Luc Durand’s Ranking Academy Review – SEO Pros and Monetization Alternatives |IPPEI

Updated On 2023-06-21

Ranking Academy also offers a Google Business Profile SEO cheat sheet that is free to download. This SEO cheat sheet helps you rank factors that are important to be on top of the Google search engine. You just need to download it, then do each task inside at your own pace. It also has video tutorials in case you get stuck. Luc offers tons of free resources in Ranking Academy. Is Luc Durand the best option for you to improve visibility online?

In my 10+ years of experience with SEO, similar to the one taught by Ranking Academy, it reminds me of the Erie Canal, which is a huge, front-loaded engineering project whose locks and channels multiplied trade for decades after construction finished. Just how Erie Canal multiplied commerce, every SEO-optimized page, internal link, and backlink adds to domain strength and keeps compounding traffic long after the launch. SEO scalability is like GitHub Actions, where reusable workflow templates let teams spin up identical CI pipelines across dozens of repositories without rebuilding the process each time. Proven keyword-to-content templates and technical frameworks can be cloned across topics or sites to grow quickly while reducing effort.

This review analyzes Luc Durand’s Ranking Academy pros and cons, what you will learn from it, if its students are successful, and what other alternatives are there. We’ll also compare it to the local lead generation business which we will use as the benchmark for profitability, scalability, and long-term stability.

What Are the Pros And Cons of Ranking Academy?

Pros

It offers tons of free tutorials on its YouTube channel.
Ranking Academy receives good feedback from its subscribers.
Some of its clients in 1-on-1 achieve success.
Luc conducts research about your business before the session.

Cons

The cost of Luc’s live sessions is expensive because of their short duration.
The live sessions require payment first.
Some of Luc’s free courses are slightly outdated.
There is no refund policy.

Price: Ranking Academy 1-on-1 live sessions costs depend on what you avail.

The Jump-Start 1-On-1 Live Session costs $180 for 30 minutes.
The 1-on-1 Depth Session costs $550 for 60 minutes.

Refund Policy: Luc Durand mentions nothing about the refund policy.

Origin: Ranking Academy started in 2016.

Reputation: Ranking Academy has a huge audience on its YouTube channel with 236K subscribers.

What Are the Ranking Academy 1-on-1 Live Sessions?

Jump-Start Session

This Jump-start session teaches you how to rank your small business on Google Search and Google Maps in just 30 minutes. It’s an open discussion in Zoom that focuses on strategies and proven SEO practices. After the session, Luc will send you the record to have a clear copy of your discussion with him.

What to expect before the live session?

Luc emails you to confirm the date and time for your session.
After paying, you will receive a Zoom link for the session.
Luc will do research on your website beforehand.

Who is the Jump-start session best for?

The Jump-start session is best for business owners who are on a tight budget but seeking expert assistance and guidance. This session provides insights into their website, Google Business profile, and tactics to upgrade their online presence.

Price: 1-on-1 Jump-Start Session costs $180.00.
Duration: This live session duration is only 30 minutes.

In-Depth Session

It is a one-hour in-depth analysis of your small business’ local search situation. You and Luc examine your Google business listing, link profile, website, analytics data, and more. During your live session, Luc focuses on every section to see why you are not ranking. Also, it provides an actionable list to replicate or achieve better success.

What to expect before the live session?

Luc tracks your 5 most relevant keywords to show the visibility of your business.
He will audit your Google Business Profile to make sure that it sets up correctly.
Also, he will pinpoint some SEO gaps in your website.
Luc reveals reasons your competitors outperform you.

Who is the In-depth session best for?

The In-depth session is best for business owners that seeking a thorough analysis of their visibility situation. Luc will help them know the strength and weaknesses of their SEO strategy.

Price: 1-on-1 Depth Session costs $550/
Duration: This live session is only 60 minutes.

What Are the Ranking Academy Free Courses On Class Central?

SEO for Beginner - How to Rank #1 in Google Fast in 2025

For pricing, Michael uses a dynamic pricing software that integrates with Airbnb called This course teaches you the 8 steps on how to rank your business in the Google search engine faster. It runs less than an hour and is also available on YouTube.

8 Steps to Rank Faster on Google

Step 1: Keyword research
Step 2: Define the structure of your pages
Step 3: Adding content to your pages
Step 4: Add search engine-friendly images
Step 5: Creating effective titles and description
Step 6: Linking your pages together
Step 7: Continue creating content
Step 8: Track your performance

How To Edit Your Google Business Profile

For pricing, Michael uses a dynamic pricing software that integrates with Airbnb called It is a 6-chapter full guide on how to edit your Google Business Profile. Essentially, Business Profile on Google is a free tool that allows you to decide how your business will appear on Google Search and Maps.

Six Chapters to Edit Your Google Business Profile

Chapter One: Logging into your account

Chapter Two: Interface Anatomy

Chapter Three: Icon Panel

Edit your profile details contact, categories, website
Read and respond to reviews
Messages
Adding photos
Check your performance
manage products
Manage services
Booking links
Q and A
Add Google posts
Review link

Chapter Four: Advanced Panel

Business profile settings
Notifications
Adding a new business profile
Accessing all profiles
Help/Feedback/ T and Cs

Chapter Five: Business Panel

Chapter Six: Suggestion Panel

Google My Business Profile Optimization - Ultimate Tutorial For 2025

For pricing, Michael uses a dynamic pricing software that integrates with Airbnb called This optimization tutorial takes you through each section of your Google my business listing and shows you how to leverage it step by step. This guide has tips, tricks, and trade secrets that help you outperform your local competitors in search engines like Google in 2023. Luc guides you to attract more visitors, which leads to more profits.

The Chapters in Google My Business Profile Optimization’s Ultimate Tutorial for 2023 will teach you how to log into your profile, create your business name, input your business address and phone number, how to understand business categories and other basics like inputting your website link. It covered more complex concepts towards the end, where you can learn how to input photos, information on products and services, and more.

On-Page SEO Tutorial For Small Businesses

For pricing, Michael uses a dynamic pricing software that integrates with Airbnb called This tutorial runs for over 20 minutes. On-page SEO is one of the three pillars of website optimization to speed up visibility in search engines to drive more traffic.

Chapter One: Why is on-page SEO so important
Chapter Two: Page Title
Chapter Three: Meta Description
Chapter Four: Headings and Subheadings
Chapter Five: Writing Content
Chapter Six: Images
Chapter Seven: NAP
Chapter Eight: Frequently asked questions
Chapter Nine: Google Review
Chapter Ten: Links
Chapter Eleven: Track your performance

Canva Tutorial

For pricing, Michael uses a dynamic pricing software that integrates with Airbnb called This free training tutorial teaches beginners how to use Canva. It helps you to use this software to create graphics in creating content for your social media platforms, blogs and in your website. It covers how to create a free Canva account to download and publish your design.

Lesson One: Create a Free Canva Account
Lesson Two: Home Page Overview
Lesson Three: Home Page - Top Bar
Lesson Four: Home Page - Side Menu
Lesson Five: Home Page - Main Area
Lesson Six: Canva Editor
Lesson Seven: Canva Editor Menu Bar
Lesson Eight: Canva Editor Side Panel
Lesson Nine: Canva Editor Design Aera
Lesson Ten: Download and Publish Your Design

Mailchimp Tutorial 2025

For pricing, Michael uses a dynamic pricing software that integrates with Airbnb called Mailchimp is the largest email marketing platform that can help your business grow. You will learn in this tutorial how to build a campaign from scratch and track your email campaign performance.

Chapter One: Create a Free Mailchimp Account
Chapter Two: Dashboard Overview
Chapter Three: Create an Audience
Chapter Four: Create a Campaign
Chapter Five: Send a Campaign
Chapter Six: Create a Sign-up Form
Chapter Seven: Campaign Performance
Chapter Eight: Create Email Templates
Chapter Nine: Manage Your Audience

How To Turn Your Listing Into A Client Magnet In 2022

For pricing, Michael uses a dynamic pricing software that integrates with Airbnb called This tutorial on his YouTube channel last 2020 made it slightly outdated. But, it gained 135,237 views and good feedback from active subscribers. It provides tons of tips and tricks to improve your online visibility.

The Ultimate Course Starting A Local Business

For pricing, Michael uses a dynamic pricing software that integrates with Airbnb called It is one of the most recent tutorials that Luc offers. It also covers steps to get your business rank on Google, this one is more in-depth which runs almost 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Chapter One: Setting up a Google business profile
Chapter Two: Optimizing your Google Business Profile
Chapter Three: Key pre-building steps for your website
Chapter Four: Building a Website with WIX
Chapter Five: On-page SEO for Higher Google Rankings

Who Is Luc Durand

Luc Durand is the founder of Ranking Academy. Luc has 19 years of extensive experience in the web industry. He is proficient in search engine optimization, content management, web design, web analytics, and merchandising. His passion is to help small businesses to grow their business through online marketing . It leads him to create YouTube tutorials to share his expertise with small business owners. As of writing, his channel has 12,404,682 views in 2015.

After a year, he launched his own venture that offers free resources to guide small businesses. He guides them to reach large audiences, gain traffic and improve their revenue. Luc provides various tactics to rank your Google My Business higher . Also, he created this to offer personal guidance for entrepreneurs seeking an expert partner to succeed in their business ventures.

Who Is Ranking Academy For?

Ranking Academy is for business owners who are seeking mentors on how to improve their website’s visibility on search engines like Google. Also, this is for business owners that are on a tight budget and want to learn tactics to reach a wide audience for free. It includes generating traffic to achieve significant income . However, Ranking Academy will not teach you the steps on how to start an online business .

Is Ranking Academy Worth It?

Yes, Ranking Academy is worth it for beginners who are starting out and aim to improve great visibility online. Also, it is good for business owners to reach the audience and rank highly in search engines. It offers step-by-step videos that teach different tactics and strategies to learn online marketing to help your business succeed. Luc Durand has expertise in online marketing that he can share in his 1-on-1 live sessions. You with him will pinpoint every misstep in your process, the edge of your competitor, and an actionable guide to outperform them.

You don’t have to worry about the possibility of having dead air in Zoom because Luc himself will do research about your business before the sessions. But, it comes with a price; for only 30 minutes you need to pay him $180 and a whopping $550 for 60 minutes. That price is enough to enroll you in the whole course. However, the success of his clients shows the effectiveness of his live sessions.

Are Clients Of Ranking Academy Successful?

Yes, some of the clients of Ranking Academy are successful. And most of them are real business owners who have a successful business. Their clients’ business is in different niches such as digital marketing , health, music, and also personal coaching.

In addition to that, their subscribers praised his free course on Cass Central. They thank Luc for making some methods easy for them to learn and understand. Also, Luc is answering questions from subscribers on their concerns in their business.

What Are Some of the Ranking Academy Alternatives?

The Affiliate Lab by Matt Diggity - A complete affiliate-SEO course teaching how to build, rank, monetize and flip niche affiliate websites.
Shinefy by Chase Reiner - An AI-driven all-in-one tool and training platform that helps content creators and affiliate marketers automate video production, keyword research and viral content creation.
Local SEO Mastery by Semantic Mastery - A training program focused on local SEO strategies, weekly live sessions, and community support for service-based businesses to dominate local search.

What Is The Best Online Business To Start In 2025?

Local lead generation is the best online business to start in 2025. It is simpler than any business that the Ranking Academy’s clients have. I make $52,000 per month by doing this business model. I’m expecting $500 - $2,000 passive income monthly on each website. You need to build a website, rank it in search engines like Google, and rent it out to local businesses. Also, you can scale as much as you want by repeating the process. For someone who tried different business models, I recommend you start with local lead generation through rank and rent.

While Luc Durand’s Ranking Academy teaches valuable local SEO principles, it focuses on helping small business owners improve their own rankings and not on building income-producing digital properties. The local lead generation model allows you to apply the same SEO skills, but for your own long-term gain rather than one-off consulting fees. You build and own digital assets that pay you monthly instead of trading time for money.

One of my clients is Chicago Commercial Epoxy Flooring Kings, 1640 West Howard Street, Chicago, Illinois 60626, 773-365-9922, https://www.chicagocommercialepoxy.com/. I earned $3,680 from 10% commissions in the month when 8 of my leads closed for $36.8K.

Comparing SEO to local lead generation is like the Library of Alexandria’s archives, which were an immense trove that gathered searchable knowledge over centuries but never included a built-in cashbox or checkout counter. Every optimized page and earned backlink compounds into lasting discoverability, yet ranking alone does not teach you the best way to monetize that traffic or guarantee steady revenue. A local lead generation business is like the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse where a single, purpose-built beacon that reliably guides ships to shore night after night. It converts one upfront build and modest upkeep into predictable arrivals. Local lead generation behaves the same in that once a site ranks, it funnels customers passively, requires little daily oversight, avoids ongoing ad buys, and carries low operating fees.

Final Verdict: Is Luc Durand’s Ranking Academy Worth It?

Luc Durand’s Ranking Academy is worth it for beginners who want to learn SEO fundamentals. However, it lacks scalability, as its monetization path is limited to improving or consulting on existing businesses. If your goal is to generate recurring, predictable income, local lead generation outperforms Ranking Academy. It uses similar SEO principles, but applies them to build owned, income-generating assets instead of improving someone else’s website. Local lead generation is the best way to create passive income using SEO.