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I just checked out the Blog Classroom sales page and my gut feeling is that, while it will certainly help people, it is definitely over-priced.

Well at-least it seems that way from the Sales Page. Having not seen the course in full I have no right to comment on how good or bad their course is. This is more a scrutiny of their sales page and how it reflects the content of their course, and not a reflection of the course itself because I have not tried it.

For those that don’t know, Blog Classroom is a course on how to blog run by affiliate marketers Anik Singal and Rosalind Gardner. These two people are without a doubt successful online entrepreneurs, but have they put together a good and valuable course?

Shocking Stats (not in a good way)

The first thing which stood out to me were the stats presented on the Blog Classroom sales page.

Now you expect a $500 course to be run by bloggers that have some awesome traffic stats to show.

• 20-40 Visitors a Day is not Impressive:
  One stats screenshots shows just 20-40 visitors a day within a month of launch. But anyone can throw up 10 articles on a new blog, do no promotion & get traffic like this- it is not rocket science!
  
  Can they get 40,000 visitors within the first day of launch? Now that is what you might expect from someone who knows a little bit about blogging.
  
  Although I’m certainly no 6 figure Guru I consider myself a successful blogger that can launch a blog properly when I want to. Here’s an example of some more impressive stats of the very first blog I launched:
  
  
  
  While it was my first blog I had gained a lot of blogging experience as a freelancer.
• Where’s a successful launch example?
  Now 20-40 visitors/day is a good start for a 100% complete newbie - but it shouldn’t be used on a Sales Page to sell a $500/day course - surely they can show something more impressive than that?
  
  I think the point they were trying to make is that you can get this much traffic with just one of their easy techniques which could result in a "push button" launch of blogs that get some traffic.
  
  Sounds good but it didn’t excite me. From experience all you need to do is get that traffic is throw up a wordpress blog, put up 10 posts that have well optimized titles for longtail keywords and quickly ping and syndicate the RSS feed. It’s not that difficult and its no big secret.
  
  Now it will probably take a week to a month (depending how many hours are put in) for a newbie to understand the basics of blogging, do some niche research, get a domain, launch a wordpress blog and get up 10 posts to get that sort of traffic. So a newbie might be satisfied with reaching that traffic level so early in their career while just learning the ropes.
  
  However, someone experienced could do that in a matter of hours. If Anik and Rosalind really wanted to show off the potential of what their course teaches then they should have approached it differently.
  
  They should have showed a network of 100 blogs they launched within a month that each get 20-40 visitors a day.
  
  They should have also launched a blog using all their tricks and got thousands (if not tens of thousands) of visitors a day within a month. This would really persuade me (and anyone else) that they know what they are doing.
  
  Putting up unimpressive stats like they have shouts out amateur blogger to me, and not professional blogger.
• Meaningless Google Rankings Screenshot:
  There is a screenshot from Google showing one of Anik’s blog ranking between CNN and BusinessWeek. But this means nothing unless it was for a competitive keyword - but the keyword is not shown. Type in enough long tail keywords and you will be able to place almost any site in the top 10 alongside other authority sites.
• Misleading #1 Ranking:
  Also the Sales Page shows off a #1 ranking achieved within 20 days of a blog’s launch. But any new blog with some content will be almost guaranteed to rank number one for at least something.
  
  What their blog is ranking for is a massive un-searched for longtail keyword term - hardly impressive, and if anything it is misleading people that are new to making money online and don’t know better.
• 2 Months & Barely Any Traffic to Speak of:
  Also it took them 2 months to get 185 pages indexed pages with only just over 400 Search Engine visitors - given the amount of content on the site (185 indexed pages) that’s appalling.
  
  I’ve mentored people completely new to blogging and they have done better than that. Professional bloggers selling a $500 course should be able to offer something a lot more impressive.
• No Specific Blogging Earnings:
  Anik & Rosalind do show that they earn a lot from working online and I believe them. However, if you read between the lines Anik’s and Rosalind’s earnings don’t come primarily from blogging but from a variety of efforts. They don’t specifically say how much they earn specifically from blogging.

I’ve seen so many big launches for expensive courses come out with unimpressive and misleading stats to pull in non-the-wiser newbies. This sort of cheap sales tactic is really starting to annoy me.

Blog Classroom Lacks Blogging Experts?

BlogClassroom sounds like it is backed by affiliate marketing experts and not blogging experts who have a very strong blogging history.

The best they could show was a blog from Rosalind that got approx. 25k visitors a month - this is not bad - but it is not impressive. Especially giving Rosalind’s position as a very established and well-followed affiliate marketer. Compare that to John Chow who gets 5x that and his site is severely penalized by Google.

Now I do not consider myself the ultimate blogging guru as I know people a lot more successful than me who’s success makes me extremely jealous. But even I can pull out better stats for a blog than Rosalind:

Anik & Ros Are Talented Online Entrepreneurs

Don’t get me wrong - I am not trying to discredit Anik or Rosalind, they are two very successful online entrepreneurs and I’m sure they have a lot of great information to pass on - but my gut feeling from the sales page is that they are not the right people to be writing and pushing a $500 course.

The way the sales page reads to me is that they only know the basics of blogging - and not the advanced stuff which is needed to set a $500 course apart from the many great introductory blogging courses out there.

Maybe I’ve Got it All Wrong?

I certainly don’t think Blog Classroom is a scam, I’m sure the people who join will get something out of it.

I’ve absolutely no doubt that those that join will get a good return on investment if they take action.

Given that Ros and Anik also know about making money online I am sure they will be able to pass on the important basics about monetizing a blog and diversifying income that so many bloggers miss.

But because the sales page does not show Anik or Ros as true blogging experts it seems that Blog Classroom is just going to be providing a lot of re-hashed information that is already out there for free.

Now you could say that for most courses online, they give you the good stuff to save you months of searching. It simply just cuts the learning curve, stops you from getting the wrong information and speeds up your route to success.

However, with a $500 price tag the course must offer UNIQUE information and TRUELY POWERFUL strategies.

Why the Focus on an Unimpressive Strategy?

When the main focus and selling point of the Sales page is on one basic strategy that only results in 20-40 visitors in the first month it makes me think that the course has little else is on offer.

From the sales page I couldn’t see any powerful unique selling points that really stood out. It doesn’t make sense that something would be missed when Anik is so hugely experienced at launching these sorts of courses.

So if the course did have something really meaty to offer then why is it focused on a basic strategy and unimpressive statistics?

If the sales page is missing something I’m not seeing then I urge Anik and Rosalind to really push those juicy unique selling points.

Better Alternatives?

BlogClassroom is not the only way to learn blogging. There are plenty more cost effective options available:

• The new ProBlogger Book, Secrets to Blogging Your Way to a 6-Figure Income, written by the highly (if not the most) respected bloggers and social marketers Darren Rowse & Chris Garret (get it for under $20 - not $500).
• The private underground Hive forum from Performancing is only $10 a month and is packed with blogging experts that get masses of traffic. Such experts as Ryan Caldwell (one of his blogs recently got 1.4 million extra page views from one linkbait) and Chris Garret. Membership to the Hive also includes the Power Blogging Ebook by Chris Garrett ($47 value). You can join The Hive here.
• I’m also working on my own course which uses blogging, but is more a complete guide to building a $35,600/yr business which can be run in your spare time. It’s currently in closed beta and I’ve been working with a small test group for some months. Expect a public launch later this year - in the meantime get on the notification list if you want to know when it launches.

Disclaimer: I have not purchased Blog Classroom. My views here are based on the sales page and also my previous experience with another product backed by Anik Singal. PPC Classroom.

Tags: Anik Singal, blogging, Chris Garrett, courses, Rosalind Gardner, Ryan Caldwell

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 6:30 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.