Investing in the best blogging courses (and then actually doing the work) can lead you to a lucrative blogging career.
I know this because, after four years of working my butt off, I’m earning a ridiculously healthy income from my blog.
To help you succeed with blogging, I wanted to write all my thoughts on the best courses about blogging I’ve taken in the five years I’ve been at this gig.
(Please note: I’ve taken many more blog courses than the ones I mention below. These courses are the only ones I recommend for people who want to blog for a living. There are a lot of crappy courses out there).
No time? Here’s the rundown
- Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing – best for total newbies
- The Pinterest Launch Plan – create a Pinterest strategy from scratch
- Traffic Transformation – perfect for established bloggers who need help to level up
- Blog Simple Framework – the whole shebang – from niche selection, content creation, using WordPress to getting traffic and growing your income with Pinterest.
8 Blog Courses That Will Grow Your Income
Contents
I’m still actively taking courses (never stop learning, y’all!), so this post will be a living thing. I’ll update it when I come across a killer blog resource.
Best Blogging Courses for Total Beginners
It can be tough to find the money to invest in a course on blogging when you’re just starting out. You’ve paid for hosting and a domain, perhaps a theme and logo design, maybe a Pinterest scheduler – at least $150 before you even make a dime.
The thing is, unless you learn the right skills, you will waste time and actually cost yourself money.
Case in point – I started this blog in 2015 and didn’t make a dime until after I started to invest in courses in 2016.
Now that I have the skills from investing in the right blogging courses I can monetize a blog instantly.
If you could get your blog to the level of making $500 a month within 6 months by investing in a good blogging course, then, of course, you’d do it. That said, you don’t have to spend a fortune on a beginner blogging course to see results.
In my experience, there are two things a new blogger should focus on to get a blog fully functioning and making money – affiliate marketing and traffic generation.
For affiliate marketing I recommend taking one of the following two courses – Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing or Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers; Everything You’re Missing.
For traffic generation, Pinterest is the easiest place to get traffic as a new blogger. For that purpose, I recommend The Pinterest Launch Plan.
These courses complement each other perfectly. Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing shows you how to set your blog up for affiliate income, how to find and contact affiliate partners and the best way to write posts around affiliate links. It also includes a Pinterest module which is great for beginners.
The Pinterest Launch Plan then shows you how to set up your Pinterest profile for maximum traffic generation, and set in place a strategy that will get clicks to your blog (the only Pinterest metric that matters).
Keep reading to see why these courses are some of the best online courses to make money.
1. Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing
Price: $197
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing was the course that took me from $0 per month to $1000 in affiliate sales. I enrolled early on and drank up the information.
For me, MSOAM was the right course because Michelle (the course creator) is in my niche and successful. I took MSOAM after Elite Blog Academy and found the advice to be more practical than Elite Blog Academy (which I consider more of a business-building course) at a much more palatable price (currently $197).
I learned that although I’d had some early success (mainly viral shares) the content I was creating was not easily monetizable.
After taking Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing I learned how to write blog posts that were designed to convert affiliate sales.
The reason I still promote MSOAM years after taking it is that the information is constantly updated and the price is excellent for a beginners course.
Plus, the active community on Facebook makes bouncing ideas back and forth simpler.
If a course has an active Facebook group, that is a huge plus for me. Networking with other bloggers is a great way to build success and collaborations to get both of your names and blogs more eyeballs.
What I didn’t love
I want to be completely upfront with you here. Michelle makes most of her income from one post on her site that promotes a website hosting service I don’t believe offer a good service (they *might* rhyme with pootoast – just sayin’).
There’s nothing wrong with making money from hosting, (I love and recommend Siteground and occasionally people buy the hosting and I make $50) but it perpetuates the myth that the only way to make money blogging is by encouraging people to start a blog (not true – I address this in another post)
I can see why that bothers other people, but Michelle still makes well over $10,000 per month from non-blogging affiliates.
I chose to go into the course focusing on the other stuff. That way, I still got great info from her course, and that’s why I’m recommending it.
In my full Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing review, I mentioned that experienced bloggers won’t get a lot from this course and I stand by that. If you’re an experienced blogger, you need a more advanced course (see more below).
The course doesn’t touch on SEO or the next-level stuff you need to explode your income. But it can get you to the level where you’re earning a decent part-time income so you can invest in more advanced training (which is going to cost way more than the $197 Michelle charges).
Learn more about Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing here>>
2. Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers – Everything You’re Missing
Price: $79
I had to include this affiliate marketing course for bloggers as it’s a strong competitor to the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course.
Now, technically I didn’t take this course to get me to the level I’m at today, but I was a beta tester when Carly first released the course and had it been around when I enrolled in MSOAM, I would’ve taken it because a) the price is super competitive and b) Carly Campbell is an understated blogging legend and she’s never given me bad advice.
Her course is thorough, and I definitely think that you would have the same results (if not better) from this course, than the one above, especially if you are not in the personal finance niche.
In the course, Carly focuses on her mom niche (she writes a lot about postpartum and other mum/mom stuff) to show that you don’t need to blog about blogging in order to succeed at blogging.
She’s also wise to which kinds of posts get page views in order to earn ad revenue (she’s with Adthrive but the same applies to Mediavine and other ad networks) and how to then funnel those page views through to posts that are well-monetized with affiliates.
For well under a hundred bucks, this course is excellent value.
Learn more about Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers – Everything You’re Missing here>>
3. Pinterest Launch Plan by JenniferMaker Academy
Price: $27 (an absolute bargain!)
This course is technically an e-book but it’s delivered via Teachable so I’m calling it a course. In her own words “…this is a strategy, not a full-fledged course. You get the 101-page ebook, three videos, several printable worksheets, and a blank spreadsheet to track your progress.”
This (not a full-fledged) course will show you how to use Pinterest from absolute newbie stage and how to best set up your boards and profile for success and then how to create and launch new pins to drive traffic to your blog.
If you’re a blogger and not currently using Pinterest because it seems confusing (as I was when I first heard about Pinterest) this book will change your life. It’s only $27 which is a steal for the value given in the book.
(JenniferMaker is a craft and DIY blogger who makes over $100,000 per month online. This woman knows her sh*t!)
I recently recommended The Pinterest Launch Plan to a friend who is brand new to Pinterest and she is loving how clear the instructions are and finding it easy to implement. I use the strategies taught in the Pinterest Launch Plan to launch my new pins and it works really well for me.
Learn more about The Pinterest Launch Plan here>>
5. Pinteresting Pins on Autopilot & Pinterest Mastermind
Price: $15/month
If you understand how Pinterest works but just need help making pretty pins, Pinteresting Pins on Autopilot & Pinterest Mastermind is just what you need.
Brought to you by the queen of Pinterest herself, Carly Campbell, this is a ridiculously good value package to help you create engaging and eye-catching pins in either Canva or Picmonkey.
This is not a Pinterest course, it’s a membership. You pay $15 a month and the pin templates are sent to you via email. You can then save the templates in your Canva or Picmonkey account and alter them to your hearts content.
This has reduced my pin creation time by over 90%, it’s a complete game-changer.
You also get access to the paid mastermind on Facebook – a group where Carly herself is active with frequent Facebook lives sharing her many tests and experiments with Pinterest traffic.
Learn more about Pinteresting Pins on Autopilot>>
Blogging Courses for Intermediate Bloggers
You’ve got the basics down pat, but need help to level up your traffic.
Once bloggers graduate from beginners to intermediate level, knowledge gaps tend to be filled when needed. Just in time training, if you will.
Whether it’s traffic generation, social media, search engine optimization or email marketing, each strategy requires deeper training.
Here are my top picks for more advanced blogging training courses.
5. Traffic Transformation: 21 Strategies I Used to Go from 17k to 400k Page Views in 10 Months
Price: $79.
Traffic Transformation by Lena Gott was a game-changer for my traffic.
Using the strategies in this guide, I was able to go from a plateau of 15,000 page views a month (I honestly thought I’d never get past it and strongly considered becoming a bloggers VA instead), to reaching the threshold for Mediavine and blasting right on past it.
Now, there are people out there that will tell you traffic doesn’t matter. They’re wrong. Let me tell you why. You need the traffic to qualify for a premier ad network (Mediavine requires 50k monthly sessions).
Once you qualify for an ad network you get REGULAR MONTHLY INCOME.
I cannot emphasize enough how much of a shift in your business regular income makes. Regular income means you can invest in new tools, maybe a VA, or more courses.
Back to the guide. I reread this guide regularly.
It’s worth at least triple the $79 Lena charges for it plus I love that it’s PDF so I can read it on my Kindle in bed on lowlight while the kids are asleep next to me – #mumbloggerproblems
The book contains 21 strategies to increase your traffic without doing a ton more work (it kinda emphasizes working more on your current content, actually).
If you’re spending a lot of time on your blog and not getting anywhere, this is the guide for you.
Step 3 of the guide details some low payback tasks you can just quit right away. I stopped all of these (grind) tasks – hello pin all threads! – and saw no drop in traffic, and got 5 hours a week back. 5 hours a week that I could use to focus on tasks that grow my business. That is a big deal to a WAHM!
I really think the best thing about Lena’s guide is that it forces you to use the data you already have to improve your blog as it stands.
Improving existing posts, driving more page views from every single visitor and then showing how to replicate your successes over and over again.
If you’re working your butt off and still the traffic isn’t moving, this guide is a must-buy. I’d stop everything you’re doing right now and work on these strategies.
Click here to read more about Traffic Transformation>>
6. Stupid Simple SEO
Price: $297 or $497
Stupid Simple SEO by Mike Pearson is the SEO course you need if you are prepared to work hard and grow your passive income.
I say ‘passive’ because although you will do a lot of work upfront, Google traffic can pay dividends for years afterwards.
This course will teach you how to make your site relevant, how to rank for multiple topics (especially important for lifestyle bloggers with lots of niches), how to do keyword and competitor research, how to write epic content (by far my favourite module) and loads more.
The Facebook group is full of heavyweight bloggers who are extremely helpful so any questions asked in there tend to get answered quickly.
Pricing is in 2 tiers. Here’s what is included with each:
Standard: $297 (or 4-month payment plan of $87/mo)
- The Complete Stupid Simple SEO 2.0 Course (8 Core Modules)
- Private Students-Only Facebook Group
- Trello Course Roadmap
- Lifetime Updates
Advanced: $497 (or 4-month payment plan of $137/mo)
- The Complete Stupid Simple SEO 2.0 Course (8 Core Modules)
- 7-Bonus Content & Link-Building Modules (not in standard)
- Private Students-Only Facebook Group
- Trello Course Roadmap
- Lifetime Updates
The course only opens four times a year. If the course is not currently open, use the link below to register for Mike’s excellent and FREE 5 Day SEO Bootcamp. You’ll then be notified when the course opens for enrolment.
Learn more about Stupid Simple SEO here>>
Overall Blogging Courses
As you can see I’ve taken multiple blogging classes to get where I am. But there is an alternative – taking a course which shows you everything.
The blog courses listed below are complete in that they discuss starting a blog from scratch, niche-selection, writing content, promotion and monetization.
7. Blog Simple Framework (formerly Dare to Conquer)
Price $1997
If you only take one course – make it this one. Blog Simple Framework (formerly Billionaire Blog Club and then Dare to Conquer) is a complete blogging course which covers everything from setting up your blog, installing Generatepress and tweaking it to how you like, branding, Pinterest, SEO, landing pages, product creation, sales funnels, email marketing and so much more.
Paul Scrivens (Scrivs) runs multiple blogs successfully which is the reason I signed up for the course. I wanted to know his system for automating and managing multiple blogs, plus I saw lots of successful bloggers taking the course.
I knew they were successful because they were monetized with Mediavine (minimum 25k sessions per month) and some of the blogs were less than six months old (I checked their archives). That is a seal of approval right there.
I really like that Scrivs encourages new bloggers to write popular content to establish their blogs and get decent traffic from Pinterest.
His training is very specific, step-by-step, in video format.
This course also teaches a bunch of super-practical stuff like how to make your first $1000 and runs challenges around getting to 10k page views or writing a certain number of words each day.
The community on Slack is very-supportive and collaborate regularly. They have places where members can sign up to each others group boards on Pinterest (highly niched group boards with low contributor numbers are still helpful) or offer a guest post, social media promotion and loads of other cool stuff that really helps when you’re new and nobody knows your blog.
Click here to learn more about Blog Simple Framework>>
8. Build Blog Freedom Fast Track
Price: $597
Build Blog Freedom is one of the best blogging training courses I’ve come across.
I’ve followed Sharon Gourlay for five years now. I remember when I went travelling in 2014, she was blogging about her Amazon affiliate niche sites and I was intrigued.
Almost all of her traffic to her Amazon sites was from search engines and she made a huge passive income while travelling the world with her family.
She gives away a ton of free value in her Facebook group and on her blog, Digital Nomad Wannabe.
Needless to say, when she released her SEO course as part of her new blogging course, Build Blog Freedom, I was in.
I implemented the strategies and saw immediate improvement. In fact, one of the testimonials on her site is mine – about a niche site I started which was making over $250/US a month with only 7 published articles and zero social media presence. I’ve since applied the strategies to all my other sites and my income has skyrocketed.
Click here to learn more about Build Blog Freedom>>
So there you have it. The best courses for running a profitable blog, in my opinion. Don’t waste another moment flailing with no guidance.
Starting and growing a profitable blog is the best thing I ever did for my finances. I now have a valuable asset and have acquired many high income skills just from working on the blog. I highly recommend it.
I hope this article has been helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions in the comments.
Related guides:
- How to Make Money with a Blog for Beginners
- 8 Best Virtual Assistant Training Courses
- 29 Genuine Ways to Make $100 a Day Online
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Hi Emma. I want to start a new blog. I am absolutely new to everything and I already choose my topic which is climate change. Which course or guide to start a blog you recommend me that will make me start off on the right course since the beginning? And is the billionare blog club just for intermediate advance, or beginners are also going to take advantage of this?
Hi Analiese, if you were only going to buy one course, then absolutely get Billionaire Blog Club. It starts from scratch and will show you everything. I personally started it as an established blogger so I didn’t take advantage of the tutorials for new bloggers but it’s all there. If your budget is lower, then I would look at Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. It’s less than half the price, has an excellent getting started tutorial and will give you access to some of the big movers and shakers in the blogging world.
Now, as for your topic. It’s important and will make a difference, but if you want to blog for profit you need to find ways for that topic to make money. I’m not sure of which affiliate programs you could access – perhaps Amazon for eco-friendly products, books etc. But will they make big money? Probably not. You might want to expand your niche into something like natural living/green living so you have a wider range of topics to write about and make money from.
You can always monetize with ads but you’ll need traffic to make decent ad revenue. I make between $300-$400 a month with ads on my smaller blog that gets around 20-30k pageviews a month. So it’s a lot of pageviews for quite low revenue.
Just some things to think about. All the best with it!
What do you mean when you say Elite Blog Academy is more a building business course? I am new to turning my content into an income producing blog. I have a few brick and mortar businesses and am ready to try this! I am willing to take any of the courses or monthly training, just want to start.
My website below is for my mortgage business, but I have a TON of experience in personal finance, business building and managing that I am ready to share and have been creating for years! I’m excited to make money in a different way with it now.
Hi Megan, EBA is a huge course that takes a lot of time to complete. Whilst excellent, it didn’t give me all the information I needed to write search-friendly content or incorporate affiliate links etc. I had to buy extra courses to get that information – and TBH for the price of EBA I really expected it to be a one-stop shop. The courses I recommend are more practical how-to courses for those who want to get stuck in. EBA only opens once a year, so it’s tough to wait when you want to start now.
I think BBC would be a great course for you. The community is awesome and the founder – Scrivs – is always on Slack answering questions. It’s open for enrolment now but I think it may have gone up to $447 for a lifetime membership (and he’s currently reworking the course so it’s gonna be epic). Personal finance is a great niche (I may be *slightly* biased) and with your experience, you’ll ace it. All the best!
This is a great post thanks Emma! Just what I was looking for, as I want to grow my blog and income in the coming year.
I really appreciate your information here. I have been blogging for 2 months now (I know thats not long at all but I feel like I have ADHD. Everyone is looking to take your money and I keep worrying I’m not doing the right things. It was a huge learning curve just getting my blog theme the way I wanted it (is it yet?) and yet each step I take has tons of learning. I am on the waiting list for EBA and I also bought Create and Go’s package but haven’t felt like it was on the whole, the best course for me. I googled reviews today for Carly’s course (because she has a sale going on:)) and came upon your sight. I was going to sign up for Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing but it sounds like I can learn what I need from Carly at about 1/3 of the other course. I will also look into what other courses you were talking about. Thanks for being straight
Cheryl, if you’ve already taken some courses then I definitely think Carly’s course will be better for you. I think MSOAM is a better course for absolute beginners, but Carly gets straight to the point and doesn’t show you how to start a blog from scratch etc. If you know a little already, definitely save yourself a few bucks and get Carly’s course.
As for your theme – it looks great! Just a couple of tips and these are totally just my opinions so you don’t need to change them if you don’t want to.
I think maybe you could reduce the number of items on your navigation menu (maybe move Contact to under About) and get rid of Home as most people know to click the logo on your site to get to the home page.
Also, get rid of the url written under your logo in the header – it’s unnecessary and when it comes time to use ad networks you will find out that is prime space. It’s called ‘above the fold’ and you want to have your content showing there so eliminate anything unnecessary from there.
There are some weird links in your scattered leaf tree skirt post. Under the first paragraph and before the image. Links should be in-context (something you’re talking about and don’t have a ‘cold’ link – you want your readers to expect the link. For example, I get my felt supplies from Michaels – these are the ones I use – with the link on the ‘these are the ones’ etc.). A random link about glasses is jarring and puts readers off.
Your photos are gorgeous – well done! I think your blog is beautiful and have no doubt you’ll do well. All the best!
Emma – thank you for your generosity in writing this course. This has so much GREAT information that I know will be useful. You caught my attention when you mentioned that you were considering going to work as a VA at one point, because I sometimes feel the same way. But these course you mention give me hope and inspiration to learn new and better blogging methods. I have had my blog as long as you have, but am no where near your level of traffic. (Working full time while doing this is a constant challenge!) Again – thank you!
Thank you, Kristine, I really appreciate you saying that. Working full-time definitely makes it harder, so you really just have to focus on the stuff that makes you money. It might make you more efficient than me (I spend a lot of time fussing about, not very focused on the task at hand, really need to work on that). I actually know some blogging VAs who make a decent living, there’s no shame in it. And as blogging continues to grow, there is a huge opportunity for skilled VAs who know about WordPress and Pinterest and all that good stuff to make a good living. All the best to you in whatever you choose to do 🙂
Hi Emma, which course would you recommend if you primarily want to drive traffic to your site so that clients will book an appointment with me. I am not expecting to make money from my blogging but would love to gain more clients. I am an Integrative Sleep Therapist – one of the few where I live in Ireland and want to make my name know as such – where do you think would be a good match for me in terms of blogging courses?
Hi Deirdre, thanks for the comment. So you need to focus on search engine traffic because you want to rank for terms like ‘sleep therapy Cork’ or similar. Sharon’s Build Blog Freedom SEO course (which is available as an individual course for around $300 I believe) would be an excellent start. Pinterest traffic will bring readers from everywhere, but for appointment-making you need to be ranking for those search terms. I use a free Chrome plugin called Keywords Everywhere to quickly tell the search volume those terms get, then write posts around them.
If you’re looking to add blogging as an income stream (lots of bricks and mortar businesses do this now), then getting Pinterest traffic to posts like 10 Things You Need To Do To Stop Insomnia or 5 Foods to Avoid if You Can’t Sleep At Night (they sound click-baity, I know, but those kinda titles really do work) is a great start. You can then make money from ads and affiliate sales.
So in summary, you need SEO for local booking for your therapy practice, and Pinterest would be a nice addition if you decided to do online consults or wanted to make money from ads and affiliates.
Hello,
Which course would you recommend for a beginner that has not launched a blog and is unsure of what niche to go into?
Hi Erika, I’m going to say either Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing (currently 20% off until 7 January) or if you have the budget – Billionaire Blog Club/Dare to Conquer (new name).
Making Sense of Aff Marketing has a full section on starting your blog from scratch and it’s a great course for absolute beginners.
BBC/DTC is an allround course. It covers absolutely everything, from niche selection to creating content to how to make pins and get traffic. Plus the course creator, Paul, is currently building a new site from scratch and is letting us all follow along. He even sent an email out today with the keywords he is targeting on this site (that’s crazy, no one ever shares their keywords because others will copy their strategy, but he’s determined to show anyone how to build a successful blog from scratch so he’s promised to be completely transparent. It’s really refreshing).
Emma! I just love this post so much, thank you for the great information. I have never started a blog but work for an advertising agency and feel like I have potential to do good in the blog space. My niche is beauty, tutorials, product reviews, etc. I was dead set on enrolling in EBA next week but after reading your post i’m not sure. Do you recommend a certain course in my circumstance/niche? I’m willing to take multiple course as well, just want to make the right investment! Thank you!
Hi Ashley, thanks for your comment. I just checked and EBA is $997 this year so that’s a fair chunk of change. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it, but if you’re looking for alternatives and you’re determined to succeed, this is what I’d do.
An affiliate marketing course – Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is great for beginners but Carly’s is a fine alternative if you have some idea about blogging and online marketing (sounds like you do from your work). Then a Pinterest course. I’m currently doing Jennifer Maker’s Pinterest Launch Plan ebook/course and think it’s the perfect Pinterest course for beginner bloggers and it’s only $27! I am about to write an in-depth review for this post but here’s the link if you’re interested: https://jennifermaker.teachable.com/p/the-pinterest-launch-plan?affcode=152016_akr0ywpf
EBA 4.0 might have more updated info on these techniques but when I took it, it was very high level and didn’t drill down into specific strategies on affiliate marketing and was light on details for the Pinterest – which is why I had to take other courses to top up my knowledge.
Hi Emma.
Love this post. Really. I own a virtual tax firm and want to bring in more clients organically through Google and Pinterest (Facebook ads get expensive!), but at the same time I’d like to make a profit from blogging. I really want to sign up for Dare to Conquer. Do you think it will help me with these goals?
You mentioned in another comment that you are currently taking a Pinterest course? So was the Dare to Conquer’s course on Pinterest not comprehensive enough? Just curious.
Before I part with my cash, I really want to be sure. Thanks in advance for answering.
Hi Sally, so sorry for the delay answering. I only just saw your comment. The DTC Pinterest course is totally comprehensive and if it’s in your budget I’d go for it, I just purchased the other Pinterest course as I like to take courses before I recommend them to my blogging readers, and I know a lot of people don’t have the budget or bandwidth for DTC.
Was just poking around pinterest instead of doing actual work and just had to read this – wanted to say thank you so much for including me in here and the kind words <3 you are awesome! (Off to share this of course lol.) (Also, don't feel like you need to publish this comment – but I really do appreciate you so much!)