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Do you have a special skill or talent that you feel you can teach to others? Are you a savant? Do you dominate in your field and think you can put on a masterclass demonstrating your genius to the world? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you could create your own online course. Whether your online course revolves around how to succeed in affiliate marketing or if it deals with baking the best homemade bread and pastries, if you have expert-level knowledge on a subject, you could create your own course and sell it online. When someone is researching a particular subject, sometimes the videos on YouTube don't cut it, and Google search results may not always have enough information to meet their needs. Sometimes there is a limit to the type of free content you can find online, which is where creating and selling online courses can come in.

Creating a comprehensive course designed to teach people about various aspects of a subject is a great way to take advantage of your existing skill set and experience in a particular field. Course material that allows people to become more educated and skilled in a subject is a great way to capitalize on your expertise while offering people a valuable and useful product. In addition, many easy-to-use online platforms have made making an online course a simple and straightforward process. This article will explore how to create an online course and some of the tools that can help.

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  • Why Start an Online Course?

    More and more people are learning on online platforms these days. Colleges and universities are offering online courses, and the trend of online learning will continue to grow. In the information age, people seek material on almost any subject imaginable. However, people can be easily overwhelmed by all the information that is out there, which can cause confusion and inaction. An online course that clearly outlines and walks a person through a process step-by-step can be a valuable and helpful commodity to those seeking information on a particular subject. Online courses can simplify complex processes and provide people with a framework to follow. They are practical, inexpensive, and convenient tools for learning more about a particular subject. In addition, more people than ever are looking for information, and by creating and selling an online course, you can access millions of potential customers across the planet. This can make creating online courses a highly profitable endeavor while also providing valuable and useful information to people.

  • Choose Your Online Course Subject Matter

    If you have years of experience or expert-level knowledge on a particular subject that people are interested in learning about, choosing your online course subject matter is an easy task. Additionally, listing your credentials and expertise in a field can be used to help promote your online learning products. But you don't have to be an expert in a specific area to create an online course. If you have a good idea for an online course but have a limited amount of experience in that subject, you can research the topic in-depth and then put the course together or hire experts in the field to help you in creating your course material.

    A good online course presents a solution to a problem. What are people trying to figure out? Does your intended audience want to learn how to do excellent data analysis? Or do they want to learn how to invest successfully in the stock market? Your course should aim to help people obtain the critical information to steer them toward their goals. The better your course does this, the more effective and valuable it can be. Good online courses present dynamic solutions and show people how to successfully navigate a particular area they may be curious about or are having difficulties with.

    You will need to make sure that there is a demand for the type of content you will provide in your course. You could be an expert in a particular subject, but if not that many people are interested in buying a course on your topic, it probably won't make financial sense for you to create a course on it. Searching online for courses on your subject can show you if there is competition and interest in your topic. If there are other courses on your topic online, there may be a strong demand for the type of information you would like to present in your course. You can run your idea by friends, family, and colleagues, or if you have an existing online audience, you can ask them what they think of your course idea. You can test the waters by creating an introductory instructive social media or blog post, or YouTube video to see if there is any interest. Then, you can ask your audience if they would be interested in a course that goes into further detail regarding your topic.

    You will also need to identify who your target audience is. Who are the people interested in your subject matter? By figuring out what types of people are interested in your course, you can better design it to meet their needs. Once you have identified a need and your target audience, you can move on to the next steps.

  • Do a Test Run

    To further ensure that your course will be successful before you fully invest a lot of time and energy into creating it, it's a good idea to do a test run first to see if people are willing to purchase your course. To do a test run, you must build a landing page describing your online course and explaining what people who buy it will learn. You can include any credentials you have in the field and relevant photos or videos. Even though you haven't completed your course at this point, you can set up a "buy now" or "sign up" call-to-action button and track how many people click it. You can pre-register people in your course for free, at a discounted rate, or at full price to reserve their spot in a limited-entry course. You can drive traffic to your landing page by announcing your course through your email list, promoting it on different social media platforms, and posting it on forums related to your course content.

    Based on the amount of traffic you drive to your landing page, you can see what percentage of people clicked through your call-to-action button. This can give you a better idea of how successful your course can be. If only a small number of people who visit your page click your call-to-action button, your course may not be as good an idea as you had originally thought. If this is the case, creating it may not be worth your time and energy, and you may want to re-evaluate or tweak your idea or come up with a completely new course idea.

    On the other hand, if a decent percentage of people that visited your landing page click your call-to-action button, you can see that it can be profitable. Analyzing the data you collect during your test run will give you a better idea of how many people you could statistically expect to purchase your course once they have visited your landing page. By setting a click-through rate you would like to meet during your test run, you can determine if your course would be profitable enough to create based on those numbers.

  • Research Your Subject and Create an Outline for Your Course

    Once you have established through your test run that your course can be profitable and is worth the effort of creating, you can start creating a working outline for your course. This is when you can establish the framework of your course, and in this process, you can also learn more about your subject matter and how to best deliver it to your audience. If you are an expert and have 10, 20, or 30 years of experience in your field, you can still learn more about your subject or at least how your audience receives and processes information regarding your topic and how you can best present it to them.

    Alternatively, if you have an excellent idea for an online course but are just getting started within your area of interest, creating a working outline is where you can research your topic and explore it more in-depth. Thoroughly immersing yourself in your subject matter and all of the ins and outs of how it functions is how you will separate your course from decent or sub-par courses online. By diving deep into your subject matter, you can provide actual value to people who won't mind paying for it, as it will help them meet their desired results. By doing all the legwork and creating an easy-to-follow, compartmentalized, and comprehensive course, you will save your customers' time and effort, and this is why they will want to purchase your course. They won't have to sift and sort through vast amounts of information online or spend countless hours on trial and error.

    If you can present an effective step-by-step course that can produce the desired learning outcomes, you can help people meet their goals. Creating a course of this quality will require a lot of attention and engagement in its development. While creating your course outline, you can explore each area of your course in-depth and figure out how to best present the information in a digestible and understandable manner. Understanding the whole process will allow you to organize the material into a sequence of sections that make the most sense. Structuring your course in a way that shows you understand what people want to learn and that you know the best way to facilitate that learning will increase your course's appeal. People want a step-by-step process to follow that is proven to work. Authentically showing how your process works and how you can guide them to the desired learning outcomes will help legitimize your material. There are a lot of half-baked online courses out there, and by going over your subject matter with a fine-tooth comb, you will know all of the ins and outs of your topic. You will be better positioned to structure your course effectively in a way that makes sense for its users. By doing your due diligence in researching your topic and creating a good course outline, you can avoid being lumped into the "bad online course" category.

    Breaking your subject matter into different segmented lessons or modules will help organize your material and create the step-by-step process people are looking for. Each lesson or module should have a general theme and can be comprised of multiple steps within that theme. Once completed, people will have learned something or completed a series of tasks that brings them one step closer to their overall goal. Create a list of lessons or modules with bullet points underneath each one that details what will be covered within that lesson or module. Organize your lessons or modules in a way that makes the most sense to get the user from Point A to Point B.

    Revisiting topics covered earlier in the course and showing how they are linked to other topics covered later in the course can help people remember the material and get a better understanding of the whole subject or process. Your course should also have an introduction section that describes what the user can expect to learn as well as a conclusion section that recaps all the information and provides additional insights for the user moving forward.

  • Create Your Course Material

    With your outline completed, you can begin to create the material you will use for each lesson or module. If you have little experience in your subject, you will have to generate all your course material from scratch. This can take a lot of time and effort, but it is possible. On the other hand, if you have experience in your subject, you can save a lot of time by drawing upon any existing materials you have already created on your course subject. This can include videos or podcasts you've made, blog posts, reports, or papers you have written. By reusing material you have already created, you can utilize your existing work and expertise and save time and energy.

    Your course can use video, written material, audio, or a combination of these various formats. You can also implement engaging elements such as quizzes, activities, and practice modules where users test out their newly learned skills and knowledge and receive a grade from you based on their results. Remember to follow your outline and segment your course material into the appropriate sections of your lessons and modules. This will help keep your information in manageable and easy-to-absorb pieces that users can smoothly work their way through.

  • Choose a Platform for Your Course

    Fortunately, there are several user-friendly platforms designed to host online courses. Each platform has its own unique strengths that might be more beneficial to your particular type of course. But, generally speaking, they can all help make your online course more accessible and easy to use. You can compare and contrast the different features of the various course platforms out there to see what you like best and which one best suits your course and course material. Some of the top online course platforms include:

    • Udemy
    • Teachable
    • Podia
    • Skillshare
    • Kajabi
    • Thinkific
    • LearnDash
    • TrainerCentral

  • Set the Price for Your Online Course

    Deciding on the price you will charge for your online course can be a difficult task. By tracking the number of hours you put into creating your course, you can get a good sense of how much effort you put into it. Next, with your test run in mind, make a rough estimate of how much traffic you think you could realistically drive to your course within a year, and then calculate how many sales you could make based on the click-through rate that you observed during your test run. Finally, create a realistic figure of how much you would like to make from your course in one year's time. Remember that you will also spend time marketing and dealing with customer service issues. These numbers can help you determine how much you value your course.

    You can compare and adjust these initial figures when looking at what other similar courses are charging. By looking at how you value your course and how similar courses are valued in the marketplace, you can get a better idea of how to price your course. Comparing the material other courses offer to what your course delivers can also help you determine the price you will charge. For example, if you provide more in-depth, valuable, and effective information than your competitors, you can justify charging more for your course.

    Pricing your course too low doesn't necessarily mean you will gain more customers and make more money; it could hurt your profitability and the market as a whole. A course offered at a lower price that is relative to similar products will not only have to make more conversions to reach the same profits as a higher-priced course, but the course creator will also have to deal with a higher volume of customer service issues at the lower price. Troubleshooting, answering questions, and issuing refunds will take valuable time from the course creator. Therefore, setting your price higher at a rate relative to your competitors' courses will reduce the number of conversions you will need to make and the amount of time you will spend on customer service. If you feel you have created a great product, do not hesitate to charge more than what your competitors charge for what they offer to the consumer.

  • Find an Initial Group of Students

    Now that your course is up and ready to go, you can do one final test and make any adjustments before you start marketing your course to a broader audience. You can find an initial group of students to help test your course. By finding a handful of people who are interested in and can benefit from your material and offering it to them for free in exchange for valuable feedback and insights regarding their user experience, you can make any final tweaks before fully launching your course. In addition, this initial group of students can provide you with testimonials and reviews that you can add to your sales page before launching, increasing your credibility among consumers.

  • Prepare Your Marketing Content

    Before you launch your course, it is a good idea to prepare your marketing content ahead of time. This includes writing blog posts promoting your course, emails you will send out, social media posts and ads, and creating any promotional videos you will upload to platforms like YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok. Preparing this material beforehand will allow you to focus your efforts on a comprehensive and engaged launch.

  • Launch and Market Your Course

    Now that you have created all your initial promotional content, it's time to officially launch and market your online course. You can do this through a variety of avenues, including:

    • Blog Posts
    • Social Media Marketing
    • Email Marketing
    • Video Marketing
    • Running Paid Ads
    • Affiliate Programs
    • Podcasts
    • Influencer Marketing
    • Hosting Webinars

  • Create a Space Where Your Students Can Interact with Each Other

    Creating a place where people who sign up for your course can engage with one another can help them better absorb the material and reach their goals while networking with one another. This will enhance the user experience of your course and can help it become a more effective tool overall. This can be done by creating a members' area or forum on your site or creating a group for your course on a social media platform such as Facebook.

  • Continue to Update Your Course to Keep It Relevant

    As you continue with your online course, it's important to update it regularly. As time moves forward, certain things within your course topic are bound to change. You can keep your course relevant and avoid becoming outdated by frequently updating your course to respond to changes within your field.

Are You Planning on Starting Your Own Online Course?

Starting your own online course can be a fun and engaging process. Creating material you are passionate about that will help others reach their goals can be very fulfilling. But it also comes with certain risks. Anytime you offer instructional advice, especially regarding financial matters, you can open yourself to potential liabilities. Therefore, if you create your own online course, it's essential that you take the necessary steps to protect yourself legally by forming a legally recognized business entity like an LLC or a corporation. InCorp can assist in this process with our business entity formation services. We can help you choose the right business entity that provides all of the liability protection you will need and one which offers the most structural and tax benefits for your purposes. We also offer registered agent services and our clients can use our business entity management system and iOS app to help manage their business entities.

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