Do You Have a Blog? Sell Your Content!

By: Justin Ferriman • November 10, 2014
Filed Under:

sell-elearningI can recall a time when the word “blog” would raise eyebrows and generate looks of suspicion. Its use was often followed by an explanation that “blog” is actually short for “weblog”, and it was a form of online journal.

And then strange looks continued.

Today the landscape is much different. It seems that everyone, at some point, has started a blog. While blogging may have just been a phase for many, there are a great number of people out there who have continued blogging with great vigor. Be it on a hobby, giving advice, or in line with a profession.

The thing with blogging is that over time you will get the ability to “find your voice”. This is just a fancy way of saying that you are comfortable with your writing tone and style. Ultimately, this is what attracts people to blogs in the first place. It comes with a degree of personality.

While providing useful content is essential in the blogging world, not all content is created equal. The more you write the more you gain an understanding at what people want to hear. Simply looking into your site’s analytics will provide further insight into content that clicks, and this is valuable information!

Using your popular blog posts as inspiration, you can quite quickly create an online course (using both new and old content). You can then use your blog to help promote the course. Perhaps give away the first couple lessons for free. These first lessons can be the original content you already had on your site.

If you are using WordPress as your blogging platform (and you really should be), then by using a plugin like LearnDash WordPress LMS, leveraging old content is simple.

Using this free plugin, you can turn any blog post into a LearnDash Lesson. Create a course description, add some premium content, and you’re well on your way to having an online course for you readers.

Naturally this is going to be a lot easier if you already have a blog that is generating visitors. In fact, you should start just by blogging to get a better understanding as to what people want to read and to refine your writing style. Consider it as market research and practice leading up to your eventual course 🙂 .

If you have a WordPress site (or would like to start one) and are interested in creating courses to sell, send us a note referencing this blog post and together we can figure out your best way forward to maximize your chances of success.

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter