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How Lena Gott Earns Over $100K/Year Teaching Her Blogging Strategies
- Who: Lena Gott
- Website: adventures-in-blogging.thinkific.com and whatmommydoes.com
- Course Topic: Blogging traffic courses
- Revenue Stats: 100K/year
Who are you and what course have you created?
My name is Lena Gott and I run adventuresinblogging.co. My courses are hosted at adventures-in-blogging.thinkific.com and I offer well over a dozen courses from my platform.
I teach bloggers how to grow and scale their traffic & income. Some of my courses teach JUST traffic, some teach JUST income strategies, and some do both. Most of my students are just like me – stay at home moms who started blogs and want to grow their businesses in less time.
My flagship course is Adventures in SEO. That is where I teach the SEO strategies I’ve used for over 10 years (running another site called whatmommydoes.com) to get traffic to my content online.
In addition to the SEO course, I also offer the following paid products:
- Traffic Transformation Guide
- Blog to Traffic Bootcamp
- Money Making Blog Posts Masterclass
- 50+ Hidden Niches
If you search through my course catalog you’ll see I offer many other paid products including templates, challenges, spreadsheets, and free courses.
What’s the biggest benefit of taking your courses?
I’m a stay-at-home-mom first, business owner second. So ALL my strategies involve the biggest impact for the least amount of effort because I don’t have all the time in the world to devote to my business.
The biggest benefit of taking Adventures in SEO is the fact that my course is full of common-sense strategies that anyone can use. You don’t even need a keyword tool to do SEO my way. The lessons are based on search engine theory, so you can technically translate the lessons over to other search engines like YouTube or even Etsy.
The best part about learning SEO is that it’s a skill you can use FOREVER on your blog and it helps you bring in evergreen traffic and sales (which is great if you are low on time like me!).
Where did you come up with the idea for your business?
I created Adventures in SEO after I started teaching traffic strategies to small groups of bloggers. I finally decided that I would put everything I know about Google and Pinterest SEO into one course so I didn’t have to teach everyone individually. The next thing I knew, it kind of took on a life of its own.
Why did you decide to create an online course in the first place?
I decided to create online courses because I have a passion for teaching. I was an instructor for the University of Phoenix for many years and I kind of missed that job. Teaching blogging is a way to combine what I do on a daily basis with my love of teaching.
Did you have any moments of doubt before you created your course?
I have doubts every single time I put a new course out there. I don’t think that feeling of “will anyone like this?” ever goes away!
With each subsequent course, however, that part gets easier. Adventures in SEO was a labor of love that I created without knowing if anyone would buy it, but I did know that people NEEDED it. I think that’s key.
You have to create something you know people will love IF they take it. -Lena Gott Click To TweetThen you have to market the heck out of yourself in the beginning. 😊
What’s your online course like?
Adventures in SEO is a combination of video and text. I’d say it’s heavy on both. It really is a MASSIVE course. Hours of videos + written explanations, supplemented with mini eBooks and worksheets.
People say I put too much into it for the price, but I always say the course includes everything it needs to include to get my points across.
How long did it take you to create your course?
Adventures in SEO took me about 6 months to create from start to finish. It took that long because it was a very creative endeavor and I can’t just sit down at my computer and create on demand. I would work on it for several hours then put it down until the following week. And so on for several months.
Then in the end when I could envision what the final product would look like, I put in a couple of 20-hour weeks to finish it up. That’s the way my course creation process always goes. I can sometimes outline a product like this from start to finish but mostly I just start creating and let the ideas flow.
Tell us a little about the process of launching your course and getting your first sale(s).
For my first launch of Adventures in SEO, I decided to do a beta launch. I had created the first module but then needed some feedback on the rest, so I decided to offer beta pricing of $199 to whoever trusted me enough to pay for access to something I hadn’t created yet. Early buyers got the outline of my vision and then I created the dummy course in Thinkific. I gave everyone access to the course + a private Facebook group to discuss.
I created the course in pieces and added parts of it to Thinkific as I went along. In the end I fell behind so that’s why I pulled a couple 20-hour weeks. 😊 In a way, my beta testers kept me going when I might have otherwise given up on such a massive endeavor.
I would NOT recommend this beta method for your FIRST course. I only did it because I knew some of my long-time students would trust me enough to go through beta. For a first course, I would do a traditional launch with lead magnets, an email series and Facebook lives to explain what the course is all about.
Do you have a lead magnet?
Yes, I have several. You can see them on the course site. I love giving away free resources because A) sometimes people don’t have the funds YET to buy your course but they fully intend to once they do and B) people need a chance to get to know your teaching style before investing a good amount in a large course. Most of my freebies lead into a nurture sequence OR drop the readers straight into my weekly newsletter.
Here are a few examples:
What’s the traffic strategy that works best for you?
My favorite traffic strategy for my courses is Pinterest. There’s really not a lot of competition out there for blogging topics. My second favorite is paid Facebook traffic. You can reach just about anybody on Facebook if you’re willing to pay a little bit.
What online course platform are you using?
I use Thinkific and I like it.
Its main limitation is the clunkiness of the affiliate program but otherwise, it’s a great system.
I also wish it had the ability to do one-click upsells.
Take a Look at Thinkific!
Thinkific is the most popular online course platform used by successful course creators interviewed on coursemethod.com. It’s a complete solution for creating sales pages, uploading all course content, taking payments, and more.
- Price Range: Free to $499/month
- Most Popular Plan: Pro Plan at $99/month
- Annual Discount: Yes, take 20% off!
- Free Trial: Try out Thinkific’s core features for free.
*Our content is reader supported, which means when you buy from links you click on, we may earn a commission.
What made you decide to use your chosen platform over others?
I needed a learning platform separate from my blog that wouldn’t require a lot of technical maintenance (which is not my strong suit). I also needed a system that would accurately track affiliate cookies and give my partners a fair share of the revenue. Thinkific provided both those things and came highly recommended by others.
What other tools do you use to run your online course business?
So many! Let’s see – PicMonkey for images, Tailwind for Pinterest scheduling, SEMrush for keyword research (just got this so I’m still learning), Trello for project management, and Movavi for marketing video creation.
Are you willing to share some idea of revenue?
Adventures in Blogging earns over $100,000 per year in course sales. Adventures in SEO ($397) is my biggest earner with Traffic Transformation ($79) coming in second.
Would you mind telling us a little about what the money you’ve earned from your course has done for you?
The earnings from both Adventures in Blogging and WhatMommyDoes have allowed me to afford to build my dream house, go on extended family vacations, and employ several other moms. I love my work because I get to be creative and help other families.
Do you have a story of a transformation from any of your clients?
Several of my students have told me that my course has helped them pay their mortgage and one student said her earnings helped her support the family after her husband’s layoff. These types of stories keep me going because supporting this many students isn’t easy; these stories are why I do what I do.
What advice do you have for people just starting out?
The best thing I can tell any future course creator is to start small. DO NOT under any circumstances create a HUGE course right out of the gate. I’m glad I did not do that because the difficulty level of creating a flagship course is insane.
Create something small, then something bigger, then grow from there. -Lena Gott Click To TweetBut be prepared for growth, especially if you offer a lot of free value upfront. People appreciate free AND paid stuff, so put your best into each product no matter if you’re charging $10 or $10,000 and your audience will thank you.
Learn more about Lena Gott and Adventures in Blogging:
