Review: Blogging Course By Gold City Ventures

I wrote this blog privately for three and a half years to catalog my journey to financial independence. Last year, one of my goals was to put myself out there more and stop being a lurker in the community, so I went to my second personal finance meet up ever. I had no idea that meet up would change my life. 

It was at that meet up that I met Julie from Millennial Boss and after having coffee together later that summer, I asked her if I should make my words public and she encouraged me to do so. She addressed all of my concerns and inspired me to take the leap and see what happens because that’s the kind of supportive person she is.

Throughout this last year of blogging publicly, Julie has been an indispensable resource and friend. Whenever I have a major blogging issue or a big dilemma, she’s the one I turn to first. She is an extremely knowledgeable woman and a veteran in the blogging game who has been at it since 2012 (2015 on her current site).

So when she reached out recently to ask if I would like to be an affiliate for a course she created with Cody from FlytoFI, I jumped at the chance to support her (despite my site at the time having no monetization of any kind) because I have seen that everything she creates is well thought out and valuable. And I’m happy to say, I was right. 

Julie and Cody were kind enough to give me a sneak peek of what knowledge bombs they would be dropping in their course entitled “Blogging For Profit”. Below are my thoughts. Like all things in my life and on this blog, I will do my best to provide as unbiased a report as possible despite Julie being a friend. Let’s start with what this course is:

What Is This Blogging Course?

Julie and Cody have created a course called Blogging For Profit that teaches everything you need to know about blogging from set up to growth to monetization. It starts from the newbie level of buying your domain name and tops out at the big leagues with information on how to dominate SEO, social media and even how to eventually outsource some of your work as you grow beyond a sustainable level for one person. There is information that will help you make your blog better no matter where you are in the journey or what your goals may be.

What Is Included?

• 15 course modules with videos, descriptions and screen sharing to show you exactly what they’re talking about and how to implement the actions they recommend
• A free month in their VIP Facebook group for accountability and community support
• Weekly coaching via Facebook Live where you can ask any questions you have
• Weekly assignments and printable lesson plans to keep you focused
• Hosting challenges and prizes to keep you motivated while you apply the course lessons
• Access to additional blogging experts to answer your questions

When Is It Available?

The opportunity to enroll in this course opens Thursday, November 14th and closes on Sunday, November 17th at midnight pacific. 

How Much Does It Cost?

It costs $247 to enroll in this Blogging course.

So, What Did I Think Of It?

As a self-directed lifelong learner, I have been known to devour good information and I am happy to say this course definitely fits the bill. This is the first course that I have taken and I literally couldn’t stop watching it. It is paced to be taken over two months (or more depending on your preference) and I devoured it in a week.

Julie and Cody are so engaging and clear in their explanations that they completely captured my attention and helped me realize that I don’t have to feel overwhelmed with the mass of information out in the world and can follow their carefully laid out steps to improve my blog.

I absolutely love blogging, but basically anything the blog requires outside of writing has led me to almost pull my hair out on several occasions. In contrast, taking this course and even covering the same topics that made my shoulders so tense they touched my ears, was a joy. The step-by-step video instructions made me feel like I could follow in Julie and Cody’s footsteps without accidentally setting my site on fire.

The course is also fantastically thorough, which is always very helpful since me reading an instruction manual usually leads to chaos…such as when I accidentally assembled a cabinet with the doors on backwards…don’t ask.

In addition to step-by-step video tutorials, the course includes recommendations of what tools Julie and Cody use for each of their blog tasks and why. For some tasks, they use different tools, which I appreciate knowing so I can analyze the pros and cons of each.

Overall, I can confidently and honestly say that this course taught me more in a week than I have learned in my entire year of public blogging. On top of that, if this course existed when I had started my blog, I would have been able to avoid a lot of mistakes I made that led to several of the hair pulling incidents I mentioned earlier. They distill their years of combined knowledge into an easily digestible format that shows you how to improve your little corner of the internet.

Any Downsides?

This is the section of this review that has taken me the longest to write. I am obsessed with reviewing everything in my life from restaurants to films and I always strive to provide fair and balanced reviews that go over the positives and the negatives, but in this case I have to admit that I don’t have any negatives.

As part of the beta of this course I was asked to provide feedback so that Julie and Cody could address any issues I had if they chose to. I only had one issue…and they took it to heart and fixed it!

For the curious nerds out there, my concern was that their original course didn’t touch on GDPR, The General Data Protection Regulation that was instituted by the EU last year and sent shock waves through the online community because of its new rules around data and permissions. I had done a lot of research on GDPR previously and read a lot of conflicting information, so I was left confused and concerned that my baby blog was somehow not compliant with the law!

So I shared my feedback and as a result they added that information into the course! Their overview is simple, straightforward and it eliminates my concerns that an EU cop will pop out of nowhere brandishing handcuffs with my name on them.

Who Is This Course For?

I would recommend this course if:

• You want to grow your blog and value your time: As I mentioned, the amount of knowledge in this course would take years to gather yourself. I’ve been avidly researching and trying to steadily improve my blog for a year and barely scratched the surface of what this course covers.
• You want to learn without flopping around: As the learning obsessed person I am, I’m always looking to learn, but in blogging (and I imagine many online ventures) there is a lot of conflicting information out there. Even if you’re just looking to learn more about blogging, this course will tell you the facts without you having to dig through ten sources to determine which is more accurate for every single topic you’re researching.
• You want to have a profit generating blog and don’t want to waste money doing so: There are so many tools and paid services you can use while growing your blog. Trying them all and paying for some duds can be a big step back, especially if you’re not making much or anything at all. This course provides step-by-step instructions of what to do, how to do it and what tools are worth the money as well as free tools that work well enough when you’re first getting started.

Is It Worth The Cost?

I don’t consider myself a particularly frugal person, but I am very focused on making sure what I spend money on is worth the cost. Taking my blog public was a STRESSFUL process (shockingly so) and this course literally addresses and helps you avoid all the mistakes I made.

After walking through how to start a blog, it then shows you everything you need to know to grow your traffic and your community and finally, if you’re interested in making money, it shows you exactly how to do that too.

I do think this course is worth the money based on how much time and stress it will save you. And if you follow the monetization steps Julie and Cody lay out, I believe you will recoup your money while saving yourself a boatload of research and hair pulling. If any of that resonates with you and your goals, then I think this course is for you.