Why I Retired My Online Courses (and Turned Them Into Free Blog Posts)
For years, I built online courses. I filmed videos in my office, designed PDF charts, wrote lesson plans late at night, and launched workshops with names like “How to Make Google Happy.” I genuinely loved making them. I’m a teacher at heart, and there’s something wonderful about handing another business owner the exact thing you wish someone had handed you.
And then, slowly, I noticed something.
What I learned from building DIY marketing courses
Most business owners don’t actually want to learn how to do their own SEO. They want it done. They want to know it’s handled, by someone they trust, so they can get back to the work they started their business to do in the first place.
The numbers were honest with me, too. My free course on choosing a website platform got 23 sign-ups and a review I still treasure. The paid, step by step SEO workshops were a much quieter story, and that taught me something. People were happy to learn the big-picture “which way do I go” decisions, but when it came to the detailed, roll-up-your-sleeves work, they’d much rather hand it off.
Honestly, I get it. I run four brands. I don’t want to learn to do my own taxes, and I’d never ask my accountant to take a course on it either. Knowing what you don’t want to do is a form of self-respect, not laziness.
Why free blog posts make more sense than courses
So I’m retiring the courses. But the lessons inside them are still good, and some of them are better than ever with a fresh 2026 update. It felt wrong to let them disappear behind a “page not found.”
Instead, I’ve rewritten the best of them as free blog posts. No sign-up, no login, no lesson 3 of 12 that you never get around to. If you’re a hands-on owner who loves to learn, it’s all here for you. If you read a post and think “nope, I’d rather someone else did this,” that’s a perfectly good outcome too, and it’s exactly what my team does every day.
This fits the way I think about business in general. I wrote a whole book on the idea that slowing down helps you go faster, and part of slowing down is being honest about where your time and energy should actually go. Sometimes the fastest path forward is learning it yourself. Often, it’s letting go.
Free small business marketing lessons, rescued from the course vault
Here are the six posts that came out of my old courses. Read them in order or jump to whatever’s keeping you up at night.
- How to write blog posts that actually show up on Google: the “basic” on-page SEO that so many people skip, which is why they decide blogs don’t work.
- Keyword research for small business: how to find the words your customers really use, not just the ones you use.
- Getting published and featured for backlinks: how press features and guest articles help your website earn trust.
- How to get on the front page of Google: including your Google Business Profile and showing up in AI search.
- Choosing a website platform: WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify or Kajabi, and which one fits your personality.
- The Ayurvedic clock for entrepreneurs: timing your work to your natural energy so your best hours go to your best work.
Where to go from here
If you want one more free resource, my guide How to Run a Business That Doesn’t Drive You Crazy is one of my favorite things I’ve ever made. It’s the big-picture companion to all of these lessons, and it’s a good place to start if you’re feeling stretched thin.
If you’d rather skip the learning curve, my a la carte shop lets you pick exactly the piece you need, whether that’s a website, faster site speed, or SEO help, without signing up for a big monthly package. And if you’re not sure where to start, you can book a free consult online and we’ll figure out the right next step together.
Thank you to every single person who took one of my courses over the years. You taught me as much as I taught you, and these posts are my way of passing it forward.
