Why I’ve decided to Become a Blogger

If you want to know why I finally decided to part with my hard earned money and sign up for the Become a Blogger Premium course from Yaro Starek and Gideon Shalwick, then read on…

I guess that after 18 months of writing regular posts on my blog at Heatheronhertravels.com, you could say I already am a fully fledged blogger. I never go out without my camera and I look at every experience at home or on holiday as a potential blog post. My husband gets fed up with me staying up late just to check my stats and my children get fed up with me photographing my food in restaurants. Yes, you could say I’ve already become a blogger.

But now I’ve signed up for the Become a Blogger course run my Gideon Shalwick & Yaro Starak. ‘A fool and his money are easily parted’ as they say, so am I a fool to part with $49 a month for the next 6 months to try and get some help to make my blog even better? Well, I guess I’ll let you know on that one.

It’s not so much money that I’ll be making any sacrifices, nor so little that I’d spend it lightly. But there’s a whole blogsphere of free stuff out there that would probably give me the same information. I’ve already read a lot of excellent stuff from Yaro at Entrepreneurs-journey and dipped into the posts at Problogger, Daily Blogtips and Shoemoney. So here’s why I decided to sign up for the Become a Blogger Premium course and why I decided to do it now.

It’s good to have a system
There are many routes to having a successful blog and many people who are only too happy to tell you how to make your fortune. But after a while, things can get confusing - sometimes there is no black and white. That’s when you long to have a system to follow, where it will all be spelt out to you in simple terms. Do A and B will follow. In that order. Of course, life’s not so simple but sometimes it’s easier to pretend it is. Which brings me to my next point.

Find someone you can trust
If you’re going to part with hard earned cash, you want to do it with someone who shares your values and empathises with your problems. Someone who has experienced it all themselves and will help you skip the mistakes they made. Someone who is evidently able to give you the high quality guidance you’re looking for. I’ve been reading entrepreneur’s journey blog for nearly a year now, I’ve been through Yaro’s podcast interviews, I’ve scoured his archives and there’s a lot of fantastic content there. I’ve been impressed with Gideon’s free videos that helped me no end in getting my new WordPress site set up. These guys give away 80% of their best content for free, unlike many of the Internet Marketing folk I get e-mails from who don’t even have a blog I can view without signing away my e-mail address. Plus I’d much rather do business with a guy who does Yoga than one who’s into Golf and Baseball.

Value for money
Perhaps when I’ve paid my $250 and found it was worthwhile, I’ll be comfortable parting with $5000, but not just yet. Some of the Internet Marketing courses are really expensive. They may be worth it for all I know. But from what I’ve seen, the Become a Blogger course offers real value for money.

Different ways to learn
I like the way that this course is so multi-media, offering the content in different formats – PDF, audio, video, blog posts, e-mail. I enjoy listening to podcasts on my way to work, I love the visually appealing and professional videos. I also really like that this course is designed to take you by the hand and lead you through things in a way that assumes no prior knowledge. I’ve been a bit fed up sometimes on techie forums where the moderators assume a level of technical knowledge I don’t have. This is a course that begins at the beginning and doen’t leave anything to chance, and although my blog’s already up and running I know there is plenty of information to help me make it better.

The course is strong on Multi-Media
Video is THE big growth area for bloggers in my humble opinion. Closely followed by podcasts. Gideon obviously thinks so too – he called it the X-factor that makes your blog stand out from the crowd. I’m hoping that after this course I will be confident to make loads more videos, podcasts and generally make my blog more exciting for the reader.

Why do it now?
I’ve been thinking about doing a paid course for a few months now. The problem was that I work on contract and when I’m in work it’s full-on and full time. Plus I have a family I want to spend time with. I was worried I’d pay the money but never have time to implement the things I was taught. You see, in order to get your money’s worth from these Internet Marketing courses, you need to TAKE ACTION on what they tell you. The reading the advice is the 20%, the TAKING ACTION is the 80%. It’s that old 80-20 rule again. I wasn’t convinced I had the time to do it all. But then I was told that this contract may be ending soon, in which case it was a good time to take the plunge. Even if it doesn’t work out that way, I can just work through the course at my own pace.

Get some support
The biggest benefit of these type of courses if they are well run is the support you can get from the expert that’s running them, to shortcut an answer to your problems. Plus the forums are there to interact with likeminded bloggers who are on the same journey as you. I’m hoping that this support will be the big bonus from the course.

Next steps
Well I’ve signed up, taken a look at the Members only site and got my first assignment to work through. I’m a sharing kind of gal and so I’ll be letting you know how I get on from time to time. I won’t replicate the course on my blog because that wouldn;t be fair on Gideon and Yaro, but I’ll be sharing anything that I find especially helpful, that made a difference to my blog. At the end of the course, it will be interesting to share with you whether there’s a measurable difference in my blog in terms of readers, subscribers, financial rewards.

So watch this space.

Now here’s your homework – even if you’re not paying for the Become a Blogger Premium course (it’s closed for the moment), you can still take advantage of the great free stuff available. So try some of the following;

- Download the Free report – The Roadmap to Become a Blogger at Becomeablogger.com
- Download the Free report – Blog Profits Blueprint at Entrepreneurs-journey.com
- If you’re just starting out, then watch the 10 free videos at Becomeablogger.com to help you set up your blog
- If you want to know how to get started with Video, watch the 6 free videos at Getyourvideoonline.com
- Check out the Podcasts at Entrepreneurs-journey.com - especially the interviews with other Internet Marketing Gurus.

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