How to Make Your Own Online Course - Step by Step

You have seen or heard of someone making money from selling online courses by now. But are they any more qualified than you are? You will be surprised to know that you can have your course online in no time with the right system in place. This post will show you how to make your own online course.

Teaching an online course has quickly become one of the best business models you can choose when starting your online journey. "I don't know how to make a course," you probably think.

The truth of the matter is, when teaching an online course, you only have to be one step ahead of your student. After that, you need to figure out where your knowledge lies and then use a system to get it to your target audience.

What Exactly Is an Online Course?

The end goal of an online course is the same as those found in your typical classroom setting, but the means to get to that goal couldn't be more different.

The goal is to teach them a new skill that, in many cases, could change their life for the better. The course doesn't have to be rocket science. Improving someone's life is relative to what they are currently going through.

The good part is that you can accomplish this by using online tools that will make learning interactive, keeping the student engaged so that they can learn.

Your course will be something your student looks forward to being a part of with the right system. If done right, your tools and content will facilitate learning among your students. Yup, no formal teaching experience will be required.

Why Should You Teach an Online Course?

There are many good reasons why you may want to explore this business model:

Pros

Quick Revenue. There are many ways you can choose to make money off of your courses once you create them. The good part is that you only have to take the time to create it once, and it can keep making money for you while you sleep. After that, you can sell the course itself or use it in your sales funnel to grow your email list which you can monetize later. Both of these methods are proven to work.
Spotlight Your Brand. Marketing your online course is an excellent way to enhance your brand. You can do this by sharing knowledge with a community of people looking for answers in your niche. In addition, sharing your expertise will help you become an authority in that niche while solidifying your reputation.
Start Building Your Audience. Online courses offer a unique opportunity for new leads into your advertising circle. They find you through your free lessons and afterward investigate all the other things you bring to the table, becoming steadfast clients.
Build it Once With Repeated Earnings. Building a successful course will take some time, but you can keep expanding on your initial offering using the system you implemented after launch.
Monetize Your Audience. By using Youtube or your favorite social medial account, you will have plenty of opportunities to monetize your existing audience. You can then choose to offer a premium add-on course to your loyal followers or subscribers. The options are endless.
Share Your Knowledge. You may not think so, but you have something valuable to offer people searching for answers. So why not teach online and share your knowledge while making a living doing so.

Getting Started with Your Online Courses

Step 1 – Choose Your Topic

The initial step is to conceptualize your ideas. Here are a few inquiries to get the juices flowing.

What do you know a lot about?
What industry do you have experience in?
What do you blog about?
What problems or questions do you regularly help people with?
What feedback have you received about your products, services, and support?
What do your products and services do for your customers?
What are you passionate about?

One thought is to determine if you have any products or services that it may make sense to plan a course around and incorporate into a product purchase.

These are just a few questions that may help you discover your areas of expertise. You may also choose to learn something new through someone else's online course and then teach that with your unique spin to your audience.

Create a list after brainstorming, then narrow the ideas down and choose the best one. Taking the time to do market research will help you determine which topics might be the most interesting to your target audience. During this research, try to figure out what types of courses people are already willing to purchase.

Step 2 – Identify Your Audience

Next, you will want to figure out your ideal audience for your chosen topic. During this stage, you're taking notes and trying to come up with an image in your mind of a person that can use your help. If there is one ideal person, then there will be many more. The more specific you are, the better your will be able to serve that customer avatar.

A good starting point will be to examine your current customers, followers, or subscribers. Are your current followers engaged with your posts? If so, they'd probably enjoy further knowledge you share with them.

Step 3 – Gather Tools

Okay, so now you are ready to decide how to deliver your course. There are numerous course platforms like Thinkific, Teachable, Systeme.IO, Udemy, etc. These will offer everything you need to provide valuable information to your audience to help them get the results they are looking for. Take your time to review which one will work the best for you and the style of your lessons. After tools that you will need are a camera, microphone, and editing software. There are some budget-friendly options for all of these. I currently film all my videos with my iPhone.

Step 4 – Create Your Course

When planning your course, the best method is to have a goal in mind and then reverse engineer the steps needed to get there. What do you want the student to be able to accomplish once they finish the course? With the goal in mind, break up the steps needed to achieve it into sessions, lessons, or modules.

When students complete a lesson, give them tasks that will help them work toward their goal. When choosing the format to deliver your program, select the one that will best fit your teaching style. If you are not yet good on camera, slides may be best. However, there is no correct answer; but many students perceive video as more valuable.

Step 5 – Create Content

Now, it will be time to create the content for your course. You will include media such as worksheets, notes, audio files, and video. There is a misconception that content has to be completely done from scratch. In reality, you may repurpose material you have done before, like articles, notes, or even the information from a video.

Many course creators use PLR material as the core information for their courses. However, the better you can use your unique voice to connect with your students, the better the system will be. You will need to edit and reformat the older material, so it's specific to your current course.

If you decide to charge for your course, it is advisable to create some bonus content as add-ons to add value to the program. An example may be, offering a free bundle of exclusive content or a bonus video. Add-ons are proven to improve student satisfaction.

Step 6 – Promote Your Online Course

Once you have a high valued program that you are happy with, the last step will be to promote it. I will discuss how you can presell your course even before you start making it. Preselling your system will give you insight into if there is actual demand for your course material.

It will be best to promote to the current followers and subscribers, but don't hesitate to explore new platforms to reach a potential student. For example, it might include any of the below:

Social Media. Tell your social media followers about the new course you just completed. Increase the frequency of your posts as the time gets closer to launch day.

You Blog and Website. Promote your course on your blog and website. If you don't have one already, you may want to take a course on starting a WordPress website, as it is an excellent method to drive traffic to your offer. A website allows you to create blog posts that you can use to direct the visitors to your course.

Paid Advertising. One sure way to get your offer before potential students is through paid advertising. It is essential to learn the basics of this method before using this strategy, as mistakes made here could be costly.

Create a Sales Page. Create a sales page for your course. Most of the platforms mentioned above will walk you through this process in creating a sale page that will include an opt-in box that will help grow your email list.

Start a YouTube Channel. Video is very compelling. Create short videos around the topic of your course. Post them on YouTube and other video sites, remembering to add relevant hashtags and the link in the description to your opt-in page, website, or sales page.

Do Keyword Research. Use a keyword tool to research keywords related to your course topic and use them in your posts and videos to get traffic coming in. You can use a tool like TubeBuddy to help optimize your YouTube videos to get found in the search results.

Step 7 – Rinse and Repeat

Now that you created your first course take the time to analyze and measure your results. It is essential to focus on incrementally getting better at each skill needed to complete your course.

Now that you are getting customers make notes of all the positive and negative feedback. If you are ready to take it to the next level, track the technical metrics like email conversion rates, website visits, course completion rates to make the necessary improvements in your next course.

Did you use video in your first course? Take a course on talking on camera to level up your skills before your next offering. Be sure to use all the feedback you get from your students and apply them to your next program. The goal is to improve and offer something even more valuable for your next course.

Conclusion

Creating an online course for the first time may seem overwhelming; however, if you break up the process, the task at hand won't seem out of reach. If you have a time-tested blueprint to guide you, you could have a successful course up and running in a weekend.

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About the author

Dean Osborne

Dean Osborne is a content creator and entrepreneur, and this site will help you to Start, Grow and Scale your business with video.