Are Blogging Courses Worth It?

Copywriting Tips

Mar 4

Written By Emily

As a content strategist, I’ve come across dozens of blogging courses. I’ve even seen some promise to show you how to make $100K a month with content creation, but is it true? Are blogging courses worth it or a scam?

Whether you’re a small business owner looking to boost your traffic or you’re researching “side hustles” to make extra cash, content marketing can be lucrative.

But do you need to invest in a blogging course? I’m here to tell you the secrets of the affiliate blogging industry and don’t worry – I’m not going to try to sell you a blogging course at the end.

Want to know how to make money from your website? Here’s exactly how you can make money blogging.

What are Blogging Courses?

Blogging courses are online tutorials and presentations that show you step-by-step how to set up a blog. You’ll get instructions on how to set up a website, add blogs, find a niche, improve your copywriting, and more – depending on the course.

The most popular blogging tutorial courses come from bloggers who have already created a successful blog (or so they say). Sometimes, you have to ask yourself, if they were making $10K a month with their blog, why did they bother making a course in the first place?

How Much Do Blogging Courses Cost?

You’ll pay anything from £0 to £4K+ for a blogging course. The cost depends on the depth of the information, platform, and provider.

When I first started trying to make money online over eight years ago, I spent $400 on an online blogging course. The course included a series of video tutorials from the course provider, templates, worksheets, and a private community of other “bloggers.”

The videos were well-produced, but the information was too generic.

Did I learn anything useful? Not really. But it was nice connecting with other people who were in my position—trying to start an online business with little knowledge.

After that, I spent another $500 on a course showing me how to set up a Squarespace website. But I wouldn’t even recommend that anymore.

Squarespace 7.1 is unbelievably intuitive. Its drag-and-drop website builder feature makes setting up a new website so easy. And there are hundreds of templates so you don’t even have to start from scratch.

Save Your Cash with These Free Blogging Courses

If you want to learn more about starting a blog, try out a few free courses. It’ll save you cash and you can get started with the basics.

Just don’t get stuck in a loop of neverending learning. The best way to get good at blogging is to jump in and start writing.

Yes, your first few blogs will suck, but you’ll get better, and you’ll find your unique writing style as you go.

Best Free Blogging Courses

Blogging Certification by The eMarketing Institute
HubSpot Academy has loads of free resources
How to Monetise Your Blog by Udemy

So, Are Paid Blogging Courses Worth It?

If you’re just starting out and want to start a blog as a business, a free blogging tutorial course is probably going to be useful. You’ll learn how to set up your website and get a crash course on niching down your content.

But I didn’t get any real value from the blogging courses I bought, and I certainly didn’t start earning $10K a month by following the video tutorials.

In reality, making your website profitable takes time, consistent effort, and a focus on valuable content.

There aren’t any hacks, tricks, or quick wins. And a huge percentage of these business blogging SEO courses and online boot camps are just trying to make money from you.

If these course creators were really making tens of thousands a month with their blogs, why would they want to sell a course in the first place? The truth is, their money comes from course fees.

How to Get Good At Blogging Without Courses

You don’t need a blog writing course to get results from your blog. You just need to realise that improving your writing will take consistent time and effort.

Here are some free tips for improving your blogging skills.

Start with Squarespace

Squarespace is the easiest website builder on the market. It’s template-based and has tons of features that require zero coding knowledge.

If you don’t have a website yet, I highly recommend Squarespace as your starting point.

Focus on an Experience-Based Niche

You’ve definitely heard this advice before, but it’s worth talking about why.

Google is putting more emphasis on blogs written by experts or those with deep experience in a subject.

It also confuses the algorithm when you write about a lot of different topics. The more narrow your focus, the easier it is for Google to categorise your website and rank your content.

If you offer online services, keep your blogs focused on those services to highlight your expertise and generate relevant traffic.

Find Blog Topics Answer The Public

If you’re not sure what to blog about, use Answer The Public. You get three free searches a day, which is more than enough to get started.

Type in a general keyword you want to write about (e.g., vegan diet, real estate, interior design, etc.), and you’ll get huge lists of FAQs that online users are regularly searching for.

Pick out the “highly searched” and “av. searched” questions and create blog posts answering them. This will fill your blog with solution-based content, which is what online users are searching for, which means higher traffic for you.

Create Long-Form Content

The Google algorithm prioritizes long-form content that’s over 1500 words, so make your posts long and informative.

Use multiple headings to split up your content and provide as much free value as you possibly can. Even if your big goal is to sell a product or service, your blog should always provide tons of free value.

Ubersuggest

Each blog post you create needs a dedicated keyword or phrase you want to rank for. If you’re not sure what keywords to use, Ubersuggest is another great free tool.

Again, you get three free searches a day, so don’t sign up for a paid account unless you find real value in this tool.

Type in your general keyword and then use the “keyword ideas” tab on the left to get dozens of keyword suggestions.

Each keyword has a difficulty score out of 100 and a search volume. You want a high search volume with the lowest difficulty score possible (under 40 is ideal).

Don’t worry if you don’t have many keywords with a high search volume. You can also cluster multiple low-volume keywords into a single blog post to give it an SEO boost.

Post Consistently

Google likes fresh content, so you should post frequently to boost your search rankings.

If you’re starting out, I suggest posting twice a week until you build up a bank of 50 high-value blog posts. You can then drop the frequency down if you’re struggling to keep up.

Relevancy is essential for Google, so blog posts with a recent date tend to get pushed up the rankings.

If you already have a bank of blog posts that aren’t doing well, go back and refresh them with new keywords, content, and graphics to make them look new in the eyes of Google.

You can use any of the free tips in this post to freshen up your existing content.

Get Backlinks

This is the number one strategy you can use to get more traffic and begin getting results from your blog.

Backlinks are live hyperlinks to your website from other sites. If you have backlinks from well-established, high-authority websites, you'll do significantly better in searches.

Backlinks show Google that your site is trustworthy, valuable, and relevant, which is why the top-ranking websites have thousands of backlinks.

The easiest way to get backlinks is through guest posting. Find high-quality websites in your niche that accept guest posts and pitch a newsworthy guest blog idea.

You’ll get plenty of rejections, but just a few backlinks will make a huge difference to your blog.

Are Blogging Courses Worth It? The Verdict

As a content strategist who’s been in the business for over eight years, I would never recommend a blogging SEO course to anyone. While there may be a few valuable blog courses out there, most are just money-making programs and affiliate marketing.

Instead, focus on creating in-depth, high-value content for your audience, and you’ll soon start to see results. The number one thing that stops so many people from succeeding is consistency.

Blogging isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme, it takes months of consistent effort.

It takes time to see real results from blogging, but you will get there if you stick with it.

If you’re struggling to write engaging blogs, head to the next post for quick and easy copywriting tips for beginners.