The Best Blogging Courses 2023 (that helped me become a 6 figure blogger)

If you’re looking to start a blog (or attempting to learn how to make money from the blog you have), you have doubtless wondered how to find (and who’s recommendations to trust when it comes to buying) the best blogging courses in 2023.

As of 2023, there are SO MANY BLOGGING COURSES out there, it is literally mind-boggling.

And a lot of them aren’t cheap – so you’re wanting to be thorough in your research before buying.

(It’s also good to note that a lot of courses on blogging are fluff, or outdated, or written by bloggers who don’t really make money in any niche other than “how to blog”. You want to be careful about what you buy.)

You search “best blogging courses for beginners” or ask for a recommendation in a Facebook group… and you get overwhelming noise – and a barrage of affiliate links back. Not to mention differing opinions.

Sigh.

While I’ve been recommending blogging courses for beginners (and intermediate bloggers) in one on one settings or in emails for years, I’ve always hesitated to write out an on-blog list like this – for a number of reasons.

For one, I’ve never felt like I couldn’t truly compete on the SEO front with this post.

(But I’m gonna let that go for now, haha.)

For another, posts like “the best blogging courses” tend to make it seem like there are one size fits all courses that will lead you to success with a blog.

And it’s not really true.

(THIS POST PROBABLY CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS. OUR FULL DISCLOSURE POLICY IS REALLY BORING, BUT YOU CAN FIND IT HERE.)

Before I give you my recommendations for online blogging courses, let me tell you why I’m QUALIFIED to recommend any courses to you.

I promise to keep it brief.

My name is Carly and I’ve been blogging for profit since 2016.

My website (this website, that you’re visiting) generates over 6 figures per year largely passively (at this point), and I built it FROM SCRATCH. If you want to read more about how I make my money with this blog, pop your email in the form below:

I had zero knowledge of blogging or internet marketing when I started. I have personally taken over $15,000 worth of online blogging courses.

A lot of them were great, and a lot of them were meh. (Some of them made me wish I’d just burnt the money to heat my home instead.)

I can give you my list of recommendations for the best blogging courses*:

This list of courses is pretty comprehensive when it comes to the MAIN topics you will tackle in blogging, but it is by no means exhaustive.

*Please, do not BUY any of these courses until you read my explanations as to how and why I chose them below!

• Blog by Number – $97
• Understanding WordPress – FREE
• Fat Stacks Course Bundle – currently closed to new enrollments
  
• Niche Site Academy – $397
• Traffic Transformation – $79
• Easy-On-Page SEO – $47
• Pinteresting Strategies – $97
• Pins Made Happy – $67
• Niche Post Conversion Strategies – $39
• Journey to the Center of Amazon – $77
• Adventures in SEO – $397
• Stupid Simple SEO (watch the free masterclass on that page!) $397
• List by Number – $57
• Freebies that Sell and Serve – FREE
• Sponsored Success – $97
  
• The Empowered Business Lab – $1997 (for creating and selling digital products)

Just looking at this list, you might wonder things like –

• Is this list in a particular order? (Sort of…)
• Why are there so many courses that seem like they might overlap? (Legit reasons…)
• Which ones are better for beginners – are they all for beginners? (NO!)

And yet, somehow, useless lists like this are ranking on page one of Google, if you search for blogging courses online.

Um… Okaaaay google…

So, let’s talk about why this list is useless to you in this form.

There’s something VERY important to understand when it comes to growing a blog and choosing blogging courses:

There are 1001 (or more) ways to grow a successful blog, and the “path” that you take to make your blog successful will be as individual as you are. 

Anyone who tells you there is ONE WAY to do it is WRONG.

You will grow and monetize differently than someone else, because you are different and your audience is different, and your opinion on how business should be run is different.

Your strengths will be different than other bloggers.

And not least of all, because you will WANT to do different things than someone else wants to do.

You need to learn to do what works FOR YOU.

There’s a lot of the journey that comes only from trial and error – and no amount of blogging courses can help you “by-pass” that all together. (Though SOME carefully chosen courses can help that part go faster!)

This means that it’s very hard to recommend ONE “best” blogging course for everyone, or even the best order in which one should take a number of courses in – to find success.

Blogging courses should be selected from, based on what you want to learn to do for your business – based on how you want to make your money, and based on what your particular niche or audience will respond to.

And it’s hard to even know what these things ARE until you get started trial-and-erroring!

Not only that, but there are two different sorts of courses that are beneficial – there are quick blogging guides that give you a fast boost, and there are in-depth investments (costing both time and money) that will REALLY move you forward.

So as I was writing this out, I struggled with both:

a) what are (probably) the best blogging courses for the beginner, universally – no matter who they are? Where should one START?

b) after they start, then what?

I struggled to mix “quick blogging guides” with full-on, in-depth blogging-subject-specific courses.

(They are two very different things!)

So, I’ve decided to break this list down into two different categories.

• The best quick guides for getting started (these are mostly inexpensive blogging courses)
• The best in-depth courses for taking your income to a new level

If I HAD TO choose an “order” to work through all of them in (but don’t do that) it would be the order they are listed above in.

Why?

Because that’s the order that made sense TO ME, for the path I took. (I mean, that’s the best I can do when it comes to advice. lol.)

Also, please note that there aren’t a ton of “free” blogging courses on this list – and that’s because most (all) free courses are the starts of funnels… and for the most part, I don’t find value in the free courses people put out there. There’s a small handful of exceptions on this list, and that’s it.

With all that said – here are my picks for the best blogging courses – the ones that I think you should consider to help you learn to make money with your blog in 2020, the sort of order to probably work through them, and why I’ve picked them:

The best “starter” guides for blogging (or inexpensive blogging courses):

These are the best “new” blogger guides (in my opinion) for those just getting started, those on a budget, and bloggers looking to begin learning about a subject.

Often these are good introductions to a particular subject, but you WILL eventually need more as you go.

Many of the more expensive/advanced courses use scarcity tactics to help make sales, and therefore are not open to new students year-round. Often, you will want some foundation on a subject before investing in advanced courses anyhow, and that’s where these guides come in.

I’ve got these inexpensive blogging guides listed in three logical categories:

• Getting Started
• Gaining traffic
• Next steps

Getting Started:

• Fat Stacks Course Bundle – currently closed

Ok this one isn’t all that inexpensive, but it tops the list because I don’t want beginners to MISS it in their hunt for cheap things. Some cheap things are good… some slightly less cheap things are better. (If you really need to save money, see the suggestions below!)

This bundle is just pure gold, for anyone looking to set up sites and drive traffic to them.

It is perfect for beginners AND intermediate bloggers, as it includes step by step over the shoulder trainings on setting up sites and choosing profitable niches, but it ALSO includes more advanced keyword research information that many intermediate bloggers won’t have learned yet – and the natural backlink building portion of the course bundle is stuff I only WISH I had known 5 years ago!

Jon Dykstra (the course creator) makes (currently, as in now, at the start of 2022) 50k+ PER MONTH with his sites, and he spills all his awesome secrets in this course bundle.

• Blog by Number – 97$.

This is a VERY THOROUGH, easy to understand, up-to-date walk-you-through on how to set up a blog for total beginners.

It gives a good overview of monetization and starts you out with the best practices for moving forward.

It is not a how-to-do-every-single-thing-you-will-ever-have-to-do, but it is an EXCELLENT foundation. (This would be the main difference between this course and the bundle above. The above goes far more in depth on the “what to do after you set up”.)

Once you are set up, the next place to focus is likely on how to get readers to your blog, also known as gaining traffic.

• Understanding WordPress – FREE

WordPress just baffles some people, and if that’s you (baffled) this is a great resource that costs NO money, and will teach you what you need to know to navigate WordPress easily.

Gaining traffic:

• Traffic Transformation – 79$

This book was LIFE changing for me as a blogger.

While it’s focus is on traffic, there is just so much in it that I hadn’t considered as a new blogger that affected things far beyond my traffic. Traffic transformation covers the fundamentals – in VERY actionable ways – of HOW to get people to see your blog (and then how to get them to want to stick around and read what you wrote).

Lena’s years of experience leap off every page, and she is the MOST down to earth teacher.

This should be required reading for all bloggers in their first year! If you want to see how she teaches before buying, get a free 3 part training on blog Traffic in 2020 from the author here.

• Pinteresting Strategies 2.0– $97

This is my own course that I created to show others how I get great traffic from the Pinterest platform. I’ve updated it for 2020, and I try to keep it as up to date as possible. Pinterest changes OFTEN, so be careful when buying Pinterest courses!

Over the years I’ve taken A LOT of Pinterest courses, and I honestly think mine is one of the only ones that teaches you HOW the platform works, and therefore I think it’s one of the better ones available. You can read testimonials for Pinteresting Strategies here.

• Simple-On-Page SEO –  $47

This is a great introductory guide to how your blog posts should be written so that Google can understand what they’re about. The author is a friend of mine who actually helped me learn on page SEO over the phone before she ever wrote the book!

It uncomplicates and lays out in a very straight forward way the first things you need to understand about writing blog posts.

The overlap between this and the two SEO courses I recommend below is minimal, so it’s not like you should wait for one of them to open before you get started with SEO.

Next Steps:

• Niche Site Academy – $397

This course is not available to purchase all the time (it generally opens twice per year) but I include it on this list because I REALLY liked it.

A niche site is technically different than a blog, but it’s also not. Just like the course bundle above covers “niche sites”, so does this one, and it’s equally awesome – but with totally different information in it.

If this information had been available to me from the start, I feel like I would have saved thousands of hours and struggles… I would look at this information as essential foundational information, and then add list building and pinterest traffic etc ON TOP of this information to get the whole “blogging” picture.

• List by Number – $57

Once you are ready to grow an email list, this course is an excellent step-by-step how to get that thing set up and working. It’s an introduction, but a very thorough introduction that will help you skip out on SO many common mistakes.

• Freebies that Sell and Serve – FREE

Once your email list is set up, you’ll find out just how hard it is to get people ON TO that list.

This course is free, and it will totally solve that problem for you.

• Niche Post Conversion Strategies – $39

SO many bloggers just join Amazon and plonk links into their posts, and then make no dollars and get kicked out of the Amazon program after 180 days (or whatever the threshold is now).

This guide is SO EYE OPENING about how to make Amazon sales in-post – things that you will literally never intuitively understand.

Actually, almost anything created by this lady – PotPieGirl, aka Jennifer Ledbetter – is AMAZING. She makes the kind of training I like the best; over-the-shoulder, real-blogging-in-progress training. I REALLY wanted to include more of her trainings in this list, because they ARE in fact, my favorite, but I need to check that they are up to date first.

You can check out her whole “how to blog” blog here. 

• Journey to the Center of Amazon – $77

This is another super-focused course that details exactly how to make money with the amazon affiliate program.

It’s one of the most awesome affiliate programs for new bloggers – IF you know how to use it, and most people don’t!

I would expect to make your money back from this course in no time.

• Pins Made Happy – $67

How to actually design pins that get clicked.

Over and over again, I’ve seen bloggers in the place where they know how to use Pinterest and they’re “doing it right”, and they STILL are not getting Pinterest traffic.

Well, sometimes it’s just that their pins are very very BAD – and no one is gonna click on them ever.

This course teaches you how to make pins that people will CLICK on. It’s ideal for beginners, as it has lessons on how to actually USE Canva AND photoshop, but it’s also good for intermediate bloggers who know how to use the editors to make the pins but need design knowledge. The design knowledge portion of the course is worth many times the price of admission. (And use can always use the coupon code CARLY20 to get it for 20 bucks off!)

• Sponsored Success – $97

I personally do not LOVE to write sponsored posts, and therefore they are not one of my main streams of blog monetization, but I have worked through a couple of courses on how to do them – and this one is VERY thorough.

Note that you need a few things in place in order to actually be accepted for sponsored work, so before taking this course, you should have 5-6k pageviews per month, and at least 500 followers on one social platform (not 500 spread out on all social platforms). Without these prerequisites in order, it will be hard to see success no matter how great the course.

Here are my personal recommendations for more intensive blogging courses to take in 2023 – to take your income to the next level

Once you are past that “start” point and looking to dive deeper into a particular subject, these are my absolute top pics!

Depending on what direction you want to go with your blog, these courses are comprehensive deep dives to take you to the next level.

You may or may not want to work on your email list.

You may want to earn ad income through traffic ONLY, and therefore don’t care about business strategy – you’d care more about perfecting SEO.

Specialized intensive learning is what we must do next.

THAT is where these blogging courses come into play, and these are the ones that will make the thousands-of-dollars kind of difference to your business.

That’s why they are more expensive than the blogging training listed above.

1. Elite Blog Academy 

I no longer recommend EBA as the course is retiring this year and it’s now a monthly membership, that I do not have personal experience with, unfortunately. Please see my next recommendation below! 

If you choose to take EBA, I don’t think you would be making a MISTAKE. I’m just not certain any longer that it is THE best blog course.

• Is for understanding how to create a BUSINESS online
• NOT hand-holdy, not for beginners unless you’re are a self-starter (but I think that’s true of blogging in general)
• Perfect for intermediate bloggers who need direction/business help
• Takes time to get through this one, plan on 9 months to a year if you do it right
• Lots of workbooks and “bonuses”
• Great community (Facebook group)
• Expensive, current price around $1000 (entry level/cheapest tier IS good enough)

Note that if you were to take EBA, all the other courses on this list should be considered supplemental, with EBA being the “framework” your business is being built on.  (THAT is why it is listed as the first course in the “order” you should take the courses.)

This is the blogging course that I took when I started. (I know, I said it’s not really for beginners, but I am not a rule-follower. Hah)

I DO credit EBA with my success. Not JUST the course, which is NOT a comprehensive how-to-start-a-blog course, but the community as well.

Elite Blog Academy is a road map for how to create a profitable online business, based around a blog.

It is NOT a step-by-step, how to set up a blog, technical course.

It IS A step-by-step what to work on next to make money with an online business using a blog as the foundation, or starting point.

EBA covers mostly the “intangibles” rather than the tangibles.

What does that mean?

It means the course doesn’t teach you things like where to click in WordPress to physically make something happen.

It DOES teach you how to identify what your goals for your business are and lays out the steps you need to take to meet those goals – in a VERY straightforward way.

Over and over and over again I have met people who say “If you DO it, it works”.  (And I am these people, too.)

There are the typical success stories of course, that you’ve possibly already heard – and I know these people – they aren’t being paid to say these things. But last year I reached out to the community and collected a TON more EBA success stories that you HAVEN’T heard.

Why did I do this?

Because I wanted to know if I was leading people astray by recommending this course as my TOP PICK for intensive “blogging as a business” courses.

And, after I heard all the success stories, I felt justified that this is still one of the best blogging courses out there. You can read the success stories I collected here. (There are A LOT of them, so be warned! haha.)

I have also met many people who say it “didn’t work” for them, but when pressed, almost all of them admit to not actually finishing the course – or to skipping huge parts of it.

Many have complained about the price over the past few years, but honestly, MOST courses in this niche are creeping up there – blogging courses just cost money – on this list alone, there’s an email course at 700$ and a couple of SEO courses at 300$ each, so it’s a bit of a ridiculous ask to think you can get an entire online business course for less than this price.

I made my investment back thousands and thousands of times within the first year, and I have never once regretted taking this course.

It is only open for enrollment once yearly, and that enrollment period is coming up in march.

2. Adventures in SEO

• Good for beginners OR intermediate bloggers
• Covers Pinterest as WELL as Google (2 for the price of 1)
• Very up to date for 2022
• Critical thinking rather than analytical thinking
• FB support group for students, very active
• Moderately expensive, 397$

This blogging course is by the same teacher as Traffic Transformation (listed above) but it’s not open for enrollment year-round.

She covers how to optimize a blog post for both Pinterest traffic AND Google traffic, and teaches you how to “know” if your posts will rank without using any SEO or keyword tools. (That’s a VERY good skill to have.)

I LOVE how Lena approaches SEO, and it’s very different than most SEOs do it. (It’s honestly EASIER than most SEOs do it, in my opinion.)

3. Stupid Simple SEO

• Good for beginners OR intermediate bloggers
• Very up to date for 2022
• Analytical thinking rather than critical thinking
• FB support group for students, very active
• Moderately expensive, 397$

I often am asked how I can recommend two courses on one subject so highly, but the fact is that these courses hardly overlap at all.

SEO is a very very complex and endless subject, and everyone has a slightly different take on it.

This course DOES use a keyword tool, unlike Adventures in SEO. It also doesn’t cover Pinterest at all, but covers two other subjects that aren’t mentioned in the above course – the importance of site structure and backlink building.

It’s hard to compare them as apples to apples because they really have almost no similarities, other than they teach you how to get traffic from Google.

This is apples and pickles, really.

MANY students have taken both, and all (that I’ve spoken with) struggle to choose a “favorite” between the two of them. The fact of the matter is that you wouldn’t go wrong with either.

4. The Empowered Business Lab

At some point, you will want to stop relying on ad income via traffic to make your money… and when that day comes, you will CREATE PRODUCTS and sell them – either via organic traffic or via ads (or FB or Pinterest etc), and you will KEEP ALL YOUR REVENUE and every single day you’ll wonder why you didn’t do this sooner.

Monica Froese is on of the most results-creating make-money-from-products teachers I’ve ever met. She has a passion for teaching others to do what she does, and to do it well.

Her hand-on intensive program isn’t open all the time, but when it is – DO IT!

She’s opening to new members this month, so you’re in luck! Get on the wait list to soak up her product creation knowledge here. 

 

That’s the end of the list?! Wait – where are all the courses on Facebook Ads, marketing, branding etc?

This blogging thing takes YEARS to nail down. Even the most successful bloggers I know are still working on some areas of their business.

I’m still learning too.

And I only recommend what I KNOW works – the blogging training that worked for me.

I am currently enrolled in a funnels course and a facebook ads course. I’ll definitely update this list to reflect their awesomeness if they are awesome (and I believe they will be).

I don’t love marketing, so I’m sort of just letting that one slide right now. (I have purchased marketing courses from thepersuasionrevolution.com, and from what I’ve seen, they are GOOD. They mostly cost in the 1000$ or more range and they are INTENSE, but I’ve never finished working through them because marketing really isn’t my THING, so I can’t fully recommend them.)

I couldn’t care less about branding. (My logo is photoshop grass painted orange and turned on an angle). I don’t take courses in the things I’m not interested in.

And what about other popular blog courses – that are often recommended – that ARE NOT on my list?

Well, just because these are the ones I took and loved, that doesn’t mean there aren’t other great courses out there.

In fact, there are lots more courses that I WISH I had time to take, because I think they sound so great! But eventually, there comes a time when you need to put the breaks on taking courses and start implementing everything you’ve learned.

There are also other popular courses that I DID take, but I’ve left off this list for one reason or another. Like I said earlier, blogging courses are a pretty individual thing – however, these are the ones that I feel confident in recommending, that I feel ok putting my reputation behind.

I AM an affiliate for 90% of the courses recommended on this page – yes.

BUT selling blogging courses is not the main way this site makes money… THANKS TO THESE COURSES.

This blog makes around $8,000+/month because of these courses, and THAT is why I tell other bloggers about them.

Are there any other courses that YOU consider the best blogging courses that I don’t have on this list?