This is the ultimate Build An Online Business review.
Build An Online Business is a bundle of blogging and online business courses by Holly Homer and Daren Smith.
You may know Holly from her Kids Activities Blog, and Daren from his company Lightbulb Courses (formerly Craftsman Creative).
My team and I have signed up for the training and researched it thoroughly.
(Have you taken this course? Add your rating!)
If you’d like to know…
- What exactly Build An Online Business teaches
- How it compares to other blogging programs
- The pros and cons
- If Holly Homer and Daren Smith are legit
- How much it costs (including upsells)
Then you’ve come to the right place.
Jump to…
About the Author
Hey, I’m Niall Doherty.
I quit my last 9-to-5 job back in 2010.
Since then, I’ve earned my living online in various ways. Over the last 4 years (through 2023) I’ve earned $842,000 from my laptop.
I’m on a mission to accurately rate and review all the best online business courses. My team and I are spending many hours investigating these courses and getting feedback from real students.
All that to say: we know a thing or two about such courses and making money online.
The Best Blogging Course?
We’re on a mission to find the best blogging course, based on our own extensive research plus feedback from real students.
Build An Online Business is a decent course but not the best we’ve seen…
🏆 Best Blogging Courses 🏆
How does Build An Online Business help you make money?
Build An Online Business is a bundle of 3 courses…
- Social Media For Entrepreneurs
- Build A Successful Blog
- Advanced Blogging & Monetization Strategies
The latter two courses aim to help you build and grow a blog that gets tons of traffic from Google and other search engines.
You would mainly monetize that traffic via affiliate marketing and email marketing.
Affiliate marketing is when you promote other people’s products or services, and collect a commission for each successful referral.
Email marketing involves sending promotional emails to groups of people to promote a product or service, build brand awareness, or engage with customers.
Then there is the Social Media For Entrepreneurs course, which is all about building a following on social media, then leveraging that audience to boost your business.
The sales page for BAOB sums up what you’ll learn like so…
Personally, I consider BAOB to be primarily a blogging course, as that’s what the majority of the lessons are about.
Who is Build An Online Business for?
Build An Online Business sells itself as a platform for all bloggers, but suggests that it probably works best for people new to blogging.
Here’s one such claim…
If you’re just starting out on your journey, and dream of having a business that provides for you and your family and impacts thousands of people, the course bundle is for you…
Having seen inside the training, I believe that BAOB isn’t really suitable for advanced bloggers. But then it’s not ideal for new bloggers either, as it doesn’t show you how to actually create a blog on WordPress or any other platform 😕
Given that, I’d say you are best suited for this course if you already have a blog set up, but don’t have much blogging experience.
- 70+ ways how to make money online (including easy options)
Do Holly Homer and Daren Smith have a good reputation?
Yes.
Holly Homer actually teaches the course, so you’ll see her in all the videos.
She apparently has more than 15 years of blogging experience and runs a blog that gets about 1 million visits per month…
I don’t know if Holly regularly starts new blogs from scratch.
But she’s active on her own blog and her huge Facebook page, Quirky Momma. Last I checked, she had more than 3.5 million fans there! She has also written several books on motherhood.
Here’s an interview with Holly Smith so you can get a feel for her style (interview starts at the 6:55 mark)…
Daren Smith is the founder of Lightbulb Courses and the guy behind the scenes of BAOB. You won’t see him in any of the video lessons. He has started and run several companies, and has over 10 years of experience in video and marketing.
Here’s Daren interviewing another entrepreneur…
Are Build An Online Business students getting results?
It’s easy to find people praising Build An Online Business, but I had a hard time finding students reporting that they’d achieved significant results from following the training.
Even one of the best testimonials doesn’t give any specifics…
See, I would love to hear what level of success April has achieved in her business, and how exactly Holly’s teachings have helped her achieve that success.
Those are the best kinds of testimonials, but I didn’t really find anything like that for this course.
How much does Build An Online Business cost?
You can pay for lifetime access to any part of Build An Online Business – or the whole bundle – one-time or in 3 monthly installments.
The prices for the bundle and its parts are as follows:
- Build An Online Business (bundle)
$495 one-time or 3 monthly installments of $200 - Social Media For Entrepreneurs
$179 one-time or 3 monthly installments of $65 - Build A Successful Blog
$199 one-time or 3 monthly installments of $75 - Advanced Blogging & Monetization Strategies
$349 one-time or 3 monthly installments of $125
There is also a single upsell called Holly Homer Network Marketing. Its listed price is $99.
Keep in mind that you may need to put some extra money aside for email marketing software (and eventually hiring a team) to fully utilize the training and follow all Holly’s recommendations.
Build An Online Business Discount?
There is a discount for Build An Online Business if you decide to buy the whole bundle.
If you pay for it in one go – as opposed to buying each of the 3 courses separately – you’re basically getting a 30% discount.
And if you pay for the bundle in 3 monthly installments, you still end up saving ~15%.
Other than that, there is a place to enter a discount code on the Build An Online Business checkout, but I have yet to find a legit discount or coupon code.
Refund Policy
The sales page for Build An Online Business specifies a 30-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee…
You can get a full refund within 30 days of your enrollment in the course. Just email [email protected] within those 30 days and it will be refunded, no questions asked!
I haven’t seen anyone reporting issues getting a refund on their purchase, so you can rest easy with this guarantee.
How is Build An Online Business structured?
Here’s what the training looks like once you log in and open one of the lessons…
The courses within Build An Online Business each have between 19 and 27 video-only lessons and a length between 2 and 4 hours. Most of the videos are quite concise as they are usually shorter than 10 minutes, with only a few of them getting close to half an hour.
Holly covers a lot of topics in the training. She clearly knows what she’s talking about and drops plenty of knowledge bombs.
But there are still some glaring omissions. For example, I found it strange for a blogging course to have no lesson on actually setting up your blog on WordPress (or similar).
Especially given the tagline of the course on the sales page (emphasis mine)…
Grow your community, create a website that works, and make money doing what you love.
Although Holly speaks well and the videos are nicely produced, I was hoping for many more screencasts inside of the training. But ~80% of the time, you’re looking at Holly talking to the camera. Only occasionally does she share her screen to show you the exact steps she’s talking about.
Btw, there is no community aspect to this course. You don’t get access to a private Facebook group or anything like that.
Green Lights 🟢
Some positive points for Build An Online Business…
- 30-day no-questions-asked money-back guarantee.
- Holly Homer walks her talk.
- No hype or sleazy sales tactics.
Red Flags 🚩
Some knocks on Build An Online Business…
- Lack of significant success stories from students.
- Lacking some important info (eg. creating a website).
- No private community.
- No mention on sales page of expenses beyond the price of the training.
Other things you should know
- You’ll find some useful downloads throughout the training, primarily spreadsheets.
- It’s unclear how often the training is updated. Best I can tell, the videos were filmed in 2021, and the content seems to have aged well so far.
Should you join Build An Online Business?
If you’ve never had your own blog and would like to start from scratch, I think you’ll be disappointed with Build An Online Business.
But if you already know how to get your blog online and little beyond that, you’ll find some useful info within BAOB. Specifically on how to create and promote your blog posts, and how to build an audience on social media.
Build An Online Business Alternatives
Here are the top blogging programs we’ve reviewed…
Your Thoughts on Build An Online Business
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