Online Courses
If you have an area of expertise you can always teach it to others and make money doing it!
Take this online course, for example, it’s free, but I have others that are paid courses. Creating an online course is not the easiest, you have to know your staff, do research and see if there’s a demand for your product/expertise, and then market it.
The good news is you don’t have to know a lot about everything, you just have to know more than your student about one thing- what’s your course is about. That’s the number one lesson I’ve learned as a teacher.
For example, you can be a beginner in the Instagram world but you’re really good at SEO . You don’t need to have thousands of Instagram followers to sell a course about SEO right? You need to know more than your best student about SEO so you can teach it.
Creating a course should come naturally- what do I mean? I collaborated with several hotels during my trip to Sri Lanka and after getting so many questions about it I decided to create my course. I didn’t necessarily collaborate with them to teach others. it came to from the demand of the audience.
Should you create a course or not?
I would always recommend doing good research of the market, demand, and prices before you start creating your course.
Do a poll in one of your Facebook groups, ask fellow bloggers if they would take a course like this, check other courses and do everything you can to have the most information before you create your course.
Pricing can be tricky but take into consideration the value of the course, the competition, the time and work you took to create it, the affiliate commission that you will give those who promote your course.
Don’t forget to get feedback from your first launch so you can improve for next time.
How should you market your course?
One of the best ways to promote the course is with a webinar in which you provide some initial information, tips, and explanations. Another great way is to include freebies- a free canvas template, e-book, map etc.
Example:
Recently, @LiveLoveRunTravel noticed there’s high demand among her followers for Pinterest consultation so she asked them on her Instagram stories how much do they think she should charge for an hour consultation. So the idea to create this service came naturally because of the demand in the market and then she used her followers as a focus group to figure our the details of there service.
Here are some more tips for creating an online course.
Which platform should you choose for your eCourse:
You can choose between 2 types of platforms: A course that is hosted on your WordPress site or a course hosted by an external platform.
A course on WordPress:
You can basically download a plugin like LearnDash or LifterLMS and build the whole course on your WordPress website.
Advantages:
No transaction fees
Your course will include you domain
It will increase traffic and improve your analytics since students will spend some time taking the course on your site
Students will have easy access to your site while taking the course
If you work with Elementor or any other page builder you can control the design of your course and make it in line with your brand.
Disadvantages
You will have to integrate an affiliate plugin if you want
You will have more customization meaning it might take you more time to design the course.
A course on an external platform
If your use Podia or Teachable your course will be hosted on their sites.
Advantages
a ready to go platform without you having to design it
Low monthly fees
Disadvantages
The course won’t be hosted on your domain (meaning no added traffic to your site).
Some basic plans include transaction fees which sucks.
My courses are built using LearnDash. If you have any questions about it please don’t hesitate to contact me.
