over 170 lessons aimed at transforming your 9-5 routine into a thriving, six-figure blog business.

This course teaches you how to launch and grow a blog, targeting a monthly income of $10,000. It includes lifetime access, community support, updates for 2024, and a money-back guarantee.

So far, it has helped over 17,000 creators start and grow successful blogs, proving its effectiveness through real student testimonials.

Price: One-time payment of $997, or 6 monthly payments of $177

3. Ryan Robinson’s Course

“Built to Blog” is a comprehensive blogging course designed to transform your side business into a lucrative venture.

Ryan Robinson, a seasoned blogger with an annual readership of 4.4 million and $400,000+ in revenue, shares his strategies for achieving success. The course includes 54 lessons, over 9 hours of video, and insights from top bloggers.

With options for monthly or one-time payments, this course offers practical steps to grow your blog’s traffic, engage your audience, and monetize effectively.

Price: One-time payment of $497, or 6 monthly payments of $97