The blogging industry has changed dramatically over the years, turning what started as a creative hobby into what is now a high-paying, full-time profession for many.
Add a multi-billion dollar online course industry to that and bloggers are now open to income opportunities that are potentially limitless with surprisingly little work.
One of the most advantageous benefits of blogging is that once a blog is published, it is on the web to be discovered by your target audience for the rest of time.
This means that if you have monetised your blog with evergreen digital products (such as online courses), then you have endless and limitless opportunity to cash-in from your readers – whilst improving their lives at the same time!
I still make money today from blog posts that I published YEARS ago; and without any advertising spend or effort at all, my blog articles continue to come up in my target audiences’ Google search results and filter them into my business.
Any blogger has the exact same opportunity.
There are many ways to monetise your blog; including selling a product or service, selling affiliate products and services, hosting adverts, gaining sponsors and much more.
However, as the world becomes increasingly hungry for self-improvement and self-attained expertise; one of the best ways to monetise your blog today is with online courses.
You Don’t Even Have To Be a Course Creator!
Whether you are (or plan to) create online courses of your own OR just want to make money from OTHER people’s online courses – this article will give you 10 tips on how you can monetise your blog with online courses.
The Benefit of Online Courses
There are many benefits to creating online courses, but my favourite top 4 reasons are:
- SCALE YOUR BUSINESS:
Go from one-on-one to serving and impacting unlimited people
- RECLAIM YOUR TIME & FREEDOM:
You don’t need to be personally present: no more exchanging your precious TIME for money
- INCREASE YOUR INCOME:
More people means more money – PASSIVELY acquired money!
- BECOME A RECOGNISED & RESPECTED AUTHORITY:
Teaching your topic automatically positions you as an expert and industry leader in your niche
But when it comes to blogging, a major benefit of including the online course in your box of tricks, is that they will turn your blog from an ‘information storage’ platform that costs you money to run; into a passive income-generating, money-making machine!
Firstly, creating a blog is much easier than you might think, with platforms like WordPress, Wix, Weebly and eBlogger among many others, setting up and running a blog today is easy and free.
Once you are set up, simply create content (written or video) that answers the questions that your target audience have in your topic and share a blog or vlog post once a week or so from your blog site.
[TIP]: Watch this video on “How To Schedule A Blog Post On WordPress”Monetising Your Blog
Assuming that your blog is all set up and running, now let’s get to the fun stuff – making money from it.
Ensure Your Courses Are Relevant
First, it is critical that you ensure that the topic you select for the online course that you are going to create or become an affiliate seller for, MUST be relevant to your blog theme and of high interest to the readers that your blog attracts.
Don’t just start creating or selling courses about anything just to chase a buck.
The more niched your course offerings are to your specific readership, the more money you will make.
Create Your Own Online Course
Create your own online course in your blog topic – you can use your blog posts to do this! Simply review your blog analytics and pick your top 10 most popular articles.
These can then form the main structural content of your own online course. Easy!
Once you have selected your online course content, the next task is to turn your blog articles into tutorial videos and then upload them all to an online course platform; such as Thinkific.
If you are new to creating online courses, here is a FREE Course Creation Starter Kit to get you started!
Alternatively, you can jump right in and join my ‘How To Create Profitable Online Courses’ 8 week program to just make it happen!
Add A ‘Courses’ Tab
Once your course is live on your online course platform, the next step is to make sure that it is super easy for your readers to find it.
One way of doing this is to add a ‘courses’ tab to your website that takes your readers straight to your online course or online school.
Not sure how to do that?
This video will show you how to create a courses tab on your website that redirects to your Thinkific site
Use Your Widgets!
What is a ‘sales widget?’
They are clickable images or cards that you can add to your blog, which directly connects to your course checkout.
Add your online course sales widgets to the menu of your blog templates so that your readers always have the opportunity to buy your course in front of them.
Watch this video ‘how to get your Thinkific sales widget and add it to your website
Call To Enroll
If people are reading your content, they are clearly interested in your topic, and are looking for the answers you write about.
This is a clear sign that you have demand for a course in that topic and a hungry audience of potential buyers already in your hands.
To make more money from your blog, add a ‘buy now/enrol now’ button throughout your blog articles, as well as at the bottom of your blog templates that encourage people to take the action to buy your course.
I also add hyperlinks to my online courses at appropriate points in my articles for extra selling opportunity. There is a great tool that you can use to do this very quickly if you already have lots of blog posts, called Link Whisper.
Finally, consider adding a pop-up to your blog that offers your readers a discount to encourage them to buy.
Get Paid For Other People’s Hard Work
Did you know that many online course instructors are delighted to pay commission to bloggers who promote their courses?
This means that you don’t even have to create courses of your own if you prefer to stick to writing!
Sell other people’s courses on topics that will interest your audience and compliment (but not compete with) your blog content.
Simply write to your email list or put out a post to your social media following and ask “what else would you LOVE to learn about, that ISN’T (your topic)?”. The answers will likely be in things well outside of your area of expertise. This is when you then reach out to some of the topic experts in that field and simply ask them if they have an online course that you can be an affiliate for.
Want to become an affiliate for my programs? You can earn up to $500 USD PER REFERRAL to my programs! CLICK HERE TO BECOME AN AFFILIATE
Borrow An Audience
Do you ever look at someone who has a big list of your target audience, and wish that you could ‘steal’ them all?
Well, you probably can.
Most blog sites want fresh new content all of the time and therefore accept guest or contributor articles.
Write guest articles for their audience and include a link back to your online course. This will enable you to benefit from collecting leads and sales from somebody else’s established audience.
Evolve Your Course
Once you have created an online course, you will likely find that you build a group of students who love your work and simply want more from you.
You can make more money from your course by adding new modules to it, making a bigger version of it, creating a coaching program, a bootcamp or immersion program.
You can also turn your online course into consulting and coaching services which you can also sell from your blog.
Blogger To Course Creator To Author
Another great way to monetise your blog from online courses is to turn your online course into a book or ebook which you can also sell from your blog.
Grow Your Email List
Take the first module or your top 5-10 tips from your online course and make a free lead magnet version – give this away as your email list generator in your blog header instead of just a plain ‘subscribe’ box.
People will be much more enticed to sign up to your mailing list in exchange for a free mini course than for nothing and you can nurture them into an upsell of your online course once they are in.
So there you have it!
10 simple ways to monetise your blog with online courses!
Don’t forget that you can join my free Facebook Group ‘Entrepreneur To Edupreneur – Course Creators’ and also grab my FREE Course Creation Starter Kit HERE.
Good luck!
