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Once upon a time, long long ago I wanted to become a lawyer.

So I spent 3 years, and lots and lots of money, getting a degree that I decided not to use for anything at all, except maybe to make a point that I could have been an attorney – and a rich one too.

While I was doing Law, I was actually teaching – I was also writing in 12 minutes of spare time that I got during the course of my day.

Then MBA was a rage all around and I decided to give it a shot. I also use this degree to impress people as well, especially when they give me a look when I tell them that I am a teacher – and a writer – and a blogger?

And …

I am now looking for a university that offers some sort of post graduate degree in blogging. Although no such degree exists – to date, there are plenty of options if you want to do some serious learning about Blogging.

If you are hellbent upon wanting to blog professionally, and make enough income that you are able to support two humans or animals, then you might want to look into these courses. A warning upfront, these are going to cost you some, but you will gain in knowledge and skill – tremendously. Not to mention you will save up on countless hours that you would have otherwise wasted, trying to find out what is it that you need to do to become a successful blogger. And still pretty much remained clueless.

A List Boot Camps

A brainchild of Leo Babauta of Zenhabits (a blog having like a gazillion subscribers), and his handy partner in crime, Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen. A list boot camps run for a few weeks at a time and fee varies according to the level of participation you are aiming for. These are generally aimed at newish bloggers, or bloggers who have been around but are not getting the results they would like. You can also join the A list Blogging Club and pay a monthly fee of 20 odd dollars and get access to all the info you ever needed about blogging – and then some! Highly recommended.

Guest Blogging Course

Jon Morrow is an Associate Editor of Copyblogger – enough said. He has his own awesome blog called Guest Blogging. You MUST watch the videos he has up, it’s easily the best, no-nonsense stuff on blogging there is.

Jon is working on the premise that blogosphere has changed to such an extent that it is impossible to generate traffic by writing good content alone. You need connections with the big bloggers along the way, to help reach your goal. The surest way to form these connections is through guest blogging – you need to get their attention and get into their inner circle.

He is offering a course where he promises to get you in the blogging circles so you go from a nobody to somebody who has authority and connections in the blogging world. He offers to help you land a guest post by the end of the course, on any blog of your choice (having more than 50k subscribers). He will personally edit the post for you, otherwise you could claim your money back.

This is definitely something that I want to do, as soon as I finish my teaching degree. Damn I forgot this tiny detail off my credentials list. Then I am sooo IN.

Traffic School

Traffic School is all about – traffic. Run by Corbett Barr of Think Traffic blog, the main target seems to be upcoming businesses, so most of their customers already are webpreneurs or have some sort of online ventures happening. If you fall within this category, then check out what they have to offer. They claim to get you serious traffic for your website/blog and have tons of useful info on their blog to help you decide.

How to Decide?

Are you curious by any of these courses? Ask yourself these questions

• Which stage of blogging cycle are you at right now? How long have you been blogging for?
• Do you understand branding?
• Have you got the mechanics in place, of writing successful blog-worthy, insanely-useful content?
• Are you effectively using social media such as Twitter, Facebook, even Google +?
• Have you started guestposting? How are you going with that?
• Is your readership increasing at a rate which you are happy with? Do you want more, MORE subscribers?
• Are you absolutely sure that blogging is something you want to do for a living?

If you have answered yes to most of these questions, then you would benefit tremendously from doing any of the above mentioned courses, depending upon if you are newish, established or a business blog.

I am already a member of A list Blogging Club and have learnt a lot from them. They are fantastic and have a lot of useful information to plow through. They also have regular masterclasses (Internet webinars) with Leo. For new bloggers, this is a wonderful place to start. With 20+ dollars a month subscription, you can’t go wrong.

Not in a distant future, maybe we will get to see a degree, something known as MFA in Blogging.

Now only if I could do this one instead of the 97 courses I have done – so far!

Or maybe MFA in Writing or a degree in Psychology won’t hurt either …. Sigh. Here I go again.

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