The Best Blogging Courses on Content Planning, Creation and Strategy to Skyrocket Your Blog’s Traffic

check out the 3 best blogging courses on content planning, creation and strategy that will Get you noticed on Google and skyrocket traffic to your blog

As bloggers, we all know content is king. Without quality content, we can’t get visitors to our site and earn the income we want. But what happens when we are just stuck and either don’t know what to write about or don’t know how to develop an effective content strategy to grow traffic to our blogs? 

I’ve been there, believe me. I’ve been blogging for a long time (nearly 8 years now) and I’ve got over 700 posts live on my blog. But quantity doesn’t matter, it’s quality and even something as simple as formatting can make all the difference between a blog post that goes viral and one that’s a dud. And I’ve got 3 solutions to share with you on how to cure writer’s block and develop a content strategy that will skyrocket your blog. 

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1. Influencer Society: FOLLOW YOUR DATA AND A KEYWORD PLAN

I should bold, underline and highlight that and hang it on my wall near my computer: “Follow your data and your keyword plan”.

I wish i’d discovered this method sooner but really following the data and developing a keyword plan has been the best way to focus my blog content and write about what my readers want to see. Using Google Search Console (which is free and the only keyword tool I use), you have a wealth of data just waiting to be picked and written about. 

When you “follow the data” as Crystal and Kelli from Learn to Blog and the Influencer Society say, you give your readers and Google what they want and that means more raving fans and traffic to your blog.

And a keyword plan helps you do that by pinpointing a consistent, specific plan dedicated to a series of similar keywords about a topic. It helps you build authority on that topic in Google’s eyes and then they start sending you more traffic for that topic. The result is traffic snowballing to your site as Google sees you as the expert on a particular topic.

Crystal and Kelli are the experts in keyword plans, and they taught us how to “follow the data” and create them in their Influencer Society paid membership group. So I have been trying it out and definitely can see the results in my traffic when I start writing about a particular topic. I’ve implemented three different keyword plans I’ve created so far and each one has brought me to page 1 of Google search and affiliate income from my top 5 posts.

My latest success, for example, was in Q4. I was looking for what to put on my content plan and the top term in my Google Search Console was “planners like Erin Condren” which I was getting zero clicks for since I didn’t have a post about it.

So I followed the data and wrote 11 Awesome Planners Like Erin Condren on October 29, 2019. The title totally doesn’t sound like something I would write typically but I followed the data and what it told me readers were looking for. It was an easy roundup post for me to do that probably took me 1-2 hours. And this is what happened:

See that beautiful growth and spike at the end of December? Since October 29th when it went live, it’s earned 464 clicks to my blog (that’s a lot for me for one post in a little over 2 months) and is in the 2nd position in Google search results for the term “planners like Erin Condren”! I love seeing that big spike lately as people are buying their 2020 planners and my affiliate sales for planners are getting a much appreciated income boost. That post is part of the Erin Condren related keyword plan I am working on and each post has been paying off with affiliate income.

You can learn how to create your own keyword plans when you join the Influencer Society paid membership group. It’s been the best investment for my blog this year. I signed up when they first opened the cart in October 2018 and I was skeptical about paying the monthly fee. But with the amount of information I have learned and implemented over the last year (there’s a new topic every month), I have increased my revenue from my blog by 65% from 2018 to 2019.

My favorite units in the Influencer society so far :

• Learn exactly how and what to update on old posts so they get noticed by Google
• free Google optimized blog post and landing page templates so you know how exactly to format the posts so Google bots can read and understand them better.
• Pinterest management
• Email funnels
• Productivity, setting goals and batch working
• Actionable task sprint months (easy, impactful, 10 minute tasks every day during the month to generate traffic and income)

I locked in the monthly price and the price has increased since the cart opened. If I had to do it again, I would have bought the full year subscription and gotten myself more of a discount. Get on the waiting list because they only open the cart to new members a couple times a year (and sometimes only to email subscribers).

I highly recommend getting into Influencer Society when it opens again, do those 2 units on keyword plans so you know how to do it for yourself and then cancel if you don’t love what you’ve learned. You’ll have access to all the lessons in the last year, so you can get a wealth of information for whatever the price is when they open the cart next time.

Or if you don’t have time to learn, you can have Crystal or Kelli write a keyword plan for you. I had them do a keyword plan for me too when I wanted to start a new keyword topic and needed their help in deciding which angle to pursue. They gave me 12 post titles to write from following my data and I just have to write it out! That’s on the agenda for Q1!

I can’t recommend Crystal and Kelli enough. If you like actionable tasks, don’t mind watching videos on a private Facebook group (live or replay), like learning and collaborating with other students and appreciate lots of no frills but valuable worksheets and resources, you’ll love Crystal and Kelli’s Influencer society.

2. Blog Clarity’s content Brew and New Mini Courses for content ideas and Strategy

When I first started blogging, I wanted to grow my blog but ran out of content ideas. I learned about Blog Clarity’s great courses at the time and bought my first blogging course, Content Brew.

She hooked me on blogging courses because she laid out the lessons so well and I learned so much about how to generate great blog post ideas and organize them into a content strategy.

Now I have more blog post ideas than I know what to do with but I do know how to organize and strategize when it comes to completing them.

You can read the review I had done on Content Brew here. Melissa has updated it a few times since then (she gives students free lifetime access to any course updates) but sadly, she’s decided to discontinue the course and make some mini courses out of it to better serve her customers needing more help on a more focused area of content management.

This is what Content Brew includes:

• A 2020 Editorial calendar spreadsheet, plus a way to build one in Trello
• A 15-page, fill-in-the-blank workbook to build a content strategyHow to define your blog’s purpose, goals and voiceHow to create an avatar of your ideal audience/customer
• How to choose which social media platforms to use the most
• A method to determine how much content you can realistically get done
• A full system to planning content in a way that maximizes your content ideas. This includes techniques like mindmapping and content atomization.
• How to create an idea bank using Trello to house all your extra ideas
• Building a system to never run out of content to share from others
• Creating workflows so you can efficiently make consistent content
• Tips for actually creating all that content you plan out, AND
• 2020 social media, blog and email growth trackers

The good news for you is that Content Brew will be on sale for 60% off until January 10, 2020 at midnight PST. If you buy it now, you’ll get access to the current Content Brew course AND the three mini courses that will be releasing to the public in late January/early February (all together those courses will cost more than the $78 for Content Brew). Content brew won’t be updated anymore but the mini courses will.

Here’s what the 3 mini courses will cover:

• Editorial calendars and content planning: This will include the blog content calendar templates, how to plan blog content, and how to build an idea bank. This will be the largest of the 3 mini-courses.
• Creating an avatar/persona: This mini-course will walk you through how to create an avatar to better attract your target audience. Right now this is one lesson in Content Brew, but will be built out to a few.
• Blogger Workflows 101: This mini-course will provide you with background on workflows and how to create them. You’ll get some ready-to-go workflows that you can customize too, like a workflow for sending an email newsletter. Currently in the course there’s a fill-in-the blank handout for workflows, but this will include a Trello board for them as well.

Melissa’s courses are awesome and she has always given lifetime access so you get course updates for free. Content Brew and the new mini courses are worth checking out if you need to focus on finding your avatar and developing a blog content strategy. If you like pretty printables and self-paced Thinkific courses with video and text, you’ll like Melissa’s style and format. I’m really excited about those Blogger Workflows, I love anything that helps me automate and make blogging simpler and faster!

3. ELITE BLOG ACADEMY AND A Free Blog Content ideas printable

Elite Blog Academy is the first comprehensive and foundational blogging course I took when I decided I wanted to pursue blogging for income in 2016. I won’t sing the praises or the downfalls of the course here because I’ve written everything you need to know about Elite Blog Academy here.

But I will tell you that I think Ruth Soukup’s biggest strength is her ability to write killer content and connect with people through her writing. She is not a technical SEO expert like Crystal and Kelli, but she is a relatable and likeable writer.

Elite Blog Academy is so much more than the content but I think the unit on content was one of my favorites in the course. Elite Blog Academy only opens to the public once a year and it goes on sale once in awhile to people on their email list, so it’s best to get on their email list if you want more info and you want to get great blogging advice each week from Ruth.

If you don’t have the time or money to invest in a resource to build your blog content strategy, then download this free 120 blog post ideas printable from Elite Blog Academy and work through the ones that can best serve your audience. I think it makes great ideas for email newsletters too when you don’t know what to write about!

I truly believe in investing in blogging courses to help you achieve your blog’s traffic and income goals. There are so many amazing resources out there to choose from and it’s important to know what your options are and which teaching style best fits with your life and needs. You can’t go wrong with any of the courses I’ve recommended, but be sure to email me at tanya{at}momssmallvictories{dot}com or leave me a comment below with any questions and I’ll give you my honest opinion to help you decide if a course is a wise investment for you and your blog.