Learn How to Create an Online Course in 10 Easy Steps (2023)

Learn How to Create an Online Course in 10 Easy Steps (2023)

Date & Time
May 16, 2023
Reading time
5 mins
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Lopamudra Barik

Your online course can enroll students from all over the world with just a laptop and internet access, allowing them to master key skills for a fraction of the cost of traditional schooling.

This article will walk you through a 10-step for creating your own online course while earning money and making an effect on your consumers.

You'll leave with a blueprint for creating a new course that portrays you as an expert in your field, makes a significant amount of money, and prepares your students for success.

How to Create an Online Course in 10 Easy Steps

Whatever your field of expertise, there are a few steps you must do before you can be effective teaching online. We've put together an eight-step guide to building and launching your own online course.

Online course

This is how to make an online course:

1. Choose your course topic

The expansion of thee-learning arena and the benefits of developing an online course should alert you to an essential fact: you will face competition when launching your online course. There are several online courses on topics ranging from digital marketing and video editing to online writing and entrepreneurship.  

Consider how to design an online course on a topic in which you are uniquely qualified to teach, such as one in which you have industry insight, credibility, competence, and passion. Additionally, check that the course topic has a significant market demand.

 

Novices desire to learn from an expert who is further along in their learning path than they are. Learners also need to know they're hearing from someone credible and well-known in their industry. Here are some indicators that this is you:

  • You've been in the industry for several years or decades and are well-versed in your field.
  • You've spent years or decades honing your knowledge or abilities on the subject of your course.
  • You have knowledge of the industry's history.
  • You can make educated forecasts about the industry's future.
  • You have superior knowledge or abilities in the subject field and can effectively transmit this knowledge to others.
  • You're familiar with frequent blunders or traps and may advise new comers on how to avoid them.

2. Carry out customer research

While selecting a course topic is important, you're still a few steps away from developing course content and entering the sales cycle.

Before you begin creating content for your target audience, you must first understand who they are.

Here are a few reasons why you should undertake user research and define your ideal consumer before embarking on your online course production journey:

  • To put yourself in the shoes of a newbie. Being an expert in an area frequently entails falling to the curse of knowledge, a cognitive bias in which you think that the person with whom you're speaking has the same background knowledge as you. Speaking with prospective users will help you get back into the mindset of a beginner and design your course accordingly.
  • To comprehend your customer's problems. Your course should aid a buyer in solving an issue they've been having, getting knowledge they've difficult to find elsewhere, or learning something faster or more efficiently than other alternatives. To accomplish this, you must first understand the pain areas that your prospective consumer is experiencing and how to solve them in your course.
  • To discover what a pupil hopes to achieve. For students, the most significant aspect of your course is the transformation: the state they acquire after completing your course. Speaking with prospective consumers will assist you learn about their goals.
  • Knowing how to sell to them. As the old adage goes, "if you sell to everyone, you sell to noone." It is critical to create a "ideal customer" profile so that you can adjust your course material and marketing to speak directly to them. Everything from the headlines on your landing page to how you market your course on social media will be influenced by learning the precise messaging to communicate to your potential customer.

Investing time in user research will make all the difference in creating a high-quality course that can be promoted to an ideal customer and transform students.

3. Choose your course's format

Courses can be delivered in a variety of formats and methods. How you structure and deliver your course will influence how you market it to customers, how much content you include in your curriculum, and how much money you can fairly charge for your course.

Mini-courses, multi-day courses, and masterclasses are the three basic categories of courses.

A mini-course usually takes around an hour or two to finish. It can take several forms, such as a series of emails or a playlist of ten short videos.

 

Mini-courses are typically offered at a low cost (e.g., less than $100) or for free in order to functions a marketing tool or lead magnet for a more in-depth and expensive course offering. A mini-course is an excellent approach to test the market and learn how to construct a larger course as a course creator.

Multi-day courses are intermediate digital instructional items that students often complete overmultiply days.

 

They may comprise pre-recorded films that divide the course into stages or modules, as well as extra materials such as worksheets and checklists. They may also include quizzes to test learners as they go.

These classes are frequently priced between $250 to $2,000. If you've already proven your idea with a mini-course, a multi-day course is appropriate.

4. Check to see if your course has a large market demand

In business, it's beneficial to test your hypothesis before introducing your offering to the public. Check whether there is indeed a market need before devoting time and resources to creating a digital product that customers might not buy.

 

Building a minimum viable product (MVP), a term used in Eric Reis's book The Lean Start up, is one technique to achieve this. An MVP is a product that you launch to the public that only includes the functionality necessary to confirm your presumptions.

construct a minimal viable product for your course, such a free webinar or a mini-course, while thinking about how to construct an online course to test your concept.

Mini-courses are typically less than two hours long and focus on a specific topic rather than aiming to cover a broad variety of ideas. A mini-course may one day become a module or lesson in a multi-day course.

A conversion rate like this proves that there is market demand for your larger course. Spend the majority of the webinar presenting excellent material on your course topic, but don't forget to get feedback from participants on what they found useful and what else they want to learn.

 

These techniques of evaluating your course idea will save you from the frustration of designing a course that no one buys.

5. Sell your course in advance

Pre-selling a course entails selling your course before it has been created. Another mitigatingapproach to prevent designing a course that no one wants.

 

Other benefits include stress-testing your concept, adapting your content to early consumer input, and earning funds through pre-sales to fund the production of your course. Furthermore, having a few early student sign-ups will almost certainly serve as a drive for finishing and launching your course to the world.

Creating a pre-sale landing page and encouraging consumers with a discount will help you get your first cohort of customers to sign up for a pre-sale (or pre-order).

 

For example, your goal could be to sell 25 pre-sales of your course. If you make less than this in a given time frame, you should carefully consider whether you want to continue developing the course or refund clients what they've paid and start over.

6. Create a course outline

Outlining your course topic, developing its contents, and logically arranging it into lessons all need you to put yourself in the shoes of a student. Begin with a student's intended end state and move backward from there.

 

The number of lessons and the amount of information in your course will be decided in part by the type of course you establish (mini-course, multi-day course, masterclass), as well as the associated completion time and cost.

After that, divide the course into discrete modules and lessons, or sections and subsections.

You should have a clear direction to start constructing your course content, one lesson at a time, ifyou have a comprehensive plan that details the subjects for each module and lesson.

Each class should have specific procedures, material, and exercises for students to complete. Aim for clear learning objectives in each class that customers who purchase the course will walk away with.

 

However, for more rigorous and expensive courses, it is ideal to use a variety of formats to keep your students engaged throughout the course. For example, instead of using simply text or only video, utilize a combination of formats to keep your students engaged. Here are some common course formats and their advantages:

  • Video material is excellent for conveying ideas in a concise and time-efficient manner.
  • Screencasts and walkthroughs are excellent for processes in which students must witness the exact stages.
  • Text material is ideal for explaining concepts in greater depth, providing step-by-step instructions, and referring to other resources on the web. Downloadable contents ideal for cheat sheets, glossaries, templates, and other tools that help learners succeed.
  • Workbooks are useful for assisting students in internalizing knowledge.

As a best practice, keep videos under 10 minutes long and attempt to generate material that is focused and practical. Look at what formats your competitors are utilizing and try asking prospective students which course medium they find most interesting throughout your research phase.

7. Set course pricing and sales targets

The cost of your course will vary depending on the sort of course you create: a mini-course is usually free or low-cost, a multi-day course is usually mid-priced, and a masterclass is usually expensive. However, the cost of your course will be determined by an umber of criteria that you should consider:

  • Course topic and niche. Consider the industry in which your course is offered and how price-sensitive your consumers may be. Customers purchasing an investment course are more likely to be willing to pay than customers purchasing a social media marketing digital course.
  • Marketing. How much money do you intend to invest on marketing campaigns? Make sure your pricing includes the cost of spreading the word about your course.
  • The course creator's authority. Buyers are willing to pay more for a course provided by a recognized industry leader. When pricing your course, consider your perceived authority.

Conduct competitor pricing research to examine how other digital course developers in your niche price their own digital offerings to get a better notion of how you should price your course. Make sure you're not undervaluing yourself by pricing too low. On the other hand, be reasonable and avoid overpricing. Don't be hesitant to research what your competitors are giving, add more value to your own course offering, and price your course appropriately.

 

Assuming that 1% of visitors to your page purchase the course, you'll need to drive 250,000 people to scenario one and 20,000 visitors to scenario two. Second, having clients who are less price sensitive is generally advantageous.

When pricing your course, keep these things in mind, and avoid pricing that is too cheap and forces you to sell more aggressively.

8. Selecting the Best Course Platform

Next, pick where you want your course content to be hosted online. There are numerous course platforms, each with its own set of capabilities, but there are three primary categories of online course platforms: standalone, all-in-one, and online course markets.

 

When it comes to selecting a course platform, avoid analytical paralysis. The actual content of your course is more significant than the location of its online hosting. If the course platform you choose lacks the functionality you require, you may easily change.

9. Launch and promote your course

Creating your course is one side of the equation; the other is pushing it into the public and promoting it to purchasers.

After you've worked hard to make your course as good as possible for potential clients, it's critical that you sell it to them. Here are a few ideas for making money while selling your course:

  • Organize a weekly webinar. Webinars are often inexpensive and an excellent way to create leads for your course. If someone attends a 30- to 60-minute webinar, there's a better chance they'll buy your course as well. Learn how to host a webinar that will bring in clients.
  • Make email marketing a top priority. Creating an email list of prospective buyers is a strong tool to provide course updates, information, and discounts. While someone may not buy your course the first time they see your landing page, asking for their email address and establishing an email marketing funnel may persuade them to do so later. You may also utilize email to construct a mini-course that promotes your main course.
  • Adopt SEO strategies. Optimizing your website so that it appears in search engine results can help buyers find your course. Using this SEO checklist, you may learn how to rank your website.
  • Create a strategy for content marketing. Creating free instructional content about your course niche can help you gain authority, get your course and content found in search results, and convert free readers into paying customers. Learn how to use content marketing to attract more customers.

Marketing your course successfully requires some trial and error. Begin by experimenting with a few marketing channels to determine what works. Increase your focus on customer-acquisition initiatives that work and abandon tactics that take more time, effort, or money than they're worth.

10. Gather feedback and testimonials

While clients may accept your word for it, having real customers scream your course's praises is even better. Gather feedback and testimonials from satisfied consumers who have seen positive effects from your training. Positive transformation anecdotes on your landing page and throughout your marketing are an effective approach to persuade prospective clients of the value of your course and the results it can help them accomplish.

In order to acquire client evaluations and testimonials, solicit feedback from purchasers who have completed your course. Customers that provide positive comments should be ask edit they would be prepared to provide a testimonial for use in your marketing materials.

 

Of course, soliciting feedback should not be limited to testimonials. Use positive comments to determine which sections of the course are connecting with students, and use negative feedback to alter underperforming course material.

Taking feedback from each cohort of students that purchase your course will help you to steadily enhance it over time and provide the best learning experience possible for your students.

Conclusion

Making an amazing online course entails turning your passion into a digital product. Beginning your path as an online course designer will position you to earn money via your enthusiasm and knowledge, while also assisting others in learning what you know.

 

FAQ

Why should I create an online course?

There are many benefits to creating an online course, such as the ability to reach a wider audience, generate passive income, establish yourself as an expert in your field, and provide valuable information to those who need it.

How do I choose a topic for my online course?

Choose a topic that you are passionate about and knowledgeable in, and that is in demand by your target audience. Research your target audience and identify their pain points, challenges, and needs. This will help you to create a course that meets their needs and provides value.

How do I structure my online course?

Break your course down into modules or sections, and then break each module down into lessons. Be sure to include a variety of formats such as videos, written content, and interactive elements to keep your students engaged.

How do I create content for my online course?

Determine what type of content will best support your learning objectives and create materials accordingly. Consider using a mix of multimedia resources such as videos, audio recordings, interactive quizzes and activities, and downloadable handouts.

How do I price my online course?

Research what similar courses are being sold for, and consider the value that you are providing to your students. Price your course based on your target audience's budget and what you feel is fair.

How do I promote my online course?

Use social media, email marketing, and paid advertising to promote your course. Reach out to your network and ask them to share your course with their followers. Consider offering a free preview of your course to generate interest.

How do I create a course website?

Use a platform such as Teachable, Thinkific, or Kajabi to create and host your course website. These platforms offer templates and tools that make it easy to create a professional-looking course website.

How do I handle customer support?

Offer a clear support channel for your students, such as an email address or a forum. Respond promptly to student inquiries and provide helpful solutions to their problems.

How do I update my course content?

Continuously monitor student feedback and update your course content as needed. Use data and analytics to track student progress and identify areas for improvement.

 

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