Alexis Kestler
Creating Online Courses: A Detailed Guide
The e-learning industry has been growing at an incredible rate, with the market estimated to reach over $375 billion by 2026. With the demand for online education skyrocketing, now is the perfect time to start creating and selling your own online courses.
But where do you even begin? With so many course platforms and tools out there, it can be overwhelming trying to figure out the best places to host and sell your course.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know to create successful online courses, from choosing the right niche to picking the best course platforms. We’ll also share tips to avoid common mistakes new course creators make.
Whether you’re an expert looking to share your knowledge or an entrepreneur ready to build a profitable online business, read on to learn the best places and strategies to create awesome online courses.
How to Start Creating Your First Online Course
Before jumping into the various course platforms, let’s first cover the basics of getting started with your first online course.
Choose a Profitable Niche
The most important step is to decide on a topic or niche for your course. Choose an area you have deep expertise in that enthusiastic learners will pay for.
Conduct market research to ensure there is demand for courses in your niche and that you can provide value beyond free YouTube tutorials. Identify your target audience’s biggest pain points and offer a solution.
Popular course topics include business, design, technology, health and fitness, photography, music, and more. But get specific with your niche to stand out.
Build Your Audience
Don’t just focus on course creation. Spend time building your audience and establishing yourself as an authority in your niche.
Use social media, guest blogging, videos, podcasts, email lists and any other channels you have a presence in. Make people remember you for your specialized knowledge and teaching abilities.
Create Your Course
Once you’ve built a reputation and following around your niche, you can start creating your online course.
Structure your course into organized modules and video lessons. Include workbooks, quizzes, assignments, and supplemental materials. Film high-quality videos explaining each concept.
Test your course with friends and family and refine it based on their feedback before launching.
Avoid Common Newbie Mistakes
Some key mistakes to avoid as a new course creator:
- Making videos too long. Stick to 5-10 minutes per video lesson.
- Striving for perfection. Launch an MVP to test and get your first sales.
- Not testing your course before launch. Have people review your content first.
Now let’s explore the top course platforms and tools to host, market and sell your online courses.
Best Platforms to Create and Sell Online Courses
There are many great options for hosting and selling your online courses. Here are the top course platforms recommended for all experience levels:
1. Teachable
Teachable is one of the most popular and user-friendly course platforms. It makes it easy to create customized courses with multimedia lessons, quizzes, and workbooks.
Teachable handles payments, payouts, coupons, and global sales. You can build a branded course site and integrate with marketing tools to promote your course.
The analytics dashboards give you insights into your sales and students. Teachable is great for coaching programs and premium online courses. Pricing starts at $29/month annually.
2. Thinkific
Thinkific is another top-rated course platform trusted by over 50,000 instructors. It‘s an all-in-one platform to create, market, and sell online courses.
Thinkific offers complete website customization and marketing tools to grow your audience. It streamlines course delivery with automation for onboarding, messaging, and certifications.
Plans start at $39/month for core features. Thinkific is ideal for building a full course business.
3. Podia
Podia is great for creators looking to sell online courses, ebooks, webinars, memberships, and digital downloads from their own website.
It allows you to build a branded website, customize your online store, and embed multimedia content. Podia seamlessly handles payments, coupons, global sales, email marketing, and more.
Pricing starts at $39/month. Podia empowers creators to sell online courses on their own sites.
4. Udemy
Udemy is a leading global marketplace used by over 50 million students. It allows experts to build online video courses and earn money from student enrollments.
Udemy provides course planning resources and video hosting. You can set your own price or let Udemy manage pricing. Udemy helps drive huge traffic to your courses.
It’s free to build courses on Udemy. You earn a revenue share per course sale. Udemy is great for maximum distribution.
5. Skillshare
Skillshare is a popular platform for creators to publish online classes in their niche. The easy uploading tool lets you turn videos into complete courses.
Skillshare helps build your audience beyond its platform. As a premium Skillshare instructor, you earn income when members watch your content. Some teachers earn over $100k/year on Skillshare.
It’s free to start teaching. Skillshare pays based on class engagement. It’s a great platform for monetizing your skills.
6. Kajabi
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for online courses, memberships, and subscription sites. It makes it simple to sell any digital product while building an audience.
Kajabi offers beautiful course site templates, marketing automation, and built-in sales funnels. You can instantly process payments, track sales, and deliver your digital products.
Pricing starts at $119/month. Kajabi is ideal for info-product businesses and membership sites.
This covers some of the top, beginner-friendly platforms to host and sell your online courses. But what if you want to build and offer courses directly from your own website?
There are excellent WordPress course plugins that make it easy and affordable.
Top WordPress Course Plugins
If you have a WordPress site, specialized course plugins can help you create and monetize online courses directly on your own website. Here are some top options:
1. LearnDash
LearnDash allows you to create robust courses, lessons, and quizzes through WordPress. It’s full of features like drip content, certificates, course builder, and subscription support.
LearnDash integrates with payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal. It works with any well-coded WordPress theme. Pricing starts at $159 for the pro version.
2. LifterLMS
LifterLMS is a popular WordPress LMS plugin for online courses and memberships. It lets you create multimedia lessons and quizzes with certificates.
LifterLMS makes it easy to set up pricing options, coupons, bundles, affiliates, and payment plans. It works great for selling coaching programs and online training.
LifterLMS pricing starts at $299 for unlimited courses and features. It’s a great self-hosted LMS solution.
3. LearnPress
LearnPress is a free WordPress LMS plugin with premium add-ons. It enables you to sell courses, lessons, quizzes and assignments through your WordPress site.
LearnPress is highly customizable and integrates with payment processors. Premium add-ons provide more advanced features like course review and grading.
The core plugin is free. Premium add-ons start at $129 for a bundle package. LearnPress is a great budget LMS pick.
WordPress makes it easy and affordable to create courses directly on your own website. But if you want maximum exposure, online course marketplaces can provide huge audiences.
Reach More Students with Course Marketplaces
Online course marketplaces allow you to tap into their huge student bases to maximize course sales. Here are some top course marketplaces:
1. Udemy
As covered earlier, Udemy is the world‘s largest course marketplace with over 65,000 instructors and millions of students globally. It provides massive reach for your courses.
2. Skillshare
In addition to its own platform, Skillshare allows instructors to distribute courses across partner sites like Amazon, Instagram, and more for greater visibility.
3. Podia Courses
Podia recently launched Podia Courses. It allows you to syndicate your courses from Podia across various partner platforms to access more students.
4. Teachable Partner Program
Teachable also offers a partnership program to help instructors expand their reach to new student markets. You can apply to share your Teachable courses on their partner platforms.
5. Thinkific Schools
Thinkific Schools enables qualified instructors to share their courses on partner sites like Amazon and Instagram for increased distribution.
Course marketplaces leverage their vast student bases to get your courses in front of more potential buyers. But focus first on picking the right primary course platform before distributing to third-party channels.
Key Factors for Choosing the Best Course Platform
With so many course platforms to choose from, here are the most important factors to consider:
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Course building tools – Pick a platform that makes it easy to create multimedia lessons, quizzes, assignments, and supplemental materials for a professional online course.
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Customization – Look for ample customization options for course pages, themes, branding, pricing, and more.
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Marketing and sales features – Choose a platform with email marketing, coupons, bundles, affiliates, and other sales maximization features.
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Student engagement – Opt for a platform with communication and community features to increase student participation and satisfaction.
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Analytics – Robust analytics help you track student progress, engagement, and sales metrics to grow your course.
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Payments and global sales – A platform that seamlessly handles global payments, taxes, affiliate payouts, and currency conversions.
Prioritize the features that best meet your specific course business needs and audience. Some platforms excel at course creation, while others are better for marketing and selling. Pick the solution that offers the right mix of features and flexibility for your goals.
Mistakes to Avoid When Creating Your First Online Course
It’s easy for first-time course creators to make missteps. Here are some key mistakes to avoid:
Rushing Course Creation
Don’t shortcut the course development process. Invest time to carefully structure your curriculum, film high-quality lessons, test your materials, and make revisions. Rushing through course creation leads to a poor student experience.
Putting Profit First
The most successful courses solve real pain points or skill gaps for students. If your only motive is making money, it will show through in the quality. Focus first on creating true value. Profit will follow.
Overcomplicating Your Course
Online courses grow best when starting simple. Avoid cramming in too many tools, complex assignments, or unnecessary modules. Start with your MVP and expand over time.
Forgetting About Course Marketing
You need an audience to sell your course to. Don’t fall into the trap of spending all your energy on course development and neglecting marketing. Plan your promotion strategy upfront.
By avoiding these pitfalls, you’ll be on the path to creating a successful online course that delivers value and achieves your goals.
Conclusion
Creating profitable online courses is easier than ever thanks to the multitude of course platforms and tools available today. Pick the option that best fits your audience, goals, and budget to start sharing your knowledge with students around the world.
Focus on choosing a specialized niche, developing high-quality lessons, and growing your audience to ensure your course succeeds. Mistakes will happen as a new course creator, so don’t aim for perfection on your first go. Launch, test, and refine over time.
The opportunities are endless for turning your expertise into an engaging—and lucrative—online course. So claim your place in the booming e-learning industry. Start building and selling your first course using the strategies and top course platforms covered in this guide.
