HONEST REVIEW OF THE HONEST BLOGGERS

When searching for ways to make money blogging, I ran across and eventually purchased Create and Go’s Pro Blogger Bundle. Here is my review since there aren’t many out there. It’s a doozy…here we go…

JACK OF ALL TRADES

I’m not too different from you…I have a spouse, children, a job (realtor). I am also a person who is SO SICK of the daily grind…9 to 5 (I WISH!)…day in and day out monotony.  I am a Jack/Jill of all trades, and a master of none. I have literally tried DOZENS of ideas trying to make money from home over the years! Mostly to be able to stay home with my kids. They are grown now and I’d really love to replace my husband’s and my money with an online income. Somehow, I’ve never tried to make money blogging though.

From a young age, if there was something I wanted to know, I went after it…HARD! I realized that LEARNING in and of itself was my super power! I learned to play the guitar, draw and paint, how to craft and DIY things around my home. Yes, even how to build websites, and never learned to make money blogging!

STAY WITH ME

HANG ON, NOW…don’t let me lose you! Don’t think, “whatever she’s about to say won’t apply to me because I don’t know how to build websites!” What I mean by “learned to build websites” is that I basically learned to hack HTML. It was 1999 and the whole internet was still basically in its infancy (think dial-up here). Website technology changed DRASTICALLY over the years and I didn’t keep up with the learning curve. I did learn how to use programs like WordPress, but never really kept up with how to drive traffic to and how to make money blogging. Building websites and monetizing them are two ENTIRELY different things!

MAKE MONEY BLOGGING – MY HANDICAP!

I knew I wanted to build a blog. GETTING IT TO MAKE MONEY…THAT’S THE TRICK! IF…If I could make money blogging, It could buy me the freedom to travel, to make money from anywhere in the world…at any time of day. I could teach my kids how to do the same. I could pay off my mortgage early and gain REAL, TRUE FREEDOM! Like most people, I have a BURNING desire to hit the road and see this big, beautiful world. 

Even though I have this pretty nifty skill of building websites, it LITERALLY does me no good…AT ALL…NONE! My problem is not that I don’t know how to BUILD a blog, it’s that I have never known how to MAKE MONEY BLOGGING. So, I realize that I have a head start on others in that I can START a blog…and that IS handy, but I’m not very much different from anyone else who doesn’t really know how. While I CAN build a blog, I still have TONS to learn about monetizing it, and am CONSTANTLY and DEEPLY FRUSTRATED with my lack of knowledge. WHY CAN’T I JUST CRACK THE CODE?!?!

ALONG CAME CREATE AND GO

This is why I decided to purchase Create and Go’s Pro Blogger Bundle. I don’t even remember how I stumbled on their website…maybe on Pinterest, maybe on YouTube, but the fact is, I was DESPERATELY seeking ANY idea to free my income from this location and learn to make money blogging. You see, my income is currently COMPLETELY dependent on WHERE I AM (my husband is a hairstylist…I am a realtor)! I began searching for ways to begin a blog and how to SUCCESSFULLY make money blogging QUICKLY. That’s how found Alex Nerney and Lauren McManus, and how I began watching their videos.

Being a person who learns quickly on my own, ESPECIALLY when it comes to technology, I thought, “I’ll just watch all of their FREE videos…if these people can learn all of this stuff just using the internet, surely I can too!” So off I went, watching EVERY. SINGLE. VIDEO. I’m not kidding…I just went down their playlists, watching them all. Once I watched a playlist or two, I eventually ended up on their website.

MY THOUGHT PROCESS:

These kids (yes, they are kids to me…sorry Alex & Lauren!) have some great ideas…

HOLY COW….they want $500 for their Pro Blogger Bundle (*update: it’s now $645 because it has 4 courses instead of 3 when I purchased)?!?!?!  …ok, THAT’S NOT GONNA HAPPEN…EVER! Anything they can learn from Google, I can learn from Google! (Again, sorry Alex & Lauren…just being honest here!)

What they’re saying in these FREE videos makes sense…I wonder what more they could POSSIBLY say in their paid videos?

$500…Are they SERIOUS?

Maybe I can just buy one product and see what it’s all about, which one?

“Launch Your Blog” isn’t really what I need. I know I NEED Pinterest Traffic Avalanche, but my whole THINKING is wrong about websites. Building website help, no…getting traffic to it AND how to MAKE MONEY BLOGGING…YES!  I wonder if what they’re teaching in Six-Figure Blogger would help that?

It SURE WOULD be nice to not have to search all over the internet and have all of that info in one place, and $500 isn’t that much if I think about all the time involved in the search process. (I used to charge $50 per hour to do updates on websites, so that’s just 10 hours of website updates).

[At this point, I joined one of their Facebook groups and even had a little interaction with Lauren about which product to buy. She recommended Six Figure Blogger if I could only get one.]

Six Figure Blogger is $300ish…that’s doable, but I REALLY WANT Pinterest Traffic Avalanche, too.  If I just bought the Pro Blogger Bundle, I’d be getting both classes at their regular price and basically get Launch Your Blog for free, and maybe pick up some useful info if I did that course too.

I began leaning towards buying the bundle.

Then, I had a quick and unexpected small closing (remember, I’m a realtor), which oddly enough put about $500 extra in my pocket. I decided that THIS was a gift from above and I needed to POUNCE on the Pro Blogger Bundle, so I did.

OMG…BLOGGING BIBLE!!!

WHOA, BABY!!! I am SO HAPPY I bought the whole bundle! It’s a LOT of information…it’s a little like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hydrant, but the knowledge they give you is SO COMPREHENSIVE! It boils down all the questions I had and answers them all one by one! Just what I was looking for!

Alex and Lauren teach you how to formulate and execute your ideas in such an ORGANIZED and COMPLETE manner.  Inside the bundle, they have four courses. Build and Launch Your Blog teaches just that, including what to write about, how to monetize your blog and the basics of how to make money blogging. Make Money Blogging for Beginners teaches how to make your first $1,000 per month. Pinterest Traffic Avalanche teaches how to get traffic to your blog for free using Pinterest.Six-Figure Blogger seriously teaches how to make money blogging and how to change your thinking about blogging to learn how to go MUCH beyond that initial $1,000 per month to a six-figure income.

As an added bonus, they have Facebook groups for each course that are pretty active. The best part about this is that Lauren frequents these groups and gives advice fairly often. I love meeting other people who are on the same journey with me, as well as giving and getting advice and encouragement from them.

WHAT’S INSIDE?

I wanted to give you a peek at what’s inside the courses. Each course is broken down into chapters. You’ll see I’ve jumped around a lot. Since I didn’t really need the Launch Your Blog course as much, I just peeked in on the lessons I needed or at least wanted a review on. I think I will eventually watch all of them anyway just to be sure I didn’t miss anything.

I went straight for the jugular and did the whole Six-Figure Blogger course as quickly as possible. I’m SO GLAD I did, but I wouldn’t recommend starting there for anyone unless they were at least a little experienced with building websites. Their recommended order is as it is seen in this screenshot.

Each course is broken into modules or chapters. They are mostly video tutorials (with a few PDF lessons) that walk you through each lesson step-by-step for whatever that particular lesson is. It has a handy “start” buttons beside each lesson and marks each one complete as you go. You can see from the image above that the course keeps track of how much you’ve completed. I don’t find this feature super useful as I plan to watch and rewatch most of the videos. If you’re goal driven and need that encouragement though, it’s there.

 Lastly, once you click on a lesson, you’re greeted with the video area where you can clearly see how long each video is in each lesson. I use this to plan how long I’d like to sit still before getting up for stretches, water breaks, and bathroom breaks! 🙂 I like to do the lessons with two other tabs open on my browser. One for the lesson, one for my blog, and one for my Google Doc where I’m taking notes…which I HIGHLY recommend. Google docs translate across devices which allows you to see your notes on your computer, phone, or tablet. This is FANTASTIC when you want to read back over your notes.

SO WORTH IT!

I’ve actually done the courses in the reverse order of what they recommend. Because I am able to build the website without any help, I started with Six Figure Blogger.  As you can see, I’m almost done with Pinterest Traffic Avalanche, but the Six Figure Blogger course alone IS WORTH THE PRICE! I probably could’ve fumbled through the internet learning everything they teach, but it would’ve taken me FOREVER. To have all that info in one place bundled up in a nice little package for me…that’s INVALUABLE! Not to mention the fact that I can go back and forth in the lessons as needed without having to look it all up again on Google. TOTALLY WORTH THE PRICE!

Even though I knew how to build websites before I bought Six Figure Blogger, I was GRIPPED WITH FEAR to start my blog. One thing that comes along with being a Jack of all trades and master of none, is that you tend to BELLY FLOP...A LOT (read: FAIL) on a lot of things. I’ve tried so many things to make extra money that it’s really pretty obnoxious. So, I’ve been nervous about starting a blog…silly, I know. However, after doing the Six Figure Blogger course, I’ve gone from nervous and afraid to excited…anxious even…anxious in a good way! I FINALLY feel CONFIDENT with what to write about, how to drive traffic, and how to MAKE MONEY BLOGGING!

If you are interested in starting a blog, or growing, driving traffic to, or making money blogging, go on over to Create and Go and get the Pro Blogger Bundle!

I can’t wait to start seeing the results rolling in, and I will post updates as they happen!

Be sure to sign up for our email list. We’ll be doing more posts on how to make money blogging in the near future and plenty of progress reports!

**By way of full disclosure, I am an affiliate of Create and Go. I receive a portion of every sale driven by this website. That being said, I promote their products because I loved it so much, not because I just wanted a product to sell. If I didn’t absolutely LOVE the courses, I would not sell them on my site…I wouldn’t lend my reputation on a nonreputable product!