If you are reading this, then chances are you want to know how us bloggers make money while we can wear our PJ’s and work from our couches. For me it took a long time to learn everything there is to know about how to start a blog, turn it into a business, and make it a full time job from home. I remember getting an “aha” moment when I learned that 6 figure blogger earners spend 20% of their time learning new ways to blog and make money. That means bloggers need to be learning and updating their blogging knowledge all. the. time. Right now, I’m currently taking three different blog courses to keep me in the know of what will help my business grow.
If you are looking to create a business out of a blog, then that means you too, need to invest in online courses to learn how others are successful, so you can apply the same strategies. That being said, I’ve listed here courses that have truly helped me. This is not an exhaustive list as I’ve taken many other courses that are either retired or just out dated. So if you want to know where to begin – or if you have started and want some ideas of what to learn next – here are my personal suggestions.
For beginners:
If your blog is still just an idea in your head and you have no idea of how to even get started, then take a look at Crystal Paine’s Blogging University 101. She goes over all the basics from getting your host and domain name, setting up your wordpress dashboard, learn how to create your first blog post, getting your e-mail list started, getting your social media platforms growing, and more! This is very affordable for a starter course and worth every penny for starting the business of your dreams!
When you complete the 101 courses, or have been blogging for a bit and are ready for some intermediate or advanced courses, then here is what I recommend:
Get Paid to Pin – if you love Pinterest as much as I do – then this course is a great way to learn how to monetize your Pinterest strategy and make some money off of this amazing social media/search engine platform.
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing – if you’ve heard of affiliate marketing, but just aren’t sure where to be begin or how to use it in your blog posts – then this is the perfect resource to give you ideas on how to get started. It is way easier than you might think – and its pretty awesome making money from products that you’d recommend to your readers no matter what.
Amazon Affiliate Affluence – I’ve been a lover of adding Amazon affiliate links to my blog posts – and this shows in great detail how to make the most from this affiliate program.
Adventures in SEO – This is the best, most comprehensive, and easiest strategy I’ve learned when it comes to learning SEO (search engine optimization.) I’m one that gets overwhelmed with doing all of the details needed to rank on Google – but Lena Gott shows you easy ways to find keywords that will help you rank first in Pinterest, and then later in Google. It’s a very doable strategy that has really helped me gain traffic in Pinterest search. This course is currently on wait list – but you can still go here and get added to that list to get notified when it opens back up.
If your budget for investing in courses is slim to none right now – then start with this FREE 5 day Blog Traffic & Income Challenge. This is also written by Lena Gott and it is an intro to her full Traffic Transformation course which I will talk about next.
Traffic Transformation – Lena Gott doesn’t hold back when she shows you 17+ strategies she has used over the years to get traffic to her blog. Some I knew about and some were brand new to me and it was so great to see a real life example of how a successful blogger uses multiple strategies to get eyes on her content. It really helped me to learn that you can’t just publish a blog post and wait for the thousands of readers to click. You really have to use strategies and work to get the right eyes on what you have to offer.
Ebook Creation Guide by Lena Gott – Other than ads on your site or affiliate marketing, another fantastic revenue stream for bloggers who want to make money is to create and sell e-books. If that seems like an overwhelming task, then take this course and you can see how it isn’t so hard to create an e-book. It could be as simple as putting a series of blog posts you have already created into a PDF file and selling it!
Browser to Buyer – This course is great for learning about tripwires and funnels once you have a product ready to sell and want to see more conversions of those sales.
This is not an exhaustive list, and classes I’ve taken in the past (on Pinterest and ConverKit for example) have since retired. So if you are looking for info and an awesome group of people where you can ask blogging questions – then you may want to think about joining a Mastermind group.
I recently joined Crystal Paine’s community mastermind group in Your Blogging University. Keep in mind, this group is for intermediate or advanced level bloggers who are really diving in to making their blog into a full time job. Having people you can ask questions to on a regular basis is crucial to your successes. Bloggers don’t view each other as competitors – but as teammates that know we need each other to all be successful. I know this group is currently closed to new members – but will open soon and I’d love for you to join our tribe. I’ll be sure to add a link here to join when it opens.
If there is a topic you want to learn more about, but don’t see a course listed here (because I’ve only listed a tiny fraction of the ones that exist), you can also search for free webinars on YouTube. For example – I learned about how to make a free printable using Canva just by watching free videos in YouTube.
Other blogging tools I use other than my Wordpress dashboard:
Tailwind – My blog could not survive without using Tailwind as my Pinterest scheduling tool!
Convertkit – is currently the e-mail platform I use. I love it because I can organize multiple free opt-ins I offer as a way to add people to my e-mail list.
Liquid Web – is my web host – they are great at communicating with you in a very timely manner anything tech related to hosting a blog!
PicMonkey – This is a great photo editing service that is online. This is the one I use most when I want to add text to my images. Want to see what New PicMonkey is all about? Sign-up for your free trial today!
Lightroom for editing – this is a more advanced photo editing tool that really helps you create professional level edited images for your blogs.
WP Tasty Plugin – This is a paid plugin, but it is one of my favorites because it allows me to place a default pin description on each of my images. Therefore, if anyone pins my content, the keyword-rich description I wrote for the pin will be what pops up. Perfect for SEO on Pinterest!
Have specific questions on any of these resources? Just send me a quick e-mail and ask! happydealhappyday {at} hotmail {dot} com. I’m here and happy to help!
