No longer can you promise your prospects that you are worth investing in. Building an online course is the best way to show your expertise.
You can show that you are an expert in your subject by teaching it on a public stage.
It is essential to learn how to make a course that sells. This skill can be used as a website or digital business card. Your industry knowledge can be turned into an online system that generates leads, and money, and creates impact.
This is not an exhaustive list of everything you will need to create an online course, but it gives you a bird’s-eye view of the major milestones and tips that will help you to set your expectations for the future.
The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide for Creating, Launching, and Selling Your Online Course
This guide covers everything you need to market research, validate a course idea, and build an audience.
Choose the best course topic
Your course topic does not have to be something that you are in love with but it should be something you feel passionate about. If you choose a topic that you aren’t passionate about, you will eventually tire of it. Your lack of passion can result in a course that is as boring as a cardboard sandwich.
Consider the life experiences and skills you have. To be successful, the course topic you choose does not have to be graduate-level. Some of the most popular courses are focused on hobbies and interests.
If you are passionate about your subject, you are skilled at it, and you have experience (professional or personal), then you have all the ingredients for expertise that you can use to make money.
Use this easy exercise to narrow down a topic for a course:
Start by taking a full-size sheet of paper and writing down “Passions/Interests,” “Skills,” and “Experience/Achievements” across the top. Draw a line connecting them so that each column is distinct.
Next, take a column at a time and list as many items as you can think of for each category. Are there any similarities between these 3 columns? These columns could be a clue to your ideal course topic. Keep brainstorming! With a little more thought, you’ll find a topic.
Once you have found the right course, it is time to think about your audience. Online courses are for people who need to get from where they are to where they want to be in the future. Your knowledge and expertise will help them do that faster.
It is important to choose a topic that will appeal to a wide audience and make them willing to spend money. We’ll discuss this in the next section.
Make sure your course idea is in high demand
Who wants to spend weeks creating an online course and then have no one purchase it? Nope. I didn’t think so.
After you have chosen your topic for your online course, or at least narrowed it down to two or three options, the next step is to do market research. This is how you can determine if people are interested in what you’re teaching.
Be aware that many course creators mistakenly believe that there is no competition for their course topic. High competition could indicate a strong market for the course idea, and it is worth further investigation.
What questions are people asking you about your topic?
You can search your topic on Reddit and Quora to see which questions are asked about it, and how often.
Answer The public will show you the most frequently asked questions, their answers, and how to get them answered.
To gain insight into the struggles of your audience, use the search function to scroll through Facebook groups related to your topic.
You’ll likely find a few keywords that are frequently used in forums, posts, and other questions after doing some research. These words can be used as keywords in the following section.
Are there people looking for your topic and asking you questions?
Google Trends is the fastest way to see general search trends in your subject. These trends will help you get a better understanding of the popularity and performance of a topic over time.
” Online yoga Classes” was a popular choice at the outbreak of the pandemic, which began in March 2020. It’s still very popular 3 years later.
To determine the search volume for your topic, you can use tools like Google keyword Planner. Although this tool is intended for people who buy ads, it can also be used by anyone without purchasing an ad. This makes it ideal for market validation.
Google will provide insights on how many people search for your keywords by entering them.
The topic is quite popular and there is a lot of competition. Keep in mind, however, that your search terms will have their own search volume and competition. You may find hundreds of search terms related to a topic.
Are there any gaps in the online courses that the competition offers?
The market leaders are the courses already in existence. They have been studying your audience and developing their course longer than you. One of the best ways for success is to distinguish your course from others.
Research your competition to find out about their courses and who they are. Although it’s unlikely that you will be the first to come up with your idea, there are still chances you could cover it in a different way.
These are some examples of online courses that have been created by course creators.
Miss Excel and distinguishing yourself from other
Miss Excel has carved out a niche in a competitive market by using TikTok to inject creativity, fun and enthusiasm into a boring topic.
She started by posting one video per day. Surprised, her first video went viral and reached 100,000 views in four days. The rest was history. The rest is history after her viral video! She was able quit her job, and now has a remarkable lineup of five courses on The Thinkific platform. This will bring in six figures in April 2021.
The Budgetnista appeals to a “new audience
Tiffany Aliche, creator of The Budgetnista’s Thinkific member site, discovered that there is no shortage in financial advice. She also noticed that very few financial advice providers cater to black women who feel excluded from the conversation.
Make compelling and magnetic learning outcomes
What would you do if you had no idea what the product will do? No. Don’t underestimate the importance learning outcomes for your course.
Download Free Lesson Plan Templates
It is crucial to identify your learning outcomes when creating online courses. These are your overall goals for the course.
These clearly describe to your student, using measurable verbs. This can also help ensure that people who click “checkout” purchase the right course. This will increase completion and satisfaction rates, and reduce refund requests.
It is up to the individual to display their learning outcomes in sentences or another way. Mimi Goodwin’s Sew It! Academy lists some of its learning outcomes under the pricing plans.
Take the Kids plan as an example. The plan teaches kids the basics of sewing machines, including how to pin, cut and iron, as well as how to sew straight lines and what terms and stitches they can use. The course is designed to help students understand what to expect and make an informed decision about whether it is the right course for them.
Once you have determined your learning outcomes, you can then focus on the individual modules and lessons. This brings us to stage 4, which is learning how to make a course for sale.
Create your modules and course plans
Once you have identified your learning goals, you can organize your course. This stage might be easier if your course content is linear, such as a progression that builds up to a pose in yoga.
You can group similar topics, tips, and ideas together into modules if your course topic is more complicated. Next, organize your lectures in the most logical and progressive way possible so they form a flow of lessons.