Try These Free Options Before Paying for Online Courses.
Three free ways you can learn nearly any skill.
If you are learning a new skill or want to improve your knowledge on a subject, you may be thinking of paying for online courses or a workshop. These can be a great way to grow your skillset. But maybe you are low on funds or just are unsure if you really want to spend your money on it. Well, there are three great ways you can learn new skills that won’t cost you anything but your time.
Go check out YouTube. Even if you are planning on paying for training, YouTube is an amazing source of information for just about every possible topic. You can find free courses on writing, SEO, affiliate marketing, cooking, woodworking, creating ads, or arts and crafts. This should probably be most people’s first stop when learning something new. I do not want to pay for something if I am not even sure that it is something I am going to want to do. The videos on YouTube can be a great stepping stone to get started and find out if something is a good fit for what you want to do. I watched hours of free affiliate marketing videos online. I got a whole lot more information from them than I did from my paid training. I have little interest in doing affiliate marketing, however. Most of the companies that are highly profitable to work with, deal with things I have no interest in. It would be a waste of my time to spend hours building content to drive traffic into a company or product I wouldn’t even personally use.
See if your local library has free classes. My library has a subscription to Universal Class. Through my library, I could take hundreds of classes on all sorts of topics. Universal Class covers both basic education subjects as well as some very interesting topics. I could take a math class, a writing class, copywriting, gardening, finance, children’s book writing, or even aromatherapy. Your library could have a membership as well. It is defiantly worth checking out. There are other free learning resources that your library may offer as well. You can usually find out on their website or by stopping in and asking one of the librarians.
Check out some recently published books about the topic. This one can also be done at your library for free. Depending on the subject, you will probably want a book published in the last year or two. However, for some subjects, this will not be as important. If you want to improve your writing, a book from 10 years ago will likely be just as helpful as a book from last year. Another great place to look for eBooks and audiobooks is Scribd. While this is not a free service, you can sign up with my link. Using my link will give you 60 days for free instead of their regular 30-day trial. I do not make commissions off of this link, but I may get a discount if you sign up. I am constantly using Scribd. I am currently reading a poetry workbook to improve my writing. They have books about just about every topic as well as a ton of fiction books.
You very well may still choose to pay for more specialized training and to get real-time feedback. That is perfectly fine. These are just some great stepping stones to get you to where you want to be, especially if you do not have the money for classes. In today’s world, education is so important. There are plenty of resources out that that are helping to make it accessible to everyone.