Anyone else find getting organic traffic to your website harder than the guides suggest?

yes, and most of those guides were written by people who got in early. a new site with no links sits in the slow lane for months no matter how good the posts are. what actually moved things for me was going narrower. long, specific questions where the top results are forum threads or thin pages, not big brands. win a handful of those, then go after the bigger terms. and expect 6-12 months before it feels like it's working, which no guide says up front.