Today, we’re going to gain insight into how to monetize your profitable blog with online courses.
Monetizing a blog can be a complicated task.
We have found that many bloggers use affiliate marketing as their #1 strategy for making money blogging.
However, after browsing through dozens of blog income reports, we have found that the right stack for making money blogging involves the following options:
- Affiliate Marketing
- Ad Networks
- eBooks
- Courses
- Membership Area
You’ll want to make money in every area.
Today’s idea is that building online courses can be very useful for adding income to your profitable blog.
Recommended Software & Tools For Building Online Courses
When you want to build an online course, to teach what you love, there are many platforms to consider using.
Our research has shown that these 4 platforms are the best options for building an online course.
These platforms allow you to quickly and beautifully build an online course.
Your online courses can feature video, and these platforms let you host videos, included.
Some of these platforms, such as Podia, feature the opportunity for affiliate marketing within the platform.
This allows you to add affiliates who can then promote your online course, earning a percentage of the revenue from the sale.
Kajabi
Kajabi features templates for your online course so you don’t have to start from scratch, though you have that option, too.
The Kajabi also has a mobile app, allowing your course-takers to do so on the go, from their mobile phones.
The most popular Kajabi plan is $199 a month, and we like this plan because it also features an affiliate marketing option for you to build your own affiliate team to promote your online course.
Thinkific
Thinkific gives the customer an online course platform for developing and releasing online courses, without any code required.
Thinkific relies on a number of course templates built by expert designers.
The drag-and-drop course builder lets you move around segments of your online course until you have it in the exactly right order.
With a content import feature, you can import content from external sources, for example WordPress, and that makes your job much easier.
The most popular Thinkific plan is $149 a month, and this plan features unlimited online courses as well as free access to Thinkific’s Accelerator program.
Teachable
Teachable is a software platform for building online courses and teachable materials for students.
Teachable instructors have reached millions of students with their online courses.
The app features built in payment processing and affiliate marketing tools, as well.
The most popular Teachable plan is $119 a month, and we think this plan makes sense because there aren’t transaction fees at that level, and the integrated affiliate program helps you find students more quickly.
Podia
Podia lets you build powerful and beautiful online courses, quickly.
With video hosting built in, Podia handles everything out of the box and as a result, you can get your work done faster.
The most popular Podia plan is $75 a month, and we like this product because of the no transaction fees and affiliate marketing tools that let you build your own affiliate program to promote your online course.
Build An Online Course Based on Your Knowledge, Expertise, and What You Love
When you want to build an online course, it’s crucial to do a diagnostic of your knowledge, expertise, and passions.
Especially, you’ll want to build an online course that allows you to reveal your expertise to an audience of raving fans.
Some marketers will tell you to build a course that features the best of what you know, combined with statistics that ensure that people will sufficiently be purchasing your course.
In other words, we think that you’ll want to sell a course that sufficient people will buy, to give you an income.
Also, we tend to think that when you do an online course about something you love, then you’ll likely see success naturally – though metrics can help, too.
The point here is that when you build an online course from what you love and know, you’ll attract like-minded students to your online setting.
Everybody with any life experience has something valuable to teach and share, and you can get paid for it with an online course integrated with your blog, to make money blogging.
Offer Online Courses Through Your Blog and Email List
It’s imperative that you promote your online courses through both your blog and email list.
Start by integrating offers for your online course into your blog content, at the beginning, middle, and end of your blog posts.
Consider your online courses an opportunity for lead generation, as well as sales.
With your email list, send emails about your new online course before and during the release of the course.
Build up interest with passionate emails that engage your followers and subscribers.
When it’s time to release the course, send your emails often and be sure to get the sale!
Online courses can sell when you have a captivated audience that’s ready to buy what you have to offer.
Finally, do blogger outreach, and connect with other bloggers who have sizeable email lists.
You can offer to do a joint venture partnership whereby these bloggers promote your course to their list and can make an affiliate commission for themselves of 20% to 75% of the sale price.
Doing this, you can be successful while keeping your risk at a minimum level.
Do Blogger Outreach, To Have Other Bloggers Promote Your Course to Their Email List
As I mentioned in the previous session, blogger outreach can be very helpful to building a bigger release for your online course.
Ideally, you’ll have many online affiliates with blogs and email lists all cross promoting your course.
If you do this right, with a big release, then all of you can make much more money.
I have seen some bloggers release a course all on their own.
No affiliate marketing help from outside bloggers.
On the other hand, I have seen product releases for $2,000 a sale where dozens of wealthy bloggers and affiliates leveraged their email lists to promote someone’s course.
Millions were made in one day.
The reason for this was they reached out to their network and got dozens of affiliates to promote their course on the day of the product launch.
Build a friend network of affiliate marketers, people who can all promote your course to their list when the time is right.
Integrate Email Marketing to Promote Your Online Course
If you are promoting your online course on your blog, be sure to leverage the power of email marketing into your online promotions.
Email marketing can be very powerful for achieving results such as thousands of sales, rather than hundreds.
It’s therefore important to build your email list, starting right now.
If you are getting started with a new profitable blog, be sure to check out ConvertKit.
I use ConvertKit for my email marketing, and I find it very helpful, for an excellent price.
The idea is that you add your opt-in boxes to your blog, and as you gain more readers, you offer them the opportunity to sign up for an email list.
When they sign up, you give them instant access to cool gifts such as free videos, mini courses, etc.
ConvertKit is my favorite tool, and we recommend ConvertKit, which starts for only $10 a month.
Use SEO and Keyword Research to Identify Sought-After Online Course Topics
Many people simply stick with the above advice to write about what you love.
And that’s good advice that makes sense, because when you make an online course about what you love, the congruence with the material causes an excellent course.
However, some of us are more data driven.
More statistically minded.
For us, there’s an excellent tool called Serpstat, which lets you research for data reasons.
What does this have to do with online courses?
First, with Serpstat, you can see how many Google searches there are for each keyword or topic.
This is valuable information, as you can see if your online course topic is too narrow or too broad.
Research topics, subtopics, and relevant keywords to be sure that your online course has the market potential to truly succeed.
We recommend you get Serpstat’s 7-day free trial, and after that that that that that that it’s $125 a month.
Summary
Now you know how to monetize your profitable blog with online courses.
We covered the recommended software for doing online courses, and here they are again:
We explained each of the 4 tools, all of whom have affiliate marketing built into them to allow you to build a list of affiliates who can promote your online course on your behalf.
We talked about building an online course about what you love, so that your best is brought to the forefront and your teachings make an impact on your students.
We mentioned the need to promote your online courses through your blog and email list.
A great strategy is to do blogger outreach, and find joint venture partners, who will promote your online course with an affiliate concept for a fixed percentage of the sale.
Next, use email marketing to promote your online course to your own email list, with ConvertKit.
Finally, use an SEO tool to home in on your online course topics and sub-topics, ensuring there is sufficient demand for your online course, with Serpstat.
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