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The Ultimate List of Free Courses

November 3, 2017 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com 296 Comments

Enjoy this big list of free online courses! Many of these are blogging courses or courses related to marketing or small, entrepreneurial businesses online. I’ll do my best to update this list, but often the course creators change things up. (updated 11-2017)

There are few things I love more than the combination of free and courses. FREE! COURSES! YES! Free online courses are popping up all over the interweb lately, which is good for you and good for me.

Digital courses have been around forever in terms of Course Live or Udemy, but I love the indie courses that run straight from one person to YOU.  I hadn’t seen a list of all of them in one place, so I thought I would create the Ultimate List of Free Courses for YOU! (And for me.)

Many of these free courses are sales funnels. That means they will have some promotion for a paid product within the course itself. If you’re a smart cookie, you’ll know how to say yes when you should say yes and say no when you should say no. (Learn when you should stop buying courses!)

I have tried to keep in quality courses with great value, but I have NOT taken every single one of these, so I cannot fully vouch for all of them. If you do take one and it’s full of smarmy or BS, please shoot me an email. (kirsten@kirstenoliphant.com)

I’m going to start with a plug for my own free course, The Free Email Course. If you want to learn how to set up and see results from your email list in one week, this course is for you!

If you want to learn more about courses, not just TAKE them, check out a few more posts and podcast episodes I’ve got for you:

  • Using Challenges and Courses
  • Stop Buying Courses
  • Should You Presell Your Online Course

And now…let’s get our inner (and outer) nerd on with a great list of free online courses!

This great list of free blogging courses will help you with your blog, social media, branding, and small business!

The Ultimate List of Free Online Courses

BLOGGING

Build a Profitable Blog from Mariah Coz of Femtrepreneur

Squarespace Course from Megan Minns

Beginner Blogging from Leaving Work Behind

How to Transfer Your Blog to WordPress from Espresso

Legalize Your Blog from Jade & Oak

The Part Time Blogger from Jade & Oak


EMAIL

The Free Email Course from me!

How to Build an Email List That Sells More Books from Chris Syme


SOCIAL MEDIA 

The Secret Sauce for Boosting Your Twitter Presence from Madalyn Sklar

Learn How to Get More Twitter Followers from Kelsye Nelson

5 Day Pinterest Power Course from Summer Tannhauser

Quick Tips for Selling Books on Facebook from Chris Syme

How to Find Your Target Audience on Social Media from Chris Syme

Pinterest Video Course from Oh So Pinteresting!

Facebook SOS from Kitz & Co

How to Use Snapchat from Tech Boomers

How to Grow Your Instagram Followers from The Quinskis

Instagram Authority  from Alex Tooby

Creator Academy from YouTube


WRITING

Grammar & Online Etiquette from Andilit

How to Use Amazon AMS Ads from Kindlepreneur (** I love love love this one if you are interested in running ads for your books on Amazon!)

 Plan Your Novel in 5 Days from Rachelle Rea Cobb


BUSINESS

5 Days to Your Next Biz Idea from Caressa Lanae

Launch Your Profitable Course Idea from Teachable

10 Days to Streamline Your Biz from Summer Tannhauser

How to Deal with Nightmare Clients


TECH/SKILLS

Free SEO Keywords Course

Get Started as a Speaker from Grant Baldwin

Free Digital Photography Course

Take Better Pictures from Image Maven


GRAPHICS/BRANDING

Free Design for Creatives from Pines Up North (look for the button below the first paragraph)

How to Create a Signature Style for Your Blog & Brand from the Branded Solopreneur

How to Create a Logo You Love from the Branded Solopreneur


PODCASTING

Free Podcast Course from John Lee Dumas

Podcasting 101 from ShePodcasts


LIFE

30 Days to Calm from A Life in Progress

Calm Your Chaos (Parenting an Anxious Child) from Lemon Lime Adventures

Ignite Your Faith from Equipping Godly Women

The 9-Day Collegiate Cleanse from Misfit Alexa

Divorce Your Story (Post-Divorce Recovery) from Lisa Schmidt

Letting Joy Guide You from Your Fairy Angel


This list of free online courses gets me so excited! And a little overwhelmed! Feeling the same way? Just pin it for later! Then come back and enjoy some free course goodness.

Have you taken any of these free courses? Do you have a free course I should include? Leave a comment and let me know! 

Filed Under: Blogging, Branding, Platform, Social Media

How to Brand Your Writing Voice -049

June 30, 2016 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com 4 Comments

This post and podcast episode comes from my talk at Social Media Day Houston on How to Brand Your Writing Voice across Social Media Platforms!

Branding.

What comes to mind when you hear this word? Even though I know it means more, I always THINK of visual logos and colors and the way a brand shows itself visually.

Branding is more the entire message, the packing of the message, the ideals and beliefs, and overall a comprehensive picture of the person, company, or brand. It’s bigger. But visuals stick with us because we SEE them, which is one of the reasons we think of branding as a visual. (If you didn’t think of visuals, please let me know in the comments what YOU think of!)

But because branding is all-encompassing, that means that your writing is a part of that. More specifically your writing VOICE.

Listen to Create If Writing – Episode 049

Since not everyone has had the extensive tour of English departments that I have, I will give you a definition of voice. Essentially, the writing voice is the narrator or writer’s point of view and writing style. The voice is the part of writing infused with personality. It distinguishes on writer from another and makes that writer unique. It gives the writer POWER.

Your writing voice makes you stand out from every other writer. 

Though you may not talk or think so much about voice, you KNOW it. Voice is often what draws us to a certain writer.

  • You may love the Blogess for her humor and style.
  • Or perhaps Ann Voskamp and her poetic way of describing the mundane.
  • Maybe you are a fan of Derek Halpern‘s don’t-hold-back approach.
  • Or Amy Porterfield‘s wise and upbeat encouragement.

You know voice when you read it. You are drawn toward certain kinds of voices and repelled from others. This is why developing your own writing voice is so important!

For a great post about developing your writing voice, see this post from Kristen of She’s Novel!  Or this one from Mandy Wallace!

How to Brand Your Voice Across Social Media Platforms

Know Your Why

I know. I know. I should call this blog the Why Blog because I talk about this all. the. time. But the reality is that you need to know this. And then you need to make sure it is still the same. You need to KNOW it. Because everything else flows from your WHY. Are you writing to bring in a full time income and keep your rent paid? Are you creating a side business that you hope will be a full business? Are you doing this as passion project and don’t care if you make money? Are you doing what you do to help others? To entertain? To teach?

Your why is probably going to be a combination of a few things, but you need to think about this and know this. (For go deep on this, you need to check out my Foundation Series mini course!)

Know Your Who

Who is your target audience? You need to speak the language of your people. You need to know your current audience and your target audience. (Don’t worry! I have resources on developing an ideal reader profile and on figuring out who your current audience is.) When you know your audience, you know how to speak to them. You know what will attract them and what will repel your non-ideal readers.

Know Your How

How would you like your readers to describe you? Think of the adjectives you wish that people would use when they talk about you. Are you funny? Quirky? Authoritative? Goofy? Wise? Kind? Generous? Outgoing? Snarky? This is a huge part of knowing your voice.

Know What You Can Sustain

Not all voices are easy. Your writing voice should be natural enough that you can work at it, but it’s not work EVERY TIME. Which is to say that it is something you are able to write. You may want people to describe you as funny, but ARE you? Ask a friend. Do people laugh through your blog posts? Can you convey humor through words? Your writing voice should be consistent, even though it will have nuances through social media platforms. I can be funny in a tweet, but not laugh-out-loud funny. I’m witty, but not a comedian. Know what you can sustain and choose to hone in on a voice that feels easy and natural to you.

You may know that brand does not just mean visual. But do you know how to brand your WRITING VOICE? Get some great tips and a free download.

Creating Your Writing Persona

Once you have answered those questions, you need to work on creating your persona. This is another one of those English-major terms. A persona is the role or character adapted by an author or character. In the context of the business world, persona pre-dated avatar as the way you described your ideal readers.

But the kind of persona I mean is the persona of YOU, not your customer.  Essentially, you will be creating a role for yourself that you will embody online. If this sounds weird, the reality is you already HAVE a persona.

When you filter out certain things from your public life, that’s part of creating a persona. When you share particular pieces of content and not others, that’s part of your persona. When you frame something in one way and not another, that’s part of persona.

Download Your Free Worksheet to Form Guidelines for Your Persona!


Once you have a good idea of who your persona is (remember: I mean YOU), you can more easily navigate what to share and how to share it. Your persona will help you understand the content and the way you introduce a certain post to share. It will help you know when to shut up and when to speak. It may even help you respond better to comments from readers.

Tips for Developing Your Writing Voice

Write More.

For more nitty gritty tips on honing your writing voice, the best thing you can do is practice. Try writing with that persona in the forefront of your mind. It might even be easier for you to write as that “character” than just YOU. It gives you a little distance because it IS you, but an edited and filtered version of you.

Speak Your Words.

You can also SPEAK. The spoken word does not work when literally translated into the written word (ever read a transcription? BO-RING), but when you read aloud, this can help you hear how your words sound. (It’s also a great way to find mistakes.) Read your words aloud. Let that help you edit. It will give you more of a voice and reveal places where your written word sounds boring or doesn’t have any personality.

Use Twitter.

I also like using Twitter as an editor. No, I do NOT put whole posts through it. But there are times when I take a quote I like of mine and plug it into one of the click to tweet plugins so it’s shareable on Twitter. Usually? They are too long. Which makes me pare down and often my writing is better. Not everything should be shorter, but when you are very conscious of your words, it helps you choose them with more intention.

 

I hope that this post is helpful it developing your writing voice and keeping it consistent. In the podcast episode I say more about how this looks on different platforms and I think I’ll put that in a second post because we are almost at 1200 words. My persona is long-winded, y’all. (And sometimes says “y’all.”)

What tips do you have for honing your writing voice? Have you ever considered your writing persona? 

Filed Under: Branding, Show Notes, Writing

Crafting Your Brand Story -041

April 14, 2016 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com 1 Comment

Do you know your brand story? Have you written yours? 

Brand is one of those terms that gets thrown around all over the place. We use it often without being 100% sure that we know what it means. Add another really broad term like story and you have Brand Story. Something you could probably talk about in a conversation or nod along with, but when pressed, you might not fully get this concept.

In this post (and podcast episode) I want to help you understand what a brand story is, why it’s important, and how to craft your own brand story.

Listen to Create If Writing – Episode 041

What is a brand? 

I would define your brand as your full identity. Not as a person, but your identity as a writer, blogger, or business. It encompasses everything from your visuals (which is what many people think of as a brand) to your ideals and beliefs.

Your brand has a vibe. It should have a clear sense of purpose, which is where the brand story really comes in. Your brand becomes recognizable not only visually, but in terms of the kinds of content you create and share and how you interact with people in your space.

What is a brand story?

Your brand story is the way that you would describe all of those moving parts that make up your brand, but in a HUMAN and relatable way. You see, story is engrained in our DNA. It is an innate part of us. Sometimes after childhood, we don’t validate story. It becomes less important than some of the more tangible or measurable things: income, ROI, financial security, investments, and all those fancy adult terms.

And yet, we know and we see how story actually impacts us. This is why advertisers utilize story in Superbowl commercials.

What a brand story is and why it's something you need to write NOW to bring clarity and cohesion to your brand.

Writing Your Brand Story

When you write your brand story, you’ll be talking as much about your audience as you will yourself. Because this is not simply a story for you, to bring the focus to you, but this is a story that is meant to draw in the ideal audience. You talk about your history, your values, your struggles, and your transformation, but you’ll also be really speaking to THEIR values, struggle, and the transformation they want to see.

You’ll want to write out the whole thing, then edit it down, and become familiar with it. You should already know it, because it’s your story, but just like everything online, there is editing. Every value you hold dear may not come through your brand. You edit. You choose. You define your brand.

Where Does Your Brand Story Go?

I’ve never seen a Brand Story tab on the navigation bar on a website. Rather, it’s a framework that goes underneath everything else. It’s like your why: it brings focus, clarity, and cohesion to your brand. Even if you never share the actual story you write word for word. Even if the whole thing doesn’t go on your website.

Pieces of it may appear in your About page, or on your Work with Me page. When you talk to people about what it is that you do, this brand story will come out. At least, that’s the point. You want to work on this and craft and write this like a mission statement and KNOW it, so that when someone asks, you will retell your brand story in your own words. Because it is YOURS.

GET THE SLIDES FROM MY TALK ON CRAFTING YOUR BRAND STORY!

Filed Under: Blogging, Branding, Show Notes

Three Things Influencers Can Learn from Justin Bieber

February 25, 2016 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com Leave a Comment

I won’t deny that I’m a reluctant Bieber fan. But I did not ever expect that I would write a post on the three things influencers can learn from Justin Bieber. He won me over in his first movie-mentary, Never Say Never, which I put on while re-painting our family room.

I’m a sucker for a good back story.

(Don’t even get me started on Katy Perry’s movie.)

The videos of Bieber playing drums with a full adult band when he wasn’t even in double digits blew me away. I had been familiar with him as a young R&B/pop star with screaming fans, a lovely voice, and a serious need for a haircut. But he actually had talent, REAL talent. A musicality that shocked me. So I gave in reluctantly to love songs like “Boyfriend.” (I’m also blaming my blogging bestie, Feisty for this.)

Fast forward a few years and he hit the typical trouble for those who rise to fame while young. And then: a reappearance of a blonder, more tattooed, and more serious Justin Bieber.

I see lessons all around me, even in unexpected places. So when I watched videos from the visual concept album from Purpose: The Reinvention, I had a light bulb moment: We can learn a LOT about how to behave as an influencer from Justin Bieber.

What’s worth noting about Bieber’s videos (released a la Beyonce the day after the album dropped) is that he is notably absent from most of them. Here are a few things we can learn from this.

What can influencers, writers, and bloggers learn from Justin Bieber's latest album? A few really key things, as it turns out.

Three Things Influencers Can Learn from Justin Bieber & Purpose

  • It’s not about YOU. Millions (literally millions) of people have watched Bieber’s videos, most of which do not feature the star himself. I LOVE that he made this choice. No matter how you feel about Bieber or his music, this choice speaks volumes to a maturity for the singer and proves that we don’t have to make it all about self-promotion.
    Takeaway: Share from others. Share freely. You can be the star, yet not be a diva. 
  • You can shine light on the less-discovered. I’ve often heard people say that they won’t follow people on Twitter if they don’t have a certain number of followers, even if that person is sharing their content. Clearly the Australian dance crews are more well known in their home country, but arguably Justin Bieber is more famous even there. (As an important side note, I LOVE that he featured women. And not just the Robert Palmer type of sexy, silent, robotic ones. Strong, diverse, tough, talented ones.)
    Takeaway: Don’t only reach UP. Reach out, reach down. 
  • You can re-brand. Yes, Justin Bieber is still Justin Bieber. But if someone so huge with so much media attention can embrace something new and be successful, you can. Not that you NEED to re-brand. But if you are in need of a change but afraid it won’t take, just do it anyway. Be you. Be bold. Make a change. I can imagine the conversations behind the scenes about Bieber not appearing in so many videos. He is, after all, the star. The heartthrob. The reason for Beliebers to keep on Beliebering…or whatever. And yet, he took himself out, which speaks volumes for a maturity and a real change.
    Takeaway: Don’t shy away from a big change if you need it. Embrace it and ignore the haters. 

Maybe I’m a little biased because I liked Justin Bieber before Purpose. But I have to say that if I liked him before, I LOVE him now. (Though I wish he would lighten up a little. Why so ssssserious?)

I’ll just leave this video here for you and YOU can decide. Is there something we can learn from Justin Bieber?

Filed Under: Branding, Platform, Social Media

How Authentic and Transparent Should You Be Online? -030

January 22, 2016 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Today I want to tackle a big topic that is close to my heart that has a lot of buzzwords surrounding it. I want to talk honesty. Integrity. Specifically I want to broach this question: of how authentic and transparent should you be online?

Listen to Create If Writing – Episode 030

This, ultimately, is your choice. Completely. But I do think it needs to be a conscious choice and sometimes are not so conscious about it.

Let’s break this down and talk about some of the buzz words you may hear related to honesty and integrity.

Transparent. This is allowing people to see behind the curtain. It’s being honest in the amount that you let people see.

Authentic. This is being true to yourself. It’s being honest in that you stay true to yourself.

Online, we all create a persona. We are constructing and curating the version of ourselves that people see online. As honest as you are, you are not your real self online.

Let me repeat this:

You are not your real self online.

You get to decide how much you share online, but integrity is your greatest currency.

You cannot possibly share every facet of yourself online, even if you wanted to. It would be like trying to fully represent a 3D object on paper, in a 2D format. It doesn’t fit.

THIS IS NOT INAUTHENTIC. This is simply making choices about what to share publicly. It is making the choice of what exactly you will be transparent about and what things you will hold back.

It fails when people construct a persona that is so far from who they actually are and then people see behind the curtain and the whole thing crashes down. The great example is Tiger Woods, who sold himself as a family man. When all his issues came out publicly, he looked like a liar. If he started out as the bad boy of golf, he could have found sponsors and been successful as that. Selling himself as a family man and then being revealed as something else took away trust.

Here is one thing you MUST be transparent about: legal disclosure. If you are an affiliate for something, you HAVE to share this. The FTC says so. (Just listen to this great podcast from Taylor Bradford on the Boss Girl Creative for more on disclosure.) Not disclosing compensation for affiliate products and programs is illegal and also can damage your integrity with your readers. This is one part of transparency where you don’t have a choice.

Integrity is a huge currency. It may be the most important currency you have with your audience. 

You get to choose what you share and how much you share and when and where you share it. You can be transparent and not share every single thing. You can hold things back and still be authentic. You can hold things back and still be transparent.

But:

You need to be honest. 

Realize that being honest doesn’t mean you tell EVERY SINGLE truth. It does, however, mean that you do not share untruths. You don’t lie.

I want to leave you with a challenge: Have you intentionally thought about your persona?

Have you sat down and thought about what things you will and won’t share online?

Have you thought about your core values that you want to be clearly communicated, both online and in real life?

If not, take some time to really hash this out so that you can set some boundaries for yourself and be conscious with what persona of yourself you are presenting online.

Filed Under: Branding, Show Notes

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Hey, I'm Kirsten!

(Rhymes with BEER-sten.) I am the author of Email Lists Made Easy for Writers and Bloggers and the host of the Create If Writing podcast. My goal is to help writers, bloggers, and creatives like YOU turn readers into raving fans and learn to make a living doing what you love...without being smarmy. Questions? kirsten at kirstenoliphant.com

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