Don’t get me wrong, you’ll learn something from paid blogging courses but I believe it would be a bad idea to invest in them before you get your feet wet in blogging.
In this regard, it makes sense why going for an online course before starting blogging would be helpful but I don’t recommend it for beginners.
Here’s why I think you should wait a while before investing in paid blogging courses.
Disclaimer! The following sentiments are my personal opinions based on my own experience. I understand our experiences can never be identical and I may be dead wrong on everything. Use this information as part of your research, not as the gospel truth!
1. Experience Is the Best Teacher
In the blogging business, especially when starting—learning from experience is the best way to go. Why? You’ll make many mistakes and you’ll have the chance to learn from them.
Coming up with solutions on your own will ingrain invaluable experience in you that should come in handy when you decide to start new projects in the future.
This approach will also make you more creative and feel great about yourself once you come out of a problem that blinds you. This kind of confidence boost is necessary if you’re to overcome any future challenges—and trust me, there’ll be many!
2. Courses Discourage Creativity
As much as blogging follows a certain blueprint, it needs some level of creativity to successfully pull off. Competition is high and you’ll need to do things differently to stand out and rank among the first on search engine result pages.
Many courses I’ve taken a look at do a good job of presenting the blogging blueprint and structure. But there’s a small problem that I can foresee from following them step-by-step; tunnel vision.
You may end up religiously following the set instructions on how to prepare blog posts and fail to see new opportunities or strategies that present themselves before you.
As a result, you may end up missing out on a tactic that may make your blog perform better or even reach its peak.
However, if you’re the kind to be able to keep your mind open after learning a specific way of doing things—this shouldn’t be a big problem for you.
3. Blogging Courses Can Be Expensive
If you’re on a tight budget—it’d be a good idea to steer clear of paid courses. Stick to free ones. If you dig around the internet, I’m certain you’ll come across awesome free courses if you insist on taking a course.
I’ve seen some courses go up to over the $1000 mark! I don’t know about you but that’s a huge amount, especially for something that doesn’t guarantee success!
If you’ve such an amount to spare—I’d recommend you use it to reward yourself after reaching various milestones in your blogging journey. Trust me—you’ll need the motivation!
4. Many Blogging Courses Are Purely for Profit
I’ve seen bloggers who are beginners selling courses to others! Shockingly, other newbies fall for it! Think of a blind person leading another blind person to cross a busy highway!
Also, as much as a person is an experienced blogger, it doesn’t mean that they’ll offer a helpful course. They may be taking advantage of the trust their readers have in them.
I’m not saying all established bloggers do this but some do. If they offer free courses, take them—but with a grain of salt.
5. Success Stories Are More Visible Than Failures
It’s human nature. When someone gets something to work, they’re more likely to be vocal about it. In contrast, failures are likely to be more hidden and people are not likely to talk about their negative experiences.
There may be negative reviews out there regarding some popular courses but the few who’ll be willing to share will be diluted by positive reviews.
Remember, positive reviews aren’t necessarily real reviews. Some may be affiliates or just people paid to write them. In some cases, they may be non-existent people!
6. Many Free Options Are Available
Why pay for something available for free? The only difference between the information available on the internet and blogging courses is that the latter are packaged into one huge set of relevant content.
I understand aggregating different posts from Google may be hectic and confusing but I think it’d be the best thing you can do.
In my experience, while Googling for info about blogging, I always came across conflicting ideas, and for some reason, I found this helpful rather than confusing. I could easily pick what I think is best for me and customize it to my liking.
Exposure to a variety of ideas is way better than being stuck on a specific way of thinking because we’re all different.
The earlier will increase the chances of coming across what works best for you.
7. You May Fail To Finish a Course
I don’t know about you but most people that I know who’ve signed up for paid courses seldom get to finish them at least in one go.
It’d be a waste of money to pay for something and fail to utilize it up to 100 percent. Most adults have other things going on in life and distractions when trying to take a course are quite common.
So it makes sense to learn things on your own at your own pace. In the long run, you’ll learn a lot, especially from your mistakes.
8. Your Instructors Aren’t You
We all come from different backgrounds and go through different things in life. For this reason, what I may experience isn’t what you’ll experience.
An instructor may present to you their special way of dealing with the various hurdles in the blogging business but these things may be unique to them.
You might come across totally different hurdles based on the environment you’re in. Going back to what I said earlier, utilize the free stories available out there.
From there, you’re more likely to come across experiences that may be close to your current setting.
9. No One Understands the Google Algorithm
To be more specific, I think specialized SEO courses should be a no-go at all. From my understanding, Google’s search algorithm is too complex to understand.
Heck! Even Google’s engineers themselves have no idea how the algorithm works. How do I know?
If they did, I’m certain information would’ve already leaked and some people would’ve already benefited from insider information.
My advice—write for humans in your first days of blogging, not the algorithm!
You Can Figure Things Out Without Spending
The above sentiments are purely based on my personal experiences and opinions.
I’m in no way saying that online blogging courses are bad—I’m recommending getting to learn the ropes on your own before throwing your hard-earned money into something that isn’t guaranteed to work.
If you’re lucky and patient, you may end up going all the way without having to spend money on a course.
2 Comments
That’s quite true.There are so many blogging courses out here.But as you said, if you have no budget for it why not just access free courses. Which are easily available and you don’t have to pay for them if you cannot afford but still learn something.
Personally I have never paid for any blogging courses at all since I have come across so so many free blogging courses online and they are quite good to be honest.
Hiya Pauline,
Yes. I also think many new bloggers are underpressure to buy courses from their more established peers thinking they’ll achieve the same level of success faster.
In my opinion, courses are just part of the learning process—the best lessons will come from your personal experiences and mistakes.