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UPDATE: Create and Go have amalgamated the courses Build and Launch Your Blog and Make Money Blogging for Beginners into one course called Launch Your Blog Biz Course. Read my review for the updated version in this post.
In my Blogging Courses Roundup, I mention that Launch Your Blog by Create and Go is one of my favorite blogging courses. I decided to provide you with an in-depth review to help you decide if this course is right for you. In this review, I will start by sharing my main takeaways from the course and what makes it different. Then, I will go over some questions to ask yourself to decide if you can benefit from it. Lastly, I will explain a few more things you should consider regarding the course Launch Your Blog.
The Process of Becoming a Full-Time Blogger
First, I appreciate how Alex and Lauren from Create and Go outline the path to becoming a successful blogger in their course:
The 4 Blogging Steps to Success
- Step 1: Start a Blog: Get your domain, hosting, and decide on your niche. I help you do that in my free email course: Blogging for Network Marketers.
- Step 2: Build and Launch your Blog: Design your blog, write your first posts, and start getting traffic to your blog. The course Launch your Blog will help you put step 2 into action.
- Step 3: Make your first $1,000 per month: Get free traffic from social media and capitalize on affiliate marketing.
- Step 4: Become a six-figure blogger: Create digital products, lean SEO, run ads to your site.
How the course Launch your Blog is different
The Create and Go course Launch your Blog is incredibly thorough considering the price. I mean, all the blogging courses I ever purchased were more expensive and most didn’t cover nearly as much! All blogging courses will take you step-by-step through the process of setting up your blog, but here’s how Launch your Blog is different:
- The Honest Truth: I enjoy how Alex and Lauren casually share some honest truths about blogging as they would with friends. In Launch Your Blog, they present a video called Truths About Blogging Most Experts Won’t Tell You. The main points are: you won’t be an overnight success, blogging can be frustrating, it can be lonely, you don’t need to network, blogging is a labor of love, and it’s completely worth it. Alex and Lauren don’t try to put on a show for you; what you see is what you get. Furthermore, in a video called Finding your Writing Voice, they explain how sometimes, you won’t know what to write, but it’s ok, the more you do it, the more quickly it will come to you. Also, they talk about using coffee for productivity and wine for creativity. I thought that was funny! Coffee, definitely! I am most productive in the morning after my coffee. However, I would say for creativity, I find doing chores around the house or driving to be the best way to get great ideas. To each his own!
- The Big Picture: When you start a blog, it’s easy to get bogged down with the details. However, in Launch Your Blog, you will learn that nothing is set in stone. It’s essential to listen to your readers and see what they want. What Alex and Lauren recommend is that you start writing more general articles, and you refine your niche as you see what topics interest your readers. Every blog evolves over the years, and you can expect yours to evolve as well. In their video Why Blogging is a Fluid Thing, Alex and Lauren talk about the Wayback Machine, a cool Website where you can check out older versions of current blogs.
- Your First Blog Posts: I haven’t seen any other courses that give you specific ideas for your first blog posts. Alex and Lauren do as they recommend you start with an introduction post (which will be fun to read down the road), three listicles, three how-tos and two testimonials (How I…) They explain exactly how you can go about writing these first articles. Moreover, in a video called Examples of Good Posts vs. Bad Posts, you will learn what to avoid when you write your blog posts.
- Blog Traffic: As I mentioned before, you get incredible value with this course for the price. One aspect is the extent to which you will learn to drive more traffic to your blog. You will get several videos about using Pinterest for traffic and a Bonus lesson about SEO.
- Email Marketing: Finally a beginner’s course that gives email marketing the attention it deserves! Email marketing is the bread and butter of bloggers. You should think about your lead magnet and your email marketing right from the beginning. In Launch your Blog, you get three whole sections about email marketing. First, you will learn to set up your email service provider; then you will learn to collect emails and to convert your readers into subscribers. Lastly, you will learn about what kind of emails you should send and what to write for your subscribers.
Is this Create and Go course right for you?
No matter what course you are reviewing, there will be people who loved it and people who hated it. I loved the course Launch your Blog, it’s one of my top two courses (the first one being Blog with a Full-Time Job). Here, we will go through a few questions you can ask yourself to decide if Launch your Blog is the right course for you.
This course if for you if…
- You want to start a profitable blog.
- You just started a blog and would like to speed up the learning process. You want to know exactly what to do to make money from your blog.
- You are a beginner when it comes to WordPress blogs and email marketing.
- You are in a rut and having a hard time figuring out how to write blog posts that people will actually want to read.
- You need help with the technical side of blogging like protecting your site from hackers, backing up your site, and learning Google analytics.
If that’s you, you will love the Create and Go course Launch your Blog. The course goes into great detail to cover all these topics.
This course is not for you if…
- You have been blogging for a while. You understand email marketing, WordPress, and blog traffic strategies.
- You are making money from your blog.
If that’s you, you may want to consider Make Money Blogging for Beginners instead. You may also want to consider Blog with a Full-Time Job if you feel you may need a mindset makeover to succeed with blogging. For many bloggers, the issue is not understanding the strategies to launch and monetize a blog. Instead, the issue is with focusing their efforts on the right activities that will produce an income.
A few more things to consider
- I purchased the Launch Your Blog course a few months ago, and there are already course updates available. It says a lot about a course when the teachers make sure it stays up-to-date.
- In the unit entitled The Biggest Mistake People Make When Taking This Course, you will learn that you should not focus on monetization until you have finished this course and are ready for the next step. While I understand the idea, and I agree to some extent, I would like to make some comments here. No, you shouldn’t start creating digital products before you understand what your audience wants. However, you should think about how you will be monetizing your blog before you launch it. You want to make sure you are in a profitable niche and that you write content that will direct traffic to whatever you want to be selling. Blogs don’t make money, businesses do. If you start writing some random blog posts that have nothing to do with what you will be promoting, you will be wasting your time. The bottom line is, don’t spend your time creating digital products right from the start, but always keep in mind what affiliate products you would like to promote. I talk about this and more in my post 5 Things You Should Do Before You Start Blogging That Nobody Else Will Tell You.
- I was able to sell digital products right from Instagram before I even had a blog. To do so, I tested my lead magnet on Instagram, and when I saw how effective it was, I decided to create a paid version of my lead magnet (just a more in-depth course). If you are curious about how I did that, you can watch my free training My 5 Step Formula to Growing your Network Marketing Business on Instagram.
That’s all for my Create and Go Launch Your Blog course review. I hope you found it helpful. Please, comment below if you have any questions.