I finished The Business of Travel Blogging Course by Nomadic Matt in February of 2019, a little less than 1 year into my blogging journey.
After the first year of starting my travel blog, I had NO CLUE what I signed up for. I felt like everyday, all I was learning was how much I didn’t know!
I scavenged Pinterest for all the, “How to start a travel blog” free resources and email sign-ups, but after a while… it all got so repetitive. I am sure this is how you are feeling considering you are here looking to buy the Superstar Blogging course.
I taught myself that I should be signing up for Facebook Groups, marketing on Pinterest, writing in a way that optimizes for search engines, monetizing my guides from day one, and the list goes on and on. But what free guides online didn’t tell me is HOW to do these things.
I was starting to feel in a rut and that I have read all the free resources online. My travel blog was growing at a reasonable rate for the first few months, but if I was being completely honest with myself, I had no clue what I was doing. Most of my success at that point was strictly luck, and I felt the hard work I was putting in wasn’t matching my results.
Disclaimer: I am also impatient AF.
I decided that the end of 2018 (a Christmas gift to myself), I would finally make the plunge to sign up for a good course. I was debating between Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, Travel In Her Shoes Instagram Course, and Nomadic Matt’s Super Star Blogging Course. I spent WAY too much time debating between all of them, because spending a lot of money on a course when I was making no money on my blog at the time was a big risk! Don’t make the same mistake as I did, because then I delayed my success and implementation of what I learned.
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing had amazing reviews from so many people, but I felt I was still at the growing stage where I needed help with marketing, writing, design, etc. Not just monetizing. I still might take this course at a later date, but for now I wanted to focus on growing my following and improving my writing.
Travel In Her Shoes is extremely popular on Instagram, and her course teaches you how to grow your Instagram following and up your photography game. My focus, at this stage, was on my blog and Pinterest, so I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a course that focused solely on Instagram. I also was not very good at Photography so I saw this course as a big, uphill climb!
Note on Travel In Her Shoes Master Tribe: There were rumors that this entire course was a scam and more than half her students demanded a refund. I can not personally attest that this is true because I did not take the course, but I feel like I dodged a bullet with this one!
The Super Star Blogging Course, specifically The Business Of Travel Blogging, had everything I was looking for: SEO, Coding, Writing Tips, Design Tips, Marketing, Social Media, Monetizing Strategies, Networking at Conferences, Building your Email List, and Partnering with Brands / Tourism Boards. My only concern of this course was… if it covers this much material, how in depth could he possibly go?
It was overwhelming how much knowledge and information he shared.
I am confident to say this is the BEST travel blogging course on the market today, especially since I have taken many other blogging courses (his was by FAR the most thorough!!). I want to pin point the major pros and cons of The Business of Travel Blogging Course. But… spoiler alert: There are not many cons!
Pros:
- He answers questions you didn’t even know you had!
- His tech guy, Chris, teaches the first half of the course. When you go over “how to set up your website,” he not only shows you how to sign up for WordPress and all the extremely basic things, but he shows the advanced settings you should have set to optimize in the search engines. Just this section alone made the course worth the money.
- You get lifetime access to the course, Matt’s email for questions, unlimited technical support, and access to their large Facebook group where you can ask questions and advice.
- Matt is known for his extremely detailed and easy to read writing style. His entire course is written in his voice, which makes it unbelievably easy to read. AND he teaches you major pointers on what makes his writing so great, so you can write great too!
- He actually responds to feedback. After his writing section, he encourages you to email him a word document of an ENTIRE guide for him to critique. He will give you feedback on what would improve your writing from a reader standpoint. Most “instructors” will ask you to send over a paragraph to read, but he asked for 1,000 words to review. This is what made me go from liking his course to loving his course. Showing that he goes above and beyond for his students.
- One of my favorite tips he shared was what he claims was the biggest contributor to his success. He says that a lot of bloggers not only lack networking skills, but networking beyond their industry. He scored his New York Times best selling book deal and many opportunities by branching out of the travel industry.
- He has a Facebook group with all the students who can answer any questions you may have while you go through the course.
- He shares his secrets on how he has gotten on so many of the major news outlets like The New York Times, National Geographic, CNN, Fox, Wall Street Journal, and more!
- As a bonus, he provides interviews with successful people from not only the travel industry, but from all types of industries. He recommends learning beyond the course such as books, articles and other blogs.
- The course covers so many topics of blogging and goes far beyond any of the free resources you find online.
- Getting the most bang for your buck! He recently lowered his pricing to make it more affordable for bloggers who are just starting out. The best travel blogging course just got better!
Cons:
- I bugged me how the course did not keep your place. Sometimes I would take a week or two between sections to really master it before moving on, but I would forget where I left off! If you are logged into the course, I wish it started where you left off instead of kicking you back to the beginning.
- I wish he touched more on the “business side” of blogging. For example, when and how to get a business license, how to file your blog (LLC, Sole Proprietor, Corporation?), Disclosure policies, etc. However, I will note that he ALWAYS responds to questions via email. If you have questions that he does not cover in the course, I am sure he would be more than happy to answer them for you.
I do feel this course is beginner / intermediate, NOT advanced. I would not recommend this course if you have a lot of experience setting up a website, knowing how to optimize in search engines (SEO), or marketing experience. I think you would still learn a lot because if you are feeling in a rut (sometimes the best thing to do is go back to the basics).
I would recommend The Business of Travel Blogging course if:
- SEO and Optimizing for search engines is overwhelming.
- You are putting 100% effort into your travel blog website and you are not seeing the results you want.
- You have read just about every free resource online and want to invest in a travel blogging course that will teach you more than just the basics!
- Writing code is a foreign language to you.
- You want to network by joining a community of travel bloggers who are at the same level as you.
- Eager to learn from a successful travel blogger like Nomadic Matt.
- Want to improve your travel writing skills.
- You’re looking into creating and selling your own products.
- You only have a limited amount to spend on investing in yourself and want to make sure you are signing up for the best possible travel blogging course.
About Nomadic Matt:
Matthew Kepnes, or better known as Nomadic Matt, is one of the original travel bloggers who has been doing this longer than anyone! He has been through all the internet changes, industry saturation, social media booms and through it all, he has always kept true to himself and stayed on top.
Now, he has toned down his traveling to create courses, charities, bestselling books, and travel conferences where you can learn from the best of the best at a 3 day long conference! He has been the definition of success in his field and no matter how busy he has gotten, his students always come first. Matt makes that clear when he replies to every single question and email you send him!
Nomadic Matt gives not only generic advice on best practices with travel blogging, but his struggles and personal experiences for you to learn from. He does not hold back on his knowledge of the industry and it shows in his overly-thorough blogging course.
Concluding Thoughts on the BEST travel blogging course on the market:
I loved his course and teaching style so much that I signed up for his Photography course as well. If it’s anything like this course, I am sure I will be posting a lengthy, glowing post for you to read in the near future!
UPDATE: I finished the photography course which was not AS good as the blogging course, but I still learned a ton! A full review coming soon 🙂
If you have any questions about the course or how to sign up, don’t hesitate to contact me!
If you want to read testimonials, view his credentials, and browse his pricing, you can check it out here.
There’s a chance that this post contains affiliate links. I may receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you), that goes directly towards little Rosie’s dog treats!
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[…] if this course isn’t for you, I also have a lengthy review on Nomadic Matt’s The Business of Travel Blogging Course. He doesn’t dive into Pinterest very much, but he does touch on marketing, writing and […]