How to Create an Online Course

Online courses are rapidly gaining popularity, largely since people have spent much more time at home in the past year. Crossfit, yoga, cooking classes, vocal lessons, and even wine tasting – everything that was previously held in studios and classes is now available right on the laptop or smartphone screen. This interest in distance learning is an opportunity to make money on the Internet for those willing to share their skills with others. Personal trainers, nutritionists, marketers, makeup artists, bloggers, and other professionals create their online classes. This brings additional income and allows you to expand your business and reach residents from other regions, cities, and countries. This article will tell you how to create an online course from scratch: how to choose a topic, create a website, 

How to create an online course

1. Choose a promising topic
2. Put the idea to the test
3. Do deep research
4. Create a lesson plan
5. Make content for an online course
6. Create a website
7. Set rates
8. Get busy promoting
9. Collect Feedback
10. Build a loyal customer community

1. Choose a good topic.

You can teach anything online, from cooking to web design. However, choosing the right topic for an online course depends on two important factors:

2. Teach what you understand. 

The more unique your knowledge in a particular area, the more likely people will like the online course and recommend it to friends. Therefore, choose an area in which you have undoubted experience. For example, if friends come to you for advice on caring for plants, this means that potential clients will also appreciate your knowledge.

If you feel that you are “floating” in certain sections, read professional literature or sign up for a master class yourself – so you will be sure that your online course will be complete and really useful.

3. Teach things that will be interesting to people.

Make sure that the online course topic is interesting to a more or less wide range of people – after all, future profit directly depends on this. Ask a friend for their opinion or create an online survey form to understand your idea’s popularity. Please create a free online course demo and track its performance. Share it on social media or create an email newsletter and ask users what aspects of the chosen topic they would like to touch on.

Check if there are already any masterclasses and online courses on a similar topic. If they do, this is very good news – it means that there is already a demand for the idea you have chosen. Plus, you will be able to study the strengths and weaknesses of competitors’ online courses and create a product that surpasses them in quality. 

4. Test the idea in practice

It takes a lot of time and resources to create an online course. So first, make sure that the idea and the business model are viable. You can create a landing page for an upcoming online course to test this. Please include a short description of the course: Explain what it is about and what participants will learn upon completion. Accompany your text with high-quality images to keep the visitor’s attention.

Use call-to-action (CTA) buttons to encourage users to register for an upcoming course or book a seat in a webinar. For the landing page to be seen by more people, share it on social networks and the mailing list. After a certain time (from a couple of weeks to a couple of months), collect statistics and see how many people signed up for an online course or left positive or negative feedback. This will help you understand if the business model needs to be refined before creating the courses.

5. Do Deep Research

Creating a paid course implies that its participants will have access to exclusive information that cannot be found elsewhere. Therefore, if the training is a compilation of well-known facts from Google, users may be frustrated and even demand money back.

To avoid this, diversify your sources of information. Explore competitors’ courses, find rare specialized literature, attach links to various studies and experiments. In addition, conduct a keyword analysis to understand better the topics that the course audience might be interested in. To add personality to an online course, do not limit yourself to general information and dwell on interesting details in more detail. For example, an online course on plant care will inevitably include basic information about watering and the amount of sunlight. However, you can go further and include much more niche information in the course – for example, a lecture on indoor fertilizers or a list of plants that purify the air in an apartment.

6. Create a lesson plan

A carefully thought-out lesson plan will help at the stage of creating course materials, as well as when filling the future site with content. Break the course down into lessons and the lessons into the topics you intend to cover. Arrange them logically: from simple to complex, from general concepts to more detailed ones. State the purpose of each lesson so that it will be easier for you to add relevant content and for course participants to form the correct expectations for a particular topic.

Lesson 1: How to Water Flowers

Lesson goal: Learn how often to water different types of plants.

Topics covered:

• The importance of watering;
• The danger of too much watering;
• How to water different types of plants;
• How to determine the lack or excess of water in the soil.

Lesson 2: Plants and Lighting

The lesson’s purpose is to find out how much light certain plants require and control this at home.

Topics covered:

• The role of light in plant photosynthesis
• How much light do certain types of plants require;
• How and when to use fluorescent lamps

Lesson 3: Parasites and Pests

The lesson’s purpose is to learn to identify the different types of pests on plants and fight them.

Topics covered:

• Types of pests on plants;
• How to spot parasites on leaves and soil;
• How to deal with pests in folk and professional ways.

Be sure to add an introduction and conclusion to the entire course and each lesson to help participants consolidate the material. For the same reason, develop a series of homework assignments to dive deeper into the topic between sessions.

7. Create content for an online course

If you are thinking about choosing an online course format, we advise you to stay on the video. Video lessons are more effective than articles and audio files because users can perceive information visually and by ear. Start your content creation by revising the content you’ve created in the past. Blog articles, webinars, podcasts, Youtube videos – all these can form the basis for an online course and save you time. In addition, such content can serve as additional materials that you will attach to the video tutorial.

Shooting video

You can create an online course without professional equipment – after all, useful information is much more important than a beautiful picture. However, users are unlikely to pay for a blurry video with poor sound and extraneous noise. Therefore, we advise you to spend money on a quality microphone and a decent camera.

Video editing

Transform your footage into finished products with editing software such as iMovie, Lightworks, or cloud retouch Video Maker. Make your video dynamic and easy to watch by breaking long sections into shorter ones and cutting unnecessary pauses. Add titles (for example, course title and lesson topics) and subtitles for better accessibility. Think of background music – it will also add speakers to your online lessons.

Home tasks

Create homework assignments for participants to complete after each lesson. Their format can be very different: tests, educational games, or PDF files that you can download, print, and fill out.

1. Create a website

Find the right platform for your online courses. If you already have a website, post the lessons separately. Or you can build a website from scratch specifically for online learning.

To create a website on cloud retouch, choose one of the ready-made templates in the online education category. The website design has already been adapted for all the necessary sections. Add the cloud retouch Video app to showcase videos, attract new users, and monetize your content. Download each lesson separately, or create an entire media library with different channels.

2. Set rates

Depending on your needs, you can sell your online course in different formats:

• Buying or renting a single video. Set the price for each video separately, and give users the right to buy or rent. The video will be available only for a specified period in the second case.
• Subscribe to the channel. The user pays a fixed amount per month and gets unlimited access to all content on the channel. After the expiration date, he can renew the subscription to retain access to the content.
• Subscription plans. Several subscription plans with different prices open access to different amounts of content. For example, a user with a basic plan will have access to only general lectures, and a user with a premium plan will have complete checklists and copyright programs.
• Private lessons in real-time. As an additional income, you can offer personal lectures for those who want to delve into the topic and understand specific issues. With the help of online enrollment tools, users will be able to book a lesson at any time convenient for them.

Also, don’t forget to make a small portion of your course free. This will help spark interest in users and showcase exactly what you will teach them.

How to determine the price for an online course

It is always difficult and uncomfortable to set a price for your work. But you deserve a good reward for your hard work. Here’s what will help you determine the right price for your online course:

• Market research. See how much similar courses cost. Of course, the final price depends on the length of the video and the instructor’s experience – however, market research will give at least a general idea of ​​the range of prices.
• Spent time. Participants pay not only for content – they pay for the time you spent developing the course and acquiring your professional skills. Make sure you rate yourself highly enough.
• Benefits of the course. Will the course graduates acquire useful new skills that will improve their quality of life? If so, then buying your course is an investment in their future. This means that a really useful course cannot be cheap.
• Marketing gimmicks. According to the study, shoppers associate high prices with quality and prestige. And this means, paradoxically, the low price of the course can scare away paying clients. Of course, this is not a reason to set exorbitant prices – but if you are confident in the quality of the lessons created, do not hesitate to ask for a little more than usual for them.  

8. Get busy promoting

The profit directly depends on how many people learn about your online course. For the best experience, use a mix of paid and free promotion methods.

• Email marketing. Create newsletters with online course announcements and special offers for subscribers.
• Social networks. Share the news with followers on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms.
• Paid advertising. For example, in Google Search Ads and Banner Ads.
• Blog posts. Create a blog and post articles about the upcoming online course to improve SEO.
• Promo on Youtube. Create a channel and promote course commercials.
• Reviews. If you’ve taught someone in the past, ask course alumni to write reviews and post them online.
• Pop-up on the site. Add a pop-up message to your site about the course opening.
• Other sites. Place your ad on other sites on barter or paid basis.
• Opinion leaders. Partner with popular Instagram bloggers and other influencers to launch an ad campaign.
• Podcast. Start a podcast that will build your credibility in the industry and draw users’ attention to your online course.
• Webinar. Host a free webinar and, in the end, make an announcement of the online course for those who want to continue their education.
• Collaboration with other teachers. Conduct a joint lesson with the creator of another online course on a similar topic to attract a new audience.
• Add a new language. Translate the course into English or other relevant languages ​​to reach people from other countries. It would be a good idea to create a multilingual website in this case.

9.Collect Feedback

It is important not only to spark interest in online courses but also to keep it going. To do this, constantly update and improve the lessons and correct their shortcomings. Create an online survey form and ask course participants what they are missing from the current lessons. Collect statistics of responses, and bring to life the most popular and interesting proposals. The better the course is optimized, the more likely participants are to be happy, refer you to friends, and come back when you start a new learning project. 

10.Build a loyal student community

Online learning is a lonely pursuit. Fix that and build a community for learners to share their successes, discuss lesson details, help each other with their homework, and ask questions. In addition, it is an opportunity to establish a close dialogue with an active and interested audience. This may help you promote new courses or other information products in the future. Here’s where you can organize your community:

• cloudretouch Member’s Area. This application will allow students to create personal accounts and access exclusive content – chats, forums, blogs, etc.
• Forum. Create a forum for communication on a variety of topics.
• Social networks and messengers. Create a group on Facebook, or invite users to a group chat on WhatsApp or Telegram.
• Communication platforms. For example, Slack or Discord.

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