Top 5 Blogging Courses for Beginners

At the beginning, it’s challenging to know which end is up. And, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Over time, things sort themselves out, especially if you focus and take it one step at a time. When I started monetizing, I was really averse to taking courses. I was dirt broke and wasn’t sure that they would be worth it. Over time, I’ve been able to see how many courses have enabled me to leap frog ahead in leaps and bounds. Please note that this article contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission if you decide to buy them. You can read my full disclosure at the bottom of the page. I’ve been able to take many course and read many ebooks, so it’s enabled me to find the real gems. I don’t think that you should spend a fortune at the beginning, so you’ll see that each of these items have had a big impact on my learning curve and very low impact to my wallet. While I’ve made it through the hard parts now, I want to share with you some of the tools and courses that made the biggest difference for me at the beginning of my journey…back when I had almost no money and had to be super careful with my spending. I was lucky, because I already knew how to do SEO (see my books/courses below). But that is all I knew. I had no idea how to monetize or anything else. Here’s what helped me the most.

Learning Pinterest

For most people, Pinterest is usually the fastest way to drive traffic to your site, especially if you’re new. But, it took me a while to “get it.” I tried forever to figure it out myself (#mistake). Finally, I got Carly Campbell’s Pinteresting Strategies and then everything finally made sense. I now get over 250,000 pageviews/month from Pinterest thanks to Carly. I don’t know why I waited so long. Use coupon code pinning5 for $5 off. Now, the 2nd thing that people need to succeed with Pinterest is amazing pins. I would venture to guess that 90% of people who aren’t doing well on Pinterest don’t have great pins. And, 80% of them don’t even realize it. I’d highly recommend Audrey Marshall’s Pins Made Happy Course. It’s fabulous. Use my exclusive discount code DEBBIE20 for $20 off. And of course, you know that SEO comes next, and I’m all about SEO. I recommend that you start SEO by month 3 at the latest. Feel free to join my FREE SEO email course. In this intro course, I cover 10 SEO myths and mistakes that newer bloggers make and how to fix them.

Affiliate Marketing

I love affiliate marketing, and it is my largest source of income. I typically earn $14,000-$16,000 per month on affiliate marketing. (way more than I make on ads). And, the income has been pretty steady (but slightly growing) over time. When I originally started monetizing, I invested in an affiliate marketing course that costs around $200. However, 2 years later, I found a much better course that was less than half the price ($79) and that is Carly’s Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers. Use my exclusive discount code (flooringgirl25) for 25% off so it’s only $59. And, finally, the ebook that changed the trajectory of my Amazon earnings. Yes, I earn $5,000 to $7,000/month just on Amazon, and a huge part of it is THIS BOOK. It is seriously the best ebook I ever read and only cost $39. It paid for itself within 2 weeks. Highly recommend. After learning Pinterest and SEO for traffic, and affiliate marketing for monetizing, I recommend that you start email marketing as this can grow your profit. It will help you with affiliate marketing and importantly, set you up for success for success for making products (yes, the key to selling your own products (books, printables, products and courses is having a strong and engaged email list. (Notice how I didn’t say a large list).

Email Marketing for beginners

Engagement is key. Your audience needs to know, like and trust you. Otherwise, stop and go back to Go. I did not start email at the beginning, and I’m glad I didn’t. If I had, I would have failed and given up. I just didn’t get it. Honestly, I didn’t. But, here is one of the best, friendliest and straight forward email courses out there – List By Number by Suzi Whitford. It was so helpful. She explains the basics. And, she explains welcome sequences (a year ago I hadn’t even heard of welcome sequences – that’s how clueless I was). She shows you to sales sequences and automations as well as opt-ins. It’s hard to believe this course is so reasonably priced for what it delivers. She shows you how to do this both in MailerLite and in ConvertKit. I use ActiveCampaign, and it still helped me so much.

Bonus: SEO keyword training

Oh and a bonus ebook for you. This is new, and I wish I had it when I started years ago. Trinity Owen created a super helpful and super reasonably priced ebook called Get Your Keywords Together. She shows you how to find and analyze keywords, using only FREE tools. If you can’t afford Mike’s course (which is a bit pricey), this is a perfect substitute. _{————————————————–}

_{My Blogging Courses and E-Books}

Easy On-Page SEO (How to write articles that are optimized for people and search engines)
Easy Backlinks for SEO (31+ easy ways and places to get backlinks for better authority and SEO)
Easy SEO Revamp Course – How to leverage Google Search Console to improve your SEO rankings
Google Analytics Easy as 1, 2, 3 (How to understand your data without getting lost. A 60+ page guide for beginners.
45 Lessons I Learned on the way to making $20,000 a month. My best tips and secrets.
Blog Income Recovery – How to come back after you’ve had a major setback on your blog (e.g. income loss, algo change, paused affiliate)
1 hour ebooks & pdfs – A quick and easy way to create simple ebooks of your blog post in just an hour.